Introduction - The Tuson name and a peep back to 1582
(Footnotes are located at the end of the article)
The Emergence of the Tuson family
The origin of surnames for noble families in England is very ancient, but it appears that few Lancashire people of humble origins had such names before the fifteenth century. Leech said that in general up to about 1400 most humble folk had only a Christian name, to which they added a distinguishing label, not generally hereditary. In the Preston Guild list of 1459 seventy percent of those taking part had surnames, whereas in 1542 all did.1
‘Tuson’, however, appears to have rather an old origin. It is thought to be a patronymic, a name derived from a father or ancestor. The first element might be that which is one source of the surname ‘Tew’, found in nearby Cheshire in the 13th century. This is a Welsh epithet meaning ‘fat’ or ‘plump’. ‘John le Tue’, who is mentioned further north as a rebel in about 1323, had a bye-name so derived. A ‘Simon Tueson’ is mentioned at Snape in 1325, in a dispute with others from Lathom and Dalton, all in the Ormskirk area of Lancashire and about twenty miles south of Preston. He is believed to be the same person as ‘Simon son of Tywe’ mentioned at the same place in 1324-25. An Adam Tewe is listed in the 1332 subsidy at Scarisbrick, near Lathom, and at the same place there is also a ‘Joan Tewe’. ‘Robert son of Elias son of Tue’ is mentioned at Woolton in the same part of the county early in the fourteenth century. Welshmen and people with Welsh personal names, who may be presumed to have Welsh origins, occur frequently in south Lancashire during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so a Welsh origin is feasible.2
Interestingly, another researcher has found evidence of about fifty place names in Lancashire that derive from the original British (including Welsh) population, including ‘Penwortham’ (‘penno’ means ‘hill’ in Welsh) and ‘Walton’ (considered to designate a clearing or settlement of the ‘Wales’, that is the Welsh-speaking British population).3 Hunt considers that such settlements were enclaves of Welsh speakers in a landscape dominated by English speakers.4 If the name ‘Tue’ or ‘Tuwe’ is indeed derived from Welsh then it might indicate that the Tusons are a very ancient family indeed.
The oldest reference I have seen to ‘Tuson’ with the modern spelling dates from the fifteenth century; it occurs in 1436/375 and relates to property held by one William Tuson in Hoghwyk (Howick), just west of Penwortham.6 A 16th century reference relates to 12 acres (4.8 ha) of land at Penwortham that were ‘late in tenure of Thomas Tuson, clerk, by lease of 6 June 1503’.7 These references suggest that from early days at least some members of the Tuson family were able to enter into contracts with the mediaeval landowners of the area; that is, they were more than just agricultural labourers.
Other old references, from Croston parish about half way between Ormskirk and Preston, include four burials, respectively of Ellen Tuson, Eline Tusome (sic), Thomas Tuson and Elizabeth Tusone, the first in 1539, the next two in 1541 and the last in 1549.8
In 1580 there is another reference to Penwortham, this time in the IGI for the birth of a Jacobi Tuson.9 The entry shows that Jacobi married about 1602 in Penwortham and was buried on 25th May 1631 in the same place. Penwortham lies two or three miles southwest of Preston, on the left bank of the River Ribble, extending out into the tidal marshes and it is to this area that we can trace our own Tuson forebears. The area can be seen on the map, right, which can be changed from satellite image to road map or terrain map by clicking on the relevant icon. It is also possible to zoom in or out and to drag the map laterally. This map can be used to find all the main locations mentioned throughout this account.
I carried out a study of the Tusons listed in the IGI online database from the year 1547 (the date of the first occurrence – spelt ‘Tusen’) to 1620. An interesting geographical distribution emerges. There is certainly a clear grouping in the area from Ormskirk to Penwortham (eighteen entries), but there is also a similar number of entries scattered elsewhere. Three (two ‘Tusens’ and a ‘Tuson’) are in Worcestershire, two each are in Warwickshire and Kent, a ‘Tusson’ occurs at Berwick upon Tweed, there is a Tuson in Cornwall and there are no less than nine in Lincolnshire - six at Coningsby, two at Deeping St. James, and one near Louth.
In another study, based on 463 Tuson births recorded in the Civil Registration Index between 1837 and 1870, over half the occurrences were from Lancashire with 42% in the Preston/Chorley/Bolton area, 32% of which were from Preston alone. The only other area with a significant showing was Kent (6%). The remaining entries were scattered. A very useful website from University College, London (the ‘CASA’ website) shows the distribution of surnames from the 1881 census based on current postcode districts, and this confirms the observation that the Tuson family is strongly linked to the Preston area. A small concentration shows in the Dartford (Kent) area, and there are weaker ones in, surprisingly, Oxfordshire, the Bath postcode area and some other southern counties.10
Our part of the family can certainly be traced back to the area south of Preston and appears initially to have been involved in farming. ‘Tuson’ associations with the area persist; on the CASA website a map of 1998 shows that Preston is still the postcode area with the greatest concentration of Tusons, although significant concentrations have appeared in other areas including the Fylde, Stockport, Berwick upon Tweed and Reading. There is now also a broad swathe of Tusons across most of southern England, including Kent.
Returning to the Preston area, there is still a small road called Tuson Croft at Longton (see image on the Home Page), some three miles southwest of Penwortham, and eighty-one Tusons appeared in the electoral roll for Preston postcodes in 2002.
