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In 1802 England signed a peace treaty with France – the peace of Amiens. However it broke down in May 1803 and soon after Napoleon had 100,000 troops encamped near Boulogne with 2,300 ships in attendance, awaiting an opportunity to invade England. The very real threat of a Napoleonic invasion – probably at least as serious as the threat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 – provoked a fervour of patriotism and in 1804 over 400,000 men volunteered for service. Raising regiments of volunteers in the industrial areas fulfilled three useful purposes. First, it created a home defence force in case of a successful landing by the French. Second, it provided an occupation and some relief for idle hands and hungry men in the restless industrial towns. Third, it engendered patriotism and allowed unrest to be directed against a common enemy – the French.

In August 1803, at the height of the invasion scare, Joseph Dunkerley enlisted as a volunteer in Captain Butterworth’s Company of the Third Royal Regiment of the Lancashire militia [15]. He was 19 years old and probably succumbed to the temptation of a bounty from the militia, the lure of a uniform and the promise of adventure instead of a difficult existence at the handloom. (A more detailed account of Joseph's time in the militia can be found here).

He was immediately posted to Landguard Fort near Felixstowe, Suffolk, in eastern England and earned one shilling a day, plus a payment ‘in lieu of beer’. He must have taken to life in the militia quite well for on about 7th December 1803 he was raised to the rank of Corporal and his pay rose to 1s 2¼d per day. Early in 1804 the regiment made a short move to Woodbridge Barracks, about 8 miles northeast of Ipswich, and a larger move, this time to the south coast near Portsmouth, followed in June. Among the activities of the regiment, which must have included drill, ‘domestics’ and firearm training, were periodic marches into the hinterland around the barracks, presumably to teach the men how to travel and camp, and to give them some fitness training. By December the regiment had been moved further west to Plymouth, where it stayed for some time.

Perhaps Joseph did not enjoy his time at Plymouth, or perhaps he enjoyed it too much – at all events on 8th August 1806 he was reduced to the ranks (see figure). In fact, no less than six Corporals met a similar fate at about that time; something was going on!

The battle of Trafalgar had taken place in 1805, at which Admiral Nelson beat a combined Franco-Spanish fleet, thereby massively reducing the risk of an invasion from France. Perhaps that is why the Third Royal Regiment of the Lancashire militia was moved away from the south coast, early in 1807, to Bristol. The move was to have a lasting impact on Joseph’s life for shortly afterwards it was decided that the regiment would be reduced in size and Joseph was among over 300 in his Company to be released from service, in his case on September 13th 1807.

There was little work to be had in the country and it appears that Joseph, now 23 years old, decided to try his luck in Bristol rather than return to Lancashire. Perhaps he did alright for a time. At any rate he was a sufficiently attractive prospect to win the heart of a young lady of the area, Hannah Spencer, whom he married in 1809 on July 27th at St. Paul’s parish church. He was then twenty five years old and Hannah, almost certainly a local girl, was probably about twenty one [16].

 
We know that Joseph and Hannah continued in Bristol for a time, because their first child, a daughter called Harriet, was born there, apparently on June 10th, and was baptised on 15th of July 1810 [17]. The couple’s next two children, Daniel (named after his paternal grandfather) and Jane [18], were also probably born in Bristol in 1812 and 1813 respectively, although I have not found copies of the baptismal records [19]. Their third daughter, Patience, who was born in about 1815, may likewise have been born there. However, at some time between 1813 and 1816 it seems that the family fell on hard times because there is an entry in the St. Mary’s burials of Oldham, for December 29th in the latter year, recording the death of Daniel, son of Joseph and Hannah Dunkerley ‘of Oldham Workhouse’ aged 4 years.

