ANNALS OF OLDHAM No. XCV 1821 The population of Oldham was as follows:-
This only includes Oldham township. Increase since 1881:- Males, 1,811; females, 2,719. Total, 4,972. Population of Chadderton:-
Increase since 1811, 991; inhabited houses, 826; familys occupying them, 968; houses building, 3. According to the generally accepted returns of population the rate of increase in Oldham between 1811 and 1821 was nearly 3 per cent. per year. Rowbottom does not include Royton and Crompton in these particulars. June 25th -Died, at Water-street, Oldham, Ann Fitton, a woman much famed for her gallantry. 26th -Died, awfully sudden, John, son of Mr. Thomas Robinson of Hough-within-Thornham, farmer; disorder, apoplexy. 28th -The Oldham Yeomanry Cavalry where inspected in Chadderton Park by Lieutenant-colonel Murray, of the Lancers. It was a fine day, and a great number of spectators. 30th -Died at Mills-roe, Northmoor, Mary, wife of Henry Clough, of Northmoor; her age, 62 years. July 11th -At Oldham, this day, black currants sold at eightpence a quart, and bilberries the same. The nights in general for several months past have been attended with frosts. May 5th -Died at the Iseland of St. Hellena, the great and wonderful Napoleon Buonaparte, late Emperor of France, one of the greatest generals of his age; 52 years. |
No town in England suffered more from the wars made by Napoleon than Oldham. No town for its size found more soldiers to fight him. Again and again was his terror carried to every Oldham hearthstone. The hearts of our mothers and grandmothers were branded with the hate of his name. These annals testify what poverty and travail Oldham endured because of him. An independent estimate of him a a man seems almost necessary in these annals, and therefore a vignette of Napoleon’s character after Ralph Waldo Emerson, copied from the Manchester Guardian, November 17, 1847, is given here. Says Emerson: “The man who more than any other expresses the average character and aims of the 19th century in Napoleon Bonaparte – the best known and most powerful individual who has lived within the period. He is an incarnate democrat; the representative of the democratic, active, middle class of men, having its virtues and vices, and above all its spirit and aims. To be the rich man is the end. Napoleon is no saint, and he is no hero in the high sense. He does not guess, but feel and forsee his way. The art of war was the perpetual game he studied. The times, his own constitution, and the circumstances of his youth and education combined to develop this democrat to the highest degree. Such a man was wanted, and he was born. He had a directness of action never more combined with so much comprehensiveness. He never blundered into victory – his principal means were in himself. He always knew his business, and what to do next. Had his ends been public and not egotistic, he had been the first man in the world. There have been many working kings – Alfred, Justinian, Czar Peter, but none who accomplished a tithe of this man’s performance. He discerned merit and promoted it; 17 men in his time were raised from common soldiers to be kings, marshals, dukes, or generals. We cannot sufficiently congratulate ourselves on the strong and ready actor who took occasion by the beard and showed how much might be done by the mere force of such virtues as all men possess in less degree, by punctuality, personal attention, courage, and thoroughness. The lesson he teaches is that which vigour ever teaches, that there is room for it. To what heaps of cowardly doubts is not his life an answer. But with the virtues he had also the vices of the democratic class he represented. He was singularly destitute of generous sentiments. He had not the merit of common truth and honesty. He was unjust to all his generals, egotistic, monopolizing, meanly stealing the credit of other’s great actions. He was a boundless liar; in his premature old age he coolly falsified the facts, dates, and characters of history, studying to impose upon men a theatrical éclat. |
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His doctrine of immortality is simply fame. With him the two levers for moving men were interest and fear: love was a silly infatuation, friendship but a name. He would steal and slander, assassinate, drown, and poison, as his interest dictated. He had no generosity to an enemy, but mere vulgar hatred. He was intensely selfish and perfidious, cheated at cards, was a prodigious gossip, opened letters, delighted in the patterns and dresses of women, and listened incognito after the hurrahs and compliments of the street. He treated woman without respect, and with coarse familiarity, and even insult. In short, when we penetrate this man’s centre we find we are not dealing with a gentleman, but with an imposter and a rogue, a fellow deserving the epithet of Jupiter Scapin, a sort of scamp Jupiter. Napoleon was an experiment under the most favourable conditions of intellect unsupported (if you will, untrammeled) by conscience. Never was such a leader so endowed and so weaponed. Never leader found such aids and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent and power of these immense armies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men, thus demoralised Europe? It came to no result. All passed away like the smoke of his artillery, and left no trace. He left France smaller, poorer, and feebler than he found it, and the whole contest for freedom was to begin again. Men soon found that his absorbing egotism was deadly to all other men, and the universal cry of France and Europe in 1814 was “Enough of Bonaparte.” It was not his fault. He did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal laws of man and the world, which baulked and ruined him, and the result of a million experiments will be the same. Every experiment by multitudes, or by individuals, that has a selfish aim will fall. As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick. There will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn in our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all our doors open, and which serves all men.” 19th -Thursday, King George 4th was crowned There was the utmost joy manifested on the ocation, particularly in Manchester and the different manufacturing districts. At Oldham there was great rejoicing, and a deal of meat an drink where given to the lower classes, particularly a good dinner and plenty of ale to persons who had attained their 60th birthday. Besides, the diferent masters of the different trades gave there workpeople noble treats. They whare ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and other demonstrations of joy. The much-injured Queen Caroline was refused her legal rights. |
The demonstration in favour of King George IV. Was no doubt a counter-move to the recent demonstration in favour of Queen Caroline. Party feeling in Oldham was becoming more marked as the numbers of each party increased. The Radical press popularized the cause of Queen Caroline by the circulation of illustrated pamphlets, which appear to have been well known in Oldham. “The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder,” by Wm. Hone, was one of these, a copy of which pamphlet is in my possession. 23rd -Isaac Newton, of Ladyhouses, Northmoor, and two other colliers so miserably burned by the fire damp at Edge-lane that their lives are despaired of. 20th -Susan Wamsley, late of Burnley-lane, detected stealing a glass in Manchester, and commited to the New Bayley for trial. 30th -Was intered at Oldham Isaac Ogden. Formerly of Busk, stonemason. He genarly went by the name Isaac at Busk; his age, 63 years. Meal is selling from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d., flour from 2s. to 3s., malt from 2s. 1d. to 2s. 3d. a peck. Died Betty Whittaker, formerly Dyson, of Chadderton Mill; age 66 years. 29th -James Lowe, a native of Oldham passed through Oldham this day on his way to York, were he is to be tried on a charge of housebreaking. August -Edmund Tetlow, of Oldham, fustian manufacturer, died, August 2nd, age 56 years. 7th -Died, Caroline, Queen of England. 12th -Was intered at Middleton, Jenny Ogden, daughter of the late Adam Ogden, of Burnley-lane; her age 23 years. 18th -Last night died, at Dobcross, Saddleworth, Mary, wife of Lawton. She was daughter of William Butterworth, of Nodd, near Chadderton. Age 30 years; disorder, child-bed. August 17th -Was intered, at Royton, Thomas Lees, formerly of Northmoor; his age 40 years. August 19th -Was intered, at Royton, Edmund Mellor, formerly of Northmoor; age 33 years. 20th - A fracas took place at the Bull’s Head public-house, Bardsley-brow, Oldham, betwixt Joseph Raynor and ------ Fisher, when Raynor struck Fisher a violent blow, which deprived his adversary of life. Raynor, of course, was committed to Lancaster for trial. |
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William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
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