The early Tusons do not seem to have been a particularly significant or prosperous family, although they did come to count some yeoman among their number, which Searson concluded implies both social status and a certain degree of wealth10a.
Our Tuson Line
The oldest Tuson relative of whom we have information is a James Tuson, who was probably born round about 1582 in the reign of Elizabeth I.11 It is not impossible that this James is the same as the Jacobi Tuson mentioned above from the IGI, said to have been born 'About 1580' of Penwortham, for James is derived from 'Jacob'11a. At the time of James I, the first Stuart king, our James Tuson had a son called George, said to have been ‘of Hutton’, a village located two miles southwest of Penwortham, where the family is known to have resided in later generations. George appears to have married an ‘Anna Binsley’ in 1632/33, at which time Charles I was on the throne.
The alternation of ‘James’ and ‘George’ was repeated at least five times in successive generations down to a George born in 1862, illustrating a great conservatism, or tradition, among our Tusons in respect of forenames, and in particular in bestowing the grandfather’s forename on the first son. The sequence of at least five repetitions of James/George would appear to indicate robust family health (and avoidance of accidents) with survival of the first male to maturity, but on at least one occasion an older son died and the name was then used again for a later son. My own branch of the family diverged from the James/George pattern only in 1811, when we descend from a second son, called Richard. For male Tusons my family database contains fifteen occurrences of James, eleven each of George and William and ten of Richard. There is a little more variety for female names – I have nine occurrences of Margaret, six each of Mary, Elizabeth, Catherine, Isabella and Jane, and five of Ann(e). In an attempt to avoid confusion I will use superscripts thus “i” to identify the various generations of James and George in the family. Thus, the first James Tuson becomes Jamesi.
Almost immediately after he married, George Tusoni had a son, baptised Jamesii in 1632/33 at St. Mary’s Church, Penwortham. Nothing more is known of this James Tusonii, but he would have lived through the turbulent times of the English Civil War, which started in 1642. Preston emerged as the centre of a Catholic Lancashire that had strong roots in the surrounding country districts12 and, because of its strategic situation on the main road at the bridge over the River Ribble, there were battles at Preston in 1642 and 1643, and again during the second phase of the war in 1648. The Commonwealth under Cromwell followed from 1649 and the Protectorate from 1653 to 1660. In spite of the considerable sympathy for the Catholic cause in west Lancashire at this time the local population suffered repeated depredations from the armies of both sides.13 James Tusonii would almost certainly have been significantly affected by the disturbances and in the later stages of the conflict may also have fought on one side or the other.
It is not known whether the Tuson family backed the Catholic or the Protestant cause during the Civil War – probably they followed the local gentry who looked to their tenants for support. John Fleetwood of the manor of Penwortham took the side of the Royalists and had his estates sequestered, eventually redeeming them by payment of a fine. Edward Rawstorne of Hutton manor followed a similar path but on his death the estates were restored to his brother, Lawrence, who had served the Parliamentary cause.14
In 1660, at the time of the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Charles II, James Tusonii had a son called Georgeii who was also baptised at St. Mary’s in Penwortham and lived at Hutton. At this time Hutton was a small community for in 1666 the Hearth Tax recorded only fifty-eight hearths, nine of which were in three houses15,15a. Georgeii married a local girl, Ann Mayor,16 in 1696 at St. Mary's and when he died left a will, dated 22nd February 1722. In this he gave a house and croft ‘which I have in possession under Mr. Rosthern [almost certainly Rawstorne]’ to his eldest son, Jamesiii. According to Searson16a, only about forty percent of people in the area at this time made wills, and many of these were fairly comfortably off. The facts that Georgeii was able to rent property from the gentry and also that he had sufficient property to make it worth making a will is the first evidence that our branch of the Tuson family enjoyed a standard of living that was more than mere subsistence and also that Georgeii enjoyed at least some small degree of status in the local community. It was the custom to make a will only when it became apparent that a person was dying17 and Georgeii was true to this tradition. He made his will on 22nd February 1722 and he apparently died only three days later.
Georgeii and Ann lived through the unstable period when England oscillated between Catholic and Protestant destinies under Charles II and James II. They also lived through the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 168818 when William and Mary cemented the Protestant succession and they would at least have been aware that in 1715 James Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’ was proclaimed king in Preston town square before his Catholic and Scottish followers were beaten by a superior English force.
Jamesiii, the oldest son of George Tusonii and Ann Mayor, was baptised at St. Mary’s in about 1695. In later life he was a linen weaver and, like his father before him, held a lease for land belonging to the manor of Hutton.19 He thus appears to be representative of that class of English rural dweller who worked the land in the summer and with his family applied himself to textile-working in the quieter part of the year when the demands of farming were less urgent. In 1733/34 he married Elizabeth Kellett20 at St. Mary’s and they very soon had a son called, predictably, Georgeiii who was baptised at Longton chapel about 1734/35. Most of James' and Elizabeth's lives were lived under Queen Anne and George I, the first Hanoverian monarch.