Oldham's first workhouse is thought to have been built around 1730 at Side o' th’ Moor, between Mumps and Greenacres on the triangle of land now formed between Lees Road, Glodwick Road and Wilkinson Street (see map) [20]. A deed dated 26th August 1731 mentions 'all that newly-erected building bays etc. or housing called the poorhouse or workhouse situated and standing on the common or waste-ground called Greenacres Moor within Oldham’. In 1777, a parliamentary report mentioned that it could accommodate up to 60 inmates [21]. James Butterworth’s map, published in 1817, shows the workhouse on the site described [22] and there is a primitive drawing of it reproduced in William Rowbottom’s published diaries (see below). If we are right in thinking that Joseph had fallen on hard times, perhaps unable to work in Bristol because of ill health or unemployment, then he and his family would have needed support from the parish poor rate. His parish of origin was Oldham, and if he had been unable to gain a legal settlement in Bristol then the local parish had the right, under the terms of the Poor Law Act of 1601 and the Settlement Act of 1662, to remove him and his family back to Oldham, to avoid the expense of keeping them. Even if Hannah was from Bristol, on marriage she automatically took Joseph’s place of settlement, as did any legitimate children.

Although it is, of course, possible that Joseph and Hannah chose voluntarily to travel to Oldham, it is unlikely that they would have done so. The years from 1813 to 1816 were extremely difficult in Oldham, as elsewhere. There had been recent food riots and machine-breaking caused by the feelings of desperation of those of a Luddite bent; the end of the French wars in 1815 caused large numbers of soldiers to be demobbed and reductions in the textile trade as the government ended its large orders for uniforms and other goods and as foreign governments began to reinstate their own production; wages were lowered as demand fell and the number of those seeking employment rose sharply. Lancashire, once a stronghold of Toryism, became the most radical county in the land. All of this was to lead to one of the world’s first hunger marches, that of the Blanketeers in 1817. It seems unlikely that Joseph would have chosen this time to return to Oldham, but if he were subject to a removal order he and his family would have had no say in the matter and would have had to undertake what was probably a harsh journey of about 180 miles by road. Perhaps Hannah was pregnant when she travelled; her fourth daughter, the second Jane, was apparently born in 1816 in Oldham [23].

No matter how it came about, the family was interned in Oldham’s workhouse (see picture) and it must have been a time of great unhappiness for them. They would have been split up, Joseph placed with the men, Hannah with the women and the children kept apart. If well enough, the adults would have been forced to do hard and boring work. Food would have been extremely basic and no doubt they would have been cold in the winter. Under these circumstances little Daniel died.

The year 1818 was dramatic for Joseph and Hannah. Somehow it seems they had another child while still in the Workhouse, a daughter, Ann, being baptised on 19th April [24], and at this time we know that Joseph was working as a weaver. The following September, however, their daughter Patience, who was only three, died and was buried on the 15th [25]. But by then at least they were out of the Workhouse - just; the records show they were living at Mount Pleasant, situated only yards away. The next year, 1819, was perhaps equally dramatic. On 31st March they buried their daughter Ann [26] and then saw the birth of their next daughter, Hannah, only two days later [27]. How can we imagine what Joseph and Hannah really felt as they looked back on the first ten years of their marriage?

At this point we lose track of Joseph and Hannah for several years. When he came out of the Workhouse in 1818 Joseph reverted to the profession he had learned as a boy – that of handloom weaver. A great many of the demobbed Lancashire soldiers became handloom weavers after the peace of 1815, as evidenced in a parliamentary paper that noted they commonly ‘exchanged the musket for the shuttle’ [28]. We can be reasonably certain that Joseph’s occupation as a weaver was exercised on the hand- not the power-loom because it was not until the 1820s, after important improvements made by Roberts and others in 1822 [29], that the latter were introduced in any quantity – and originally they were operated more by women than men [30]. From this time, handloom weaving, already the cause of much hardship since the 1790s, began a decline that would accelerate until the virtual extinction of the Lancashire handloom weaver in the 1880s [31]. In 1820 William Varley of Higham near Burnley wrote: ‘Alas, poor weaver, thy fond hopes of better days always proves abortive; distress and scorn is thy true companions; thy haggard and meagre looks plainly indicate thy hard usage, slavery which knows no bounds’. Varley’s pay was then half what it had been when times had been good but within six years it would reduce by half again [32].