Young Georgeiii may have experienced some excitement when about ten years old, for it was in 1745 that the House of Stuart made it’s last throw of the dice for the crown of England and Charles Edward, the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie) passed through Preston on his way south to Derby. When Georgeiii grew up he lived in Hutton and was an innkeeper, almost certainly at the old inn that stood on what today is the site of 'The Anchor', on the main road through the village from Penwortham to Ormskirk (see photo). He was described as a yeoman. Searson, working from wills and inventories for the period from 1600 to 1750 in Longton, suggests that yeomen owned some land and enjoyed the highest level of social status in the area after the gentry. Below them came husbandmen, and it is likely that Georgeii and his son, Jamesiii, would have been described as such. Searson states that it is clear 'that yeomen were considerably wealthier than mere husbandmen. The average wealth indicated by the wills and inventories of yeomen was £262 and for husbandmen £69'10a. Being a yeoman may also have meant that they possessed free land of annual value 40 shillings and were thereby qualifying to serve on juries and vote for the knight of the shire.21 Elsewhere ‘yeoman’ has been associated with the term ‘yeoman weaver’, indicating a farmer who supplemented his income with weaving,22 perhaps like Jamesiii but on a grander scale. The evident steady progression of the Tusons over at least three generations certainly suggests that they were gradually becoming more prosperous and gaining increasing local standing.
On July 4th, 1777 Georgeiii signed a lease for property from Lawrence Rawstorne at five shillings rent for a payment of £46 – a considerable sum.23 The lease related to “all those several closes and parcels of land commonly called Larke Hulme, the Eastside or part of the Croft before the said George Tuson’s house door and the Southside or part of the Bean Yard containing by common estimation two acres of land or thereabouts lying and being in Hutton aforesaid and now or late in the tenure holding or occupation of the said George Tuson…”. The lease was to run for the lives of his children Isabel (aged 13), Roger (11), and Elizabeth (7).24 The lessor reserved the right to all ‘mines delfs and quarries trees woods underwoods and brushwoods’ and also to ‘fish fowl hawk and hunt in or upon’ the land. The lessee was also obliged to pay nine pence annually in lieu of boons, ‘keep one hound or other dog’ and to ‘well and sufficiently repair the said land and premises and all the gats stiles hedges ditches and fences thereunto belonging’ and finally to ‘bring or cause to be brought all such corn grain and malt to be ground at the Mill or Mills (erected or to be erected) within Hutton aforesaid belonging to the said Lawrence Rawstorne … and pay such toll and mulcture for grinding thereof’. Similar conditions are likely to have existed in the leases that Georgeii and Jamesiii had with the Rawstornes. It is likely that a great deal of hard work was necessary to make a profit!
Georgeiii married twice, first to Betty Rigby,25 by whom he had six children, of whom the three named in the lease survived. After Betty died Georgeiii quickly married Ellen Hindle26 and it was in the following year that he carried out the transaction with Lawrence Rawstorne, presumably to provide for the three surviving children from the first marriage.
The second marriage took place at Penwortham and produced a further six children, through one of whom my line descends. Georgeiii died in 1793 and it is said that he left a will, which has not, thus far, been found. There are indications that he was a man of some substance; he was a yeoman, an innkeeper and owned enough property to make it worth leaving a will. The son that is relevant to my family was called, (unsurprisingly) Jamesiv. He was born in 1778 probably in Hutton, but he moved to neighbouring Longton where he lived until 1845. Considering that he was the first of the family to leave Hutton and that his lifetime falls naturally in the age when south and west Lancashire in general and the Preston area in particular were experiencing the process of industrialisation his story will be told in the following article.
The Way of Life of the Early Tusons
At this point in our narrative we have sufficient information to begin constructing a picture of the way life might have been for the early Tusons. At the time of the Domesday Book (1086) the land where the Tusons later lived was part of the county of Cheshire, for the county of Lancashire was established only in 1182.27 Lancashire became a County Palatine28 in 1351, and the seat of John of Gaunt who became Duke of Lancaster in 1362. Notwithstanding the fact that the Dukes of Lancaster produced four English kings (Henry IV to Henry VII) the remoteness of Lancashire meant that it was little regarded until the start of the rise of cotton in the seventeenth century. In mediaeval times it is said to have recorded some of the lowest tax returns in England29 and as late as the middle of the seventeenth century Samuel Pepys ‘could be convinced that the remote borders of Lancashire were roamed by great lizards able to shoot down passing birds!’30 There were few important towns – perhaps the main exceptions being Manchester/Salford, Preston and Lancaster, all of which were the sites of Roman fortifications along the old road from London to Carlisle
The local area where my own line of the Tuson family lived – Hutton, Longton and Penwortham – is a triangular tract that lies mostly between about 10 and 20 metres above sea level (see map, left). It is bounded by the road (present A 59)from Preston to Ormskirk to its east and southeast, the tidal reaches of the River Ribble to the north and the River Douglas to the west and southwest. It looks down the Ribble estuary to the Irish Sea and experiences the prevailing moisture-laden cool westerly winds. Much of the area is a gently westward-sloping plateau cut by west-draining streams, notably Mill Brook (formerly 'Winniot Watter'31a) that separates Hutton from Penwortham, and Longton Brook that makes the southern limit of Hutton with Longton. It is well suited to agriculture. The area gives way to a wide fringe of marshland towards the coast, supporting some grazing and perhaps suitable for fishing and wildfowling, at least for those who had rights. There were salmon in the River Ribble.