The early 1820s saw some improvement in trade in Oldham, leading to the construction of fifteen new cotton mills, but conditions for those labouring in most of them were harsh and hours were always long, usually not less than sixty nine per week [33]. On the political scene a little progress was achieved with the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1824, supported by Peel, a cotton plutocrat whose experience had gradually converted him to the cause, advocated by Owen, of improved labour conditions in the factories. In 1826 the improvement of trade in Oldham came to an abrupt end. Many cotton masters were going bust in what was considered the worst recession to date. The spinners were on strike and there were thousands of unemployed and starving people. Nettles and other greens were being picked on Greenacres Moor to boil and mix with oatmeal, the staple of the poor diet of the day. Yet again the mob vented their desperation on the power looms, which they smashed where they could, and the winter of 1826/27 ‘resounded with the quarrels of masters and men’ [34]. Yet by 1827 demand from Europe had picked up, allowing the construction of three further mills in Oldham.

In 1827 Joseph was living at 'G. A. Moor', taken to be 'Greenacres moor', a little to the north of Mount Pleasant, and he may have given up his handloom because his occupation was then given as 'shoemaker', a trade he was still following in 1838 and 1847. There is perhaps an interesting point to be made here. As reported by Brian Law [35], in Oldham in early Victorian times ‘shoes were unusual among the poorer classes … ; clogs were the normal wear’ [36]. Perhaps Joseph learned shoe (and boot) making skills while in the militia, for with constant marching there were certainly specialist bootmakers and repairers there (see photo), and he might have practiced the trade in Bristol after his discharge, before he returned to Oldham. According to Swann, 'Shoemakers were literate before most craftsmen and were noted for their strong interest in politics' and one wonders if Joseph was of this ilk - it was certainly a time of acute political awareness and the illustration by Henry Liverseege in Swann of the shoemaker as 'The Village Politician' is intriguing. [36a]. Joseph and Hannah were to have at least three later children; Mary Ann was born on 16th March 1826 [37], William was baptised at Hope Chapel on 13th September 1827 [38] and, finally, his namesake Joseph was born, probably in 1830 [39]. Later that same year Joseph and Hannah became grandparents for the first time when their daughter Harriet, who had married the previous year, gave birth to Mary Goddard.

The 1830s saw landmark political developments that were felt to at least some degree in Oldham. The town got very excited in 1832 when the First Reform Act eventually, after considerable trouble, cleared both Houses of Parliament and produced elections in December of that year. Although the franchise remained very narrow (less than 1,200 could vote in the combined townships of Oldham, Chadderton, Royton and Crompton) the town, for the first time, gained Parliamentary representation and William Cobbett [40] and John Fielden [41] became its first Members of Parliament. Both were strong Radicals and were elected after hustings that attracted a crowd of over 15,000 [42].

In 1833 there followed the Emancipation Act and the First Education Act. Also in 1833 a Parliamentary Select Committee conducted an investigation on the difficulties of the handloom weavers; finally the desperation of poor people was starting to make a political impact.

Other notable political developments of the decade included many attempts to form effective trades unions, most of which ended in failure, although they did, of course, pave the way for more successful efforts later. Other groupings active at the time, that always had elements of social and political organization, were Friendly Societies and co-operatives. Later, the 1830s saw the rise of Chartism, a movement that campaigned for universal manhood suffrage, vote by secret ballot, equal electoral districts and easier qualifications for parliamentary candidates so that anyone could stand. Rejection of its demands by Parliament led to rioting and looting, a sure show of anger at the unresponsiveness of the political classes. There was also the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League to campaign for a reduction in the price of bread, ultimately achieved in 1846.

In terms of trade, the 1830s seem to have been mostly difficult, although they were a time of notable technical advances [43]. Conditions were poor until about 1835, when there was a short boom, followed quickly by recession in 1836 and 1837. From 1839 to 1842 there was a bad slump which induced many of the more enterprising to leave the district, some to take their talents to other countries. In 1842 wages were reduced by over twenty percent and Edwin Butterworth recorded that ‘Groups of idlers stood in the midst of the main street, their faces haggard with famine, wanting not charity but employment’. ‘The history of the whole place’, he said ‘is an alternation of prosperity and depression’ [44].

We have no real information about Joseph and Hannah’s private life in the 1830s. We can guess that they must have been pleased when their second grandchild, Ester, arrived in about 1833 but saddened when her father, William, died some time later. However in 1838 Harriet married again, to Edmund Buckley, a widower who worked as a twister. They soon produced a first grandson for Joseph and Hannah, John Buckley. When Harriet remarried Joseph was still exercising his trade of shoemaker.