The character of the area is in large part determined by the geology. Although the underlying rocks are Permo-Triassic red mudstones, siltstones and sandstones of the ‘New Red Sandstone’ these rocks rarely emerge from beneath a surface covering of deposits left after the retreat of the ice about 12,000 years ago. It is the glacial and post glacial deposits of sands and clays that had most influence on agriculture, forming soils that often needed draining and other improvements to increase their productivity.
Although the main road of the area ran essentially north-sourth, from Preston to Liverpool, in mediaeval times the residents were probably more aware of the east-west geography, as becomes clear from a consultation of the mid-nineteenth century six-inch Ordnance Survey maps. Not only do many of the local roads, such as Moor Lane in Hutton or Hall Lane and Chapel Lane in Longton have this orientation, but the whole (aptly-named) town of Longton is extended in this sense. Crosby (op. cit) points out that this is because on a west to east traverse the land is suited to different uses, all of which played a role in the mediaeval economy. Starting In the far west, the Ribble estuary was a source of fish and other sea food, bordered to the east by a series of salt marshes (with valuable communal grazing rights) that were progressively reclaimed over time. The marshes abruptly gave way in the east, at a low bluff, effectively the old shore-line, to a plateau suitable for arable use in open fields. Continuing east, beyond the Preston-Liverpool road was an area of common grazing land known as the Moor and beyond this a series of wetlands, the Moss, which had a variety of important uses. For example it was the source of peat turf for fuel, rushes and reeds for thatching or producing candle wicks, willows and brushwood for baskets and other uses, and was a haven for wild-fowl. Over time the mosslands were eventually drained and reclaimed. The east-west roads gave the early inhabitants access to the different types of land.
The area where the early Tusons lived was very much rural, controlled by the owners of the old manorial rights and subject to the customs that arose out of the feudalism instituted after the Norman Conquest. Among the early owners of manorial rights were religious organisations, such as Evesham abbey, that owned one of the manors at Penwortham, and the canons of Cockersand, who came to own the manor of Hutton.
Although the manorial system of land rights, granted by the lord of the manor in exchange for duties owed ('boons') and/or monies due, was already breaking down, many of its features remained after the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s and 40s. Subsequently a small number of private families gained control of most of the land, for example John Fleetwood purchased the manor at Penwortham that had belonged to Evesham abbey and Lawrence Rawstorne bought the manor of Hutton that had belonged to the canons of Cockersand. Most ot the latter remained in possession of the Rawstorne family unitl it was sold in 1916.31
Housing and Farming
In those cases where the gentry lived locally, they usually occupied large houses, often the old manor houses of the estates, which they improved. In the particular case of Hutton, however, the Rawstorne family were absentee landlords, living on another property at Edenfield. A similar situation prevailed in the case of the land at Longton. This did not affect the fact mentioned previously, that many of the old manorial customs and attitudes of the landowners continued, even into the seventeenth century. For example the gentry typically contracted much of the farming to the local yeomanry,32 such as George Tusoniii, under short leases, perhaps only seven or nine years, and rarely as long as nineteen or twenty-one. The leases often contained restrictive covenants with many of the characteristics of medieval land tenure. Besides those mentioned for George Tusoniii, such as not taking wood or game, keeping a dog and using the lessor’s mill, there were often strict limits on the proportion of the leased area that could be ploughed (typically a third or a quarter), the number of crops to be harvested without re-ploughing, or rules about the use of manure. The concern of the landowners was not to exhaust the land, but in fact short leases meant that it was often not worth the farmer’s while to invest in drainage or other improvements, which tended to perpetuate poor agricultural practice.
As described by Dickson, housing for those below the gentry, such as the yeomen, when of better quality, was ‘roomy, well built with some sort of stone, and covered with slate [flags], or sometimes with thatch.’ But for the poorer folk there was ‘a more ancient… method’ of house construction ‘that of forming them on wattled stud-work with a composition of well-wrought loamy clay and cut straw, or what is locally termed “clat and clay”. The covering material in these instances is almost invariably thatch prepared from wheaten straw, which is considered as rendering them more warm and comfortable in winter, and more cool in summer… These sorts of cottages have seldom more than a divided ground floor, which with their brown sombre colour, gives them a mean hovel-like appearance far from agreeable, and affords but little accommodation…’.33 The windows were small, to keep out the weather and prying eyes, and equipped with wooden shutters. Crosby (op.cit and 31a) indicates that in Hutton the thatch was often made with reeds from the local reed-beds on the moss.
Searson10a tells a similar story for Longton. The earlier houses were timber-framed made with A-shaped oak crucks, the number of crucks defining the length of the house, and the length of the crucks defining its height and width. The crucks were set on small stone plinths and were tied together with cross beams. The walls were made by timber uprights attached to the eaves, also set on stones, and were daubed on either side with a mixture of clay and straw. Internal walls were either wooden partitions ('stud-walls'), or made of willow or hazel sticks, in both cases daubed with wet clay with or without an admixture of straw and stones. The roof was thatched. One Longton house, whose owner was variously described as a yeoman or husbandman and who died in 1712, had a living room, or 'fire house' where the cooking was done, a buttery, which was cooler and used to store food, and a 'chamber' for sleeping. By the start of the eighteenth century bricks were becoming more common and were used to remodel some of the older houses, or to build new ones.
The early Tusons of the area would have lived in one or another of these types of dwellings. Those of our family seem to have always been of, or at least emerged into, those middle ranks of rural society that leased land from the lord of the manor, rather than being labourers working only for wages, so their houses were probably of the better sort.
It is possible to get a feeling for the type of working assets and household possessions that the early Tusons might have possessed. David Hunt34 and Marjorie Searson34a examined a number of wills of those below the level of the gentry from the neighbouring areas of Walton-le-Dale and Longton respectively for the period from about 1600 to 1750 and the following remarks are based on their findings.
The yeomen were clearly the better-off sort of people, their assets including stocks of animals and crops, agricultural tools and home contents.
Weaving families had looms, perhaps spinning wheels and often some stocks of cloth, yarn and raw materials awaiting processing. As was the case with the yeomen, sometimes they owned ‘bonds’, effectively cash owing to them for work done, a pre-banking financial instrument. One weaver’s will listed ‘scales and weights, ‘a paire of looms, healds, reeds, one wheel, warping walls and bobbing picks’, another had ‘a clok in the workhouse’ and 27 lbs of pewter items. An innkeeper from 1714 (perhaps giving an insight into the life of George Tusoniii) had a stock of malt, barrels, drinking glasses, bottles, plenty of small cheap pictures, tables, chairs, pewter pints and quarts ‘1 brass clock and case’ and a pair of bellows; he also had two cows and a calf, a sow and seven pigs.
A joiner’s will from 1696 listed, besides his working tools, stock in trade and two carts, virtually all the household goods, as follows:
‘The house chamber;
A bedsted and curtains, halfe a dozen chears, one table, one little box, one stool and one footer chest: £1 5s 0d
The parlor chamber;
A chest of drawers and furniture £1 10s 0d
The cellar chamber;
A bedsted and furniture 10s 0d
The parler;
Half a dozen chears, two tables and two buffet stools 18s 0d
The celler;
The pewter £1 0s 0d
The lead and bruine [brewing] vessels £2 0s 0d
The house;
One clothes presse. Nine chears and a table, a settle, one iron grate and cubord £2
A griddle, ffryingpan, spittle, tosting iron 4s 0d
The brass 10s 0d
Apparrell and pictures £1 10s 0d.’
This man was evidently fairly well off and had a quite substantial residence. By the nature of his trade he perhaps had rather more furniture than was usual. Oak, ash and elm were commonly used for furniture, and sometimes a condition of a land lease was to plant a certain number of trees each year, to cater for future requirements.
Searson nicely explains10a that cooking was carried out in the hearth, which was wide, deep and made of bricks. The fire was either of peat from the moss, wood, or in some cases coal, or cannel (a fine quick-burning coal). The coal was brought up the River Douglas or offloaded on the shore. Cooking pots, of iron or brass, were suspended over the fire from a chimney crane or 'rackentythe' or placed on a trivet or 'brandreth'. Griddles and gridirons were also used. In the homes of the better-off there might be an iron roasting spit, and there were fire irons, toasting forks and flat irons for ironing clothes. All manner of earthenware pots, bowls and basins were used, as were wooden platters or trenchers and treen35 forks and spoons.
The buttery was where cheese, butter, meat and ale were stored - most households had their home-brewed ale. Shelves held all the paraphernalia needed to prepare these products, such as churns, presses, sieves, funnels and perhaps a chest or ark for storing flour and meal.
Hunt comments that below the level of the gentry it was rare to find evidence of valuable objects (although, he adds, family members ‘were quite capable of removing those items they felt to be theirs of right, long before the inventory makers could appear on the scene’). Clocks were rarely mentioned, but some wills record brass and pewter ware, besides the treenware and wooden vessels. One man had a ‘salt box’, a husbandman had 13 lbs of pewter and ‘brasse’ items worth 18 s. Most had a frying pan and fire irons. One lady had a warming pan and ‘seven petty pans, seven dishes and ten plates’.
In general furniture of all kinds was mentioned, but especially beds with bedding and bed linen. The better-off may have had four-poster beds with curtains to provide some privacy and keep out draghts, feather-filled mattresses, linen or cotton sheets, woollen blankets and perhaps a quilt for extra warmth. The less well-off made do with with simple beds, chaff matresses and wool blankets. There was ‘a meat chist and meat in it’. There was usually a stock of ‘turfe’ for fuel, and turf carts are occasionally mentioned, needed to haul peat from the moss. Butter, cheese, ham and bacon are often recorded. One man had ‘meale, wheate, beefe and bacon’ worth £3 and cheese and butter worth 5s; these are foodstuffs that could have been stored for some considerable time, the meat by salting or smoking.
Crosby (2000, op. cit., pp. 67-69) examined similar wills from Hutton. He found mention of cattle, sheep and horses, corn and hay. His interpretation was that in the seventeenth century sheep farming was more important than in later centuries. Produce was for domestic consumption and for the market. The will of John Harrison in 1632 mentioned 'husbandry goods as ploughs wheels carts and horse gear' and Peter Rawsthorne, the squire's relative, in 1638 listed 'carts, wheels, ploughs, harrows, horsegear, with odd pieces of cloven and other timber'. In terms of crops, Robert Mayre in 1673 had oats, barley and beans 'upon the ground' (growing) as well as unthreshed wheat in the barn and barley and beans in the garner, or store, plus oatmeal in a chest in the house.