The next family marriage took place on January 2nd 1840 when another of Joseph and Hannah’s daughters, Hannah, married Abram Barron. Joseph’s occupation is given on the marriage register for the first time as ‘Watchman’; perhaps he was a shoemaker by day and a watchman by night. The Census of 1841 reveals that they had then moved about a quarter of a mile from Mount Pleasant to Green Field Gate [45] immediately west of Glodwick Lane (small black blotch south of centre on adjacent map). Besides himself and Hannah the family then comprised their four children, Jane, Mary, William and Joseph. The girls both worked in the cardroom at a local cotton mill, perhaps the adjacent Greenbank Mill. William, who was fourteen, was also employed in the cotton mill as a roller carrier and Joseph, aged 11, was probably a scholar.

At that time ‘Watchman at Cotton Mill’ was an occupation not unusual in the censuses, and was probably an armed guard responsible for the security of the premises, especially during the night. Many years later [46], one of Joseph’s granddaughters, Hannah Eliza Gregory, wrote down her recollections of family stories she had heard. In relation to Joseph she said (according to a typed transcription, copied verbatim): "Joseph Dunkerley was night watch man for a Gentelmans house same job all his life and lived in one house all his life. carring a short gun". As we know, he did not, in fact, have the same job nor live in the same house all his life, but it is very likely that there must be some truth in what she wrote. We know that Joseph was described as a watchman over a period of at least twenty one years and the 1861 census said he exercised this function at a cotton mill [47].

There is a curiosity here. In the novel ‘Mary Barton’ by Elizabeth Gaskell, written before 1850, one of the principle characters, John Thornton, a Manchester cotton master, lives with his family in a large house in the grounds of his cotton mill. There is a gate with guards to control access to both house and mill. In Brian Law’s book ‘Oldham, Brave Oldham’, there is a detailed map of the Greenbank Mill colony on Glodwick Lane in Oldham (see map). It was founded in 1816, about the time Joseph and Hannah arrived in the town, and became one of the biggest employers in the area. Within the grounds of the mill was a house, ‘Greenbank House’, where the owner lived. After their arrival from Bristol, Joseph and Hannah never lived more than a quarter of a mile from this house; sometimes they were close by to the north, sometimes to the south. If Joseph got work as a watchman at Greenbank Mill he could have been described as working both at a ‘Gentelmans house’ and at a cotton mill, and everything would slot nicely into place. He is unlikely to have carried a ‘short gun’ but he probably did carry a 'shotgun'. His time spent in the militia would certainly have taught him the use of firearms and so suited him for the work of an armed guard. Although many demobbed soldiers ‘exchanged the musket for the shuttle’ [48], it seems that Joseph had now done the opposite.

Hannah Eliza wrote her recollections from the United States [49]. In 1844 Joseph’s daughter, Mary Ann, married John Gregory, a coal miner from Tonge at Middleton, and six weeks later, having saved up in advance, they left Oldham for the New World (see article). Joseph and Hannah never saw them again, but after many adventures Mary and John started a family in California, where Hannah Eliza was born, and from where they maintained a correspondence with the families they had left behind. Mary and John left, no doubt, for the promise of a better life, away from the continuing hardships faced by the manual workers of Oldham.

Mary and John perhaps planned their escape during the dismal years at the start of the 1840s. Soon after they left, trade in Oldham took a turn for the better, which led to the construction of several new cotton mills. Yet still rules for those labouring within the mills were often harsh. Aspin describes the use of a ‘blood book’ in nearby Ashton under Lyne in which were placed the names of those who had in any way offended their employer. The names were circulated to all other proprietors in the town and employment was refused, not only to the offender but sometimes to his whole family [50]. Elsewhere fines were levied on those caught whistling or singing, or on pregnant women caught sitting down. The Chartists at this time did what they could to pressure the legislators for further political reform in a move designed to give the people a greater say in government. They presented powerful petitions to parliament and organized enormous marches, but the whole enterprise collapsed in farce in 1848 when it was shown that many of the signatures on the petitions were fraudulent. In 1846 there was a devastating potato famine in Ireland that led to the appearance of many Irish in Oldham and other English towns as they fled from starvation. But in some ways life in Oldham was beginning to improve and this started to take the sting out of the social unrest. Co-operative retailing, begun successfully in Rochdale, soon spread to Oldham, bringing the prospect of cheaper and better food, and competition for the town’s sleepy retailers. And in 1846 Peel repealed the hated Corn Laws that had been in place to protect the agricultural interests of the landed gentry at the expense of the working classes. Trade turned down again in 1847 but improved the following year, ushering in a better period.