The fact that by 1722 George Tusonii was able to leave a house and rights to a croft in his will is the first tangible indication that his family was beginning to attain a certain social standing. He probably owned horses and raised cows, sheep and pigs; very likely he grew wheat, oats, beans and other crops to feed his family and sold any surplus locally or at Preston market, easily accessible by foot within the day. A John Tuson, not known to be related to our branch of the family, definitely leased land at Penwortham in 1772, and was growing ‘corn, grain, pulse, hemp, flax and patatoes (sic)’, and our Tusons may well have cultivated similar crops.36 Various references in Dickson37 suggest that the early Tusons may have produced significant amounts of oats, some wheat and barley, potatoes, and beef and milk from cattle. Recent farming practice in the area is to use much of the land as pasture rather than arable, and, given the distribution of marsh, arable, moor and moss, this was probably always the case. An interesting inventory of farm stock that perhaps casts additional light on the farming interests of the early Tusons is that of Richard Baldwin, a yeoman who died in nearby Walton-le-Dale in 1661. He left ‘corne on the ground £16, calves and 5 yonge beasts £20, 9 geese, 4 other hens and 2 doggs 7s 6d, 1 steere and 4 weening calves £7 5s 0d, 1 horse £3 10s 0d.’38
Industry
Preston, by far the most important market in the area, lay a few miles to the northeast, accessible from Penwortham across the river by ford or ferry until 1756, thereafter by bridge. It was located on the north bank of the River Ribble, where the old Roman road (the later A6) crossed it at Walton-le-Dale, but had, at best, modest port facilities for coastal trade.39 It became a market town with privileges of trade in about 1179 and besides weekly markets hosted four annual fairs. These were the great horse-fair after Epiphany, a three-day Spring fair at the end of March, an eight-day Summer fair at the end of August and a five-day Winter fair from 7th November. Every twenty years the town hosted a larger festival, known as the Preston Guild. This took the place of the Summer fair but lasted two weeks and included events such as processions, plays, music, races and other entertainment, some, probably, of a less reputable kind. It is easy to imagine the early Tusons visiting the market and some of the fairs for business and amusement.
Prior to the dissolution, two of the more important local monasteries were Furness and Whalley, both of which were involved as early as the fourteenth century in exporting wool via Italian capitalists to the markets of Europe.40 The woollen trade was the mainstay of the English economy and the source of much wealth, and northwest England supported good sheep pasture. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was indigenous manufacturing of woollen cloth carried on as a normal by-occupation of the peasant small-holder’s household for domestic use and sometimes for sale, using home-grown wool.
The town of Preston is said to have had a staple wool industry for centuries, but west Lancashire also developed a linen industry, using flax, grown locally or brought across the sea from Ireland.41 As the woollen industry began to decline in the sixteenth century42 Preston was ideally situated to benefit from growth of both the linen trade, and also that of hemp, and is known to have produced, for example, linen sailcloth for the expanding merchant and royal fleets.
The flax plant, which has a lovely powder-blue flower, produces seeds rich in oil (linseed oil) and a strong fibrous stem that can be processed to produce linen. The seed can be incorporated in various foods and was probably what first attracted attention to the plant. However, the stem contains strong, flexible, absorbent, but inelastic fibres that have been used by mankind for over 5,000 years to produce linen cloth. In western Europe flax has been used to produce cloth since Neolithic times.43
It is known that flax was being worked in west Lancashire at least as early as 119044 and the price of flax in Preston is mentioned as early as 1314.45 The processes involved in the manufacture of linen cloth started with cultivation of the flax plant, normally planted in the spring and harvested about three months later. It was always pulled up, never cut, to preserve the full length of the stem, a back-breaking job generally carried out by the men-folk. After drying, the flax straw had to be ‘retted’, a smelly process to decompose the woody matter and allow the linen fibres to be removed for processing. This was carried out by soaking the flax in pools of water for about a fortnight before raking it out to dry on the banks. Once dry, the straw was broken, initially using a mallet or other beating device and then cleaned (‘scutched’) to remove the woody stem from the fibre and combed (‘hacked’, hackled’ or ‘heckled’) to separate the long fibres, used for the production of higher-quality yarn suitable for clothing, from the short ones (‘tow’) used for coarser items such as ropes. Women and children were probably involved in some of these processes, and it is likely that many of the early Tusons of the Ormskirk-Penwortham area would have known the hard work needed.
It was women’s work to spin the linen fibre into yarn and this was being done on the distaff in 1556 at nearby Samlesbury.46 Indeed both the term ‘distaff side of the family’, meaning the female side, and ‘spinster’ come from this tradition.47 Spinning was done on a drop-spindle or (at least from the fourteenth century) on a spinning wheel, a laborious process able to produce only one thread at a time.48 Usually the weaving was carried out by the men-folk on a handloom set up in the home.
A bleaching process to make the cloth more attractive and more valuable was often applied to linen both in the yarn and after weaving. The cloth or hanks of yarn were washed, then soaked in water for perhaps three or four days, then steeped and boiled in an alkaline lye (often made by burning bracken) and stale urine, washed again and ‘crofted’ or ‘grassed’ (laid to bleach out of doors) where they could remain for at least two or three weeks, during which time they were kept watered. Finally they were soured in buttermilk, washed again and all the steps repeated five or six times, so the whole procedure could take almost all summer.49 Clearly linen-making was an activity that lent itself to the countryside rather than the town, and demanded a great deal of hard work.
Of Preston, Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann reported that it was the natural centre of a flax-producing district with an expanding domestic industry of linen. Following a trade crisis of 1622, in 1628 the corporation of Preston tried to set up a trading monopoly to prevent traders from the area outside the town benefiting from the linen industry. It alleged there were “divers handicraftsmen and servants at husbandry [farming] leaving their own occupations, seeking not only to live easily but rather idly, [who] have taken upon them within this town of Preston to set up and live by trades of buying and selling of divers wares and merchandises, contrary to law”. ‘Within a few years the [corporation] was engaged in an extensive conflict with the middlemen who had sprung up to serve the spinners and weavers of the surrounding countryside.’ In 1630 there was a terrible plague in Preston49a in which 1,100 died, leaving only 887 living in the town and the corporation took their case against the middlemen to law, desperate to defend their devastated trade. They alleged: “They that depend upon trading in the country leave plowing and sowing, which is a means to make beasts scarce and corn dear.” Of the eleven or twelve traders complained against, nine were said to live within three or four miles of Preston, “being men of good living or younger brethren brought up at husbandry.” They came from seven villages, the farthest not nine miles away from Preston [perhaps including Penwortham or Hutton]. The justices ruled in favour of freedom for the country trade: “The several trades are rather to be continued (being in remote places from Preston) than suppressed, for that may thereby purchase relief for themselves and families where otherwise they would live very poorly or be cast on the country or go a-begging, and especially the use [trade] of selling flax only, which is a thing so frequently used in our County of Lancaster that if it be taken away all the poorer sort of people who live by spinning and weaving linen cloths all year round (except at time of harvest) and not being able to travel to the market, being five, eight, or ten miles distant, will be forced to beg for their relief and a means to increase our poor to abundance.” The justices also criticized the “rich and able men” of Preston who “strive to reap that benefit to themselves to the impoverishment of multitudes.”50
This account makes it clear that by the 1620s linen working was carried out for the market, not merely for domestic purposes and it is about this time that local wills begin to mention ‘linen webster’ and ‘flax’ with some frequency. A yeoman called Roger Tuson of Penwortham (believed not to be on our own line of the family), who died in 1641 left 'flax and yarn', so he or his family were evidently working linen (Crosby 1998, 31a p. 86).
Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann carried out analyses of the occupations of parents of children baptised in Lancashire, taken from the parish registers for various periods. Penwortham and Walton-le-Dale parishes were among those chosen. The distributions of occupations were as shown in the table.
| Period | Penwortham 1725-1728 | Walton-le-Dale 1704-1708 | Walton-le-Dale 1724-1728 |
Agriculture Yeoman Husbandman Farmer | 17 63 5 | 8 13 0 | 1 15 0 |
Unskilled Labourer "Poor" | 27 1 | 2 23 | 3 2 |
| Industry:Textiles Weaver Whitster Fustianman Trader Reedmaker | 37 0 0 0 0
| 72 12 0 0 0
| 34 2 1 3 1 |
| Other Occupations | 39 | 37 | 21 |
| Single women | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| Unstated | 9 | 0 | 20 |
| Total | 204 | 170 | 115 |
The picture painted for Penwortham is of an area still dominated by agricultural occupations (unlike some of the other parishes examined, notably Oldham, Radcliffe and Middleton, and even when compared to Walton-le-Dale), albeit with a significant number of weavers present. Almost certainly not all the weavers shown would be linen weavers. However it is also likely that a fair number of those shown as ‘Husbandman’, and also some of those shown as ‘Yeoman’ or ‘Farmer’, were actually carrying out mixed agricultural and weaving activities. Such, at least, has been shown to be the case elsewhere.51
The contrast between Penwortham and Walton-le-Dale is interesting, perhaps most evidently in the indication of the greater importance of agriculture in Penwortham and the greater importance of weaving in Walton-le-Dale. These differences were to continue into the future. Hutton, with its marsh, arable land, moor and moss, probably resembled Penwortham more than Walton-le-Dale.
It may well be that the earliest Tusons in the Ormskirk-Penwortham area were involved in linen production, but evidence is lacking. George Tusonii, whose adult life ran from about 1680 to 1722, left in his will lease rights to a house and a croft, and the croft might have been used for bleaching linen. It would have been too small for farming, unless, of course, he also leased other land of which we are ignorant. There is no such doubt about the status of his son, James Tusoniii who married Elizabeth Kellet, however, for he was described as a ‘linnen weaver’, besides leasing land from the Rawstornes. It is likely that he was both a farmer and a commercial linen producer and may well have been described in the parish registers as a ‘husbandman’.
Although linen weaving in west Lancashire persisted during the eighteenth century, and was not finally dealt a fatal blow until the demise of canvas sails after 181552 its dominance began to be encroached upon from the start of the seventeenth century by the rise of cotton.