By 1847 we can once again connect with Joseph and Hannah. On April 3rd of that year, while living at Glodwick Lane (probably still at Greenfield Gate), Hannah died [51], the stated cause of death being ‘ulceration of the cheek’. Her age was given as 59 years and the informant was Joseph, still a watchman. When his son, William, married the following year Joseph was described as a ‘Shoemaker’. Unfortunately it has proven impossible to find Joseph on the 1851 census, in spite of considerable effort [52]. The following year saw two further family marriages, that of Joseph’s son of the same name to Mary Lees at St. Mary’s in Oldham, and the third marriage of his daughter Harriet, whose second husband, Edmund Buckley, had died about 1850. Harriet’s third husband was Joseph Andrew [53].

Better times were enjoyed by the cotton industry through 1853 with ‘exceptional profits in yarn and cloth’ [54], followed by a turn-down from 1854. In 1857 the Indian Mutiny led to depressed demand coinciding with a poor American cotton crop and high prices. There was widespread bank and business failure. However the decade closed with a strong improvement and profits rose in 1858, climaxing in 1860; no less that twenty eight new mills were completed in Oldham, sixteen alone in 1860. There was steady social and political progress too. In 1853 the factories inspector wrote: ‘I have again and again heard those who knew the state of the children in factories prior to 1833 and contrast it with what it is now, bless the members of the legislature by whose individual exertions the merciful curtailment of the long weary working day was brought about’ [55]. In 1858 the property qualification to be an MP was abolished and in 1860 Gladstone completed the Free Trade programme by removing all protective customs duties, leading the way to lower prices for imported goods, which was of general benefit to the working population. Gladstone followed up in 1861 by removing the tax on paper, which he described as a ‘tax on knowledge’. This led to the circulation of halfpenny newspapers. He also set up the Post Office Savings Bank, to encourage thrift.

Again there is a substantial gap in the records for Joseph, but we can deduce that he continued working as a watchman and he probably went to live with his daughter Harriet and her family. At least, that is precisely what he was doing by the time of the 1861 Census. Their residence was in a new house in Jackson Street that had been built as a development on the old Greenacres Moor, strangely near to Mount Pleasant, the site of the old workhouse, by then demolished. He was 78 years old, still working at his occupation of ‘Watchman at Cotton Mill’. He died on July 8th in the following year at Jackson street, of ‘bronchitis hypercardia many years’. The informant was Henry Buckley, one of Harriet’s sons by her second marriage.

Throughout Joseph Dunkerley’s long life we have a fair number of bits of information that allow us to track him and give us a feel for how he was faring, yet we are woefully uninformed about many of the most important events and can only deduce, infer and conjecture how his life really was. My feeling is that his return to Oldham and the workhouse about 1816 was enforced. Thereafter I think that he and Hannah had a very hard life bringing up several children and I think there must have been hunger and little comfort on many occasions within their home. But I hope that Joseph’s resourcefulness in maintaining two jobs – shoemaker and watchman – eventually enabled them to ‘make ends meet’ even if they could not (as they say in Lancashire) ‘tie them’. He and Hannah experienced both tragedy and happiness, but in the end they brought up a family that gave them grandchildren and was to permanently continue their line.

Hannah must have found it hard to bid goodbye to friends, family and the places where she had been brought up in Bristol and move to Oldham. She must have found the speech and way of life alien, not to mention the horror of being dumped into the workhouse for several years and experience the death of four of her young children.