Cotton is now known to have definitely appeared in Lancashire by the year 1570 and by the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century it was becoming well established in the Manchester area. It had reached Blackburn, near to Preston, by 1609.53
Cotton was a more comfortable fabric to wear next to the skin than linen and for this and other reasons, including fashion, was increasingly in demand. The only pure cotton cloth, called calico, came from India, imported mainly by the East India Company. In England at that time it was not known how to spin cotton warps strong enough to withstand the tension and abrasion of the handloom, so the goods initially produced had linen warp and cotton weft; this material was called ‘fustian’. Linen weavers would have had little difficulty in converting to fustian, and cotton spinning was not very different to linen spinning. Crucial to the conversion were the supply of the raw cotton (initially from the Levant – Egypt, Cyprus, etc) and a resolution of trade disputes with the vested interests of the woollen industry, which saw cotton goods as a significant threat. These issues are discussed in great detail elsewhere.54
Although fustian weaving almost certainly arrived in the Preston area not long after it appeared in Blackburn in 1609, the earliest mention of which I am aware is in a will of 1639.55 As the various political, trade and economic issues were resolved during the following decades fustian weaving gradually became more widespread. Of great importance was a prohibition on the importation of printed Indian calico in 1721 and during the following decades up to 1770 the rate of increase in raw cotton imports to Great Britain accelerated from over 10 per cent per decade to exceed an astonishing 30 per cent.56
Organisation of the industry did not differ greatly from that of the linen industry that preceded it, but it had some characteristics of its own. Merchants imported the raw cotton either into London, Bristol or, increasingly, Liverpool. From there much was handled by Manchester businesses, often with connections at the ports, and distributed, or ‘put out’ by intermediaries, such as chapmen, to the rural districts where the yarn was spun and the cloth woven. In some cases the intermediaries provided the workers with ready-made linen warps and perhaps also with cotton yarn for the weft. Initially the weaver retained a greater independence and could deliver his completed ‘piece’ to the warehouse of his choice in the nearby town, such as Preston, in what was called a ‘bearing home’. As time went by, however, the trade became increasingly financed by credit and the weaver became increasingly tied to a certain putter-out although the ‘bearing-home’ might well continue. This allowed the weaver to indulge in a certain amount of shopping, a good deal of chatting and plenty of socializing in a local pub before reaching home again.
As the spinning wheel could produce only a single thread it was always the case that a handloom weaver, of either cotton or linen, could use more yarn than a spinner could produce. This sometimes meant that a weaver had to waste time seeking out additional supplies of yarn at neighbours’ cottages so as to be able to continue his work. The situation for cotton was only exacerbated after 1733 when John Kay of Bury invented the fly-shuttle that speeded up the weaving process and therefore placed even greater demands on the spinners.
From about 1740, population growth in England began to accelerate, and quickened again in the last fifteen years of the century, in part due to people marrying younger, in part due to a falling death rate.57 This is illustrated by the example of George Tusoniii who had twelve children, at least seven of whom survived into adulthood. Throughout the 18th century a rising birth rate and a falling death rate58 conspired to increase pressure on the land so that an increasing number of rural families began to depend for their income on the spinning wheel and handloom. The rising population also boosted demand from the home market for textiles, especially cotton goods.
George Tusoniii (1734-1793) was described as a yeoman and Gaskell59 says that, apart from the gentry, rural society was then made up of three social groups, yeomen, superior artisans and inferior artisans. According to Gaskell, the yeomen depended almost entirely on agriculture whereas the superior artisans were engaged primarily in manufacturing but also held some land from which they derived a subsidiary income. The inferior artisans depended entirely on manufacturing. Besides being a yeoman, George Tusoniii was also an innkeeper and no doubt was well informed about what was going on in his community.
All the changes within the textile industries of west Lancashire described above conspired to produce an increasingly industrialised society and reduce the importance of agriculture. Dickson, an enlightened agricultural expert who passed through the area, was scathing when he wrote in 1815 about the textile worker who also held a plot of land. Their cottages, he says, were ‘in some cases large, for the convenience of the occupiers, with separate apartments for the different apparatus requisite in carrying on their trades and employments’. He continues by commenting that ‘the lands which are annexed to them … vary from one or two to eight or ten acres… ‘ These, he says, produced little because of ‘the uncultivated and slovenly state in which such lands are almost invariably found. Men of this stamp are quite unfit for the management of land; and besides, they have neither the capital nor knowledge necessary for rendering land productive and beneficial. Whatever they perform about it, is commonly done in the worst and most irregular manner, and they seldom attend at all to any sort of improvements. If the lands are under grass, they are usually overrun with weeds; and if in tillage, mostly left without manure or any proper cultivation. In short, it appears … from a pretty full examination of the subject, that in this district, nothing can be more prejudicial to the interests of the landed proprietors, or more injurious to the community, than the practice of annexing lands as small farms to cottages designed for weaving and other mechanical labours [spinning and carding perhaps]. Their rents are constantly paid from the loom or other employment, and they seldom care any thing about the land, except for the little convenience it affords them by its natural produce, of keeping a few half-starved animals. Eight or ten customary acres often does little more than support a cow and horse in an indifferent manner.’ Elsewhere he rather suggests that in some cases small areas attached to artisan cottages are used for the production of garden vegetables for the occupants. Holding a little land may have seemed useless to Dickson, but others have recorded the importance of such landholdings in terms of providing food for the textile worker in times of hardship.59a
As Georgeiii grew older the increasing importance of manufacturing was clearly transforming the rural lifestyle towards that which would prevail with the coming of the industrial revolution. Following the introduction of the fly shuttle, and faced always with a shortage of yarn, various attempts were made to speed up the cotton spinning process. In about 1764 James Hargreaves of Blackburn invented a contraption he called the spinning jenny that was able to spin six threads at a time. This remarkable machine was