But we simply do not know what Joseph and Hannah felt about life, what traits of character or faith helped sustain them, or what skills and talents they possessed. We do not know what they enjoyed doing in such free time as they had, or if Joseph had a typical Lancashire sense of humour that was always a bit of a puzzle to his southern-born wife. Perhaps Joseph had a favourite corner in a local pub - perhaps the 'Brown Cow' at Three Lane Ends - where he could enjoy the company of some good friends and a pint of ‘best’. Imagination and intuition are all we can apply but this risks either romanticising their lives or patronising them.

Six of their ten children lived to adulthood, married and had children of their own. Both Joseph and Hannah were still alive when Mary Ann married John Gregory and six weeks after sailed for America. Although they never saw each other again, they may have maintained contact by post for the family certainly corresponded with relatives in Oldham at later dates. It was only after Hannah had died that John and Mary made it through to California and started a family (see here). Eventually three of Harriet’s children were to follow John and Mary to America, but this was after Joseph had died (see here and here).

Joseph and Hannah’s generation lived through momentous times that transformed the world. The industrial revolution proceeded inexorably to force changes to the domestic and social arrangements of the cotton industry in which Joseph grew up. But the power and energy that drove industrialisation encountered, tragically, the political upheavals and economic chaos that followed the French Revolution, including over twenty years of war. These events caused enormous problems for the rich and powerful, but, as usual, it was the poor who bore the brunt of the turmoil.

During the lifetimes of Joseph and Hannah, the population of Oldham township increased from about 8,000 in 1770 to 12,024 by 1801, and then exploded to 32,381 in 1831 and 72,334 in 1861 just before Joseph died.

Joseph might have taken part in some of the street protests when times were hard. He may have been in the mobs that sold off food cheap; he may have helped smash the hated power-looms with the Luddites in 1816 or been at Peterloo; he may have attended Chartist rallies in the 1840s. Perhaps he was in the immense crowds in Oldham market place that celebrated the Reform Act of 1832 or attended the hustings for the election of John Cobbet and Henry Fielden. He would almost certainly have perceived that at the end of his long life conditions were improving. He would probably have told stories to anyone who would listen about his boyhood among the green fields and rolling countryside at Sholver Slack in a handloom weaver’s cottage, his years marching round the country with the militia and his adventures in Bristol. Perhaps he was less forthcoming about the degradation of the workhouse and the difficulties of the years before Reform. He must have marvelled at the erection of numerous new factories and rows of brick terraced houses as clean open country became smoky town.

Did he care that Lancashire was becoming the most productive area in the world, a cradle of technology and industrial organization, the Silicon Valley of its day? Did he marvel at the improvements appearing in the infrastructure of Oldham, the turnpike roads, the canals and, finally, in the 1840s and 1850s, the railways?

People in England did not understand the transforming industrialisation that was taking place, and economic and social theories of the time lagged behind the productive process. Oldham must often have seemed at the mercy of senseless fluctuations in trade which caused disruption to the lives of ordinary people. Certainly there was progress, but the weaknesses of an industry that imported all its raw materials and exported most of its products were cruelly exposed by wars and poor communication [56]. There was very little social infrastructure and working people were often left at the mercy of hard times. For too many years profits accrued to the few, misery to the many. Indeed, much of the compulsion of the Hammond’s book ‘The Town Labourer’ [57] is in their brilliant explanation of how society did wrong in the sincere belief that it was doing right; and the legacy of those times is still with us. Slowly, out of the hardship, there arose a social conscience and movements that began to campaign for fairer treatment of the working classes.

Engels and Marx took a harsh view of industrialisation and advocated overthrow of the system, but others chose to work for progressive change from within – Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Robert Peel, John Doherty, Lord Shaftesbury, John Cobbett, John Fielden and Robert Owen, to name but a few. In the end English society developed through evolution rather than revolution, and in spite of the horror and sympathy we feel at the injustice meted out to the poorer classes at this time we must acknowledge that from it came the material and social well-being that the descendents of Joseph and Hannah have subsequently so much enjoyed.

At the end of his long life did Joseph look back and yearn for the green countryside and simple ways of Sholver Slack? Did he wonder what might have been had he and Hannah managed to stay in Bristol? Or did he simply hope for better times to come for his surviving children, in England and America, earned by the labours of his own generation?

The stories of Joseph's children Harriet,  William and Mary Ann can be read on this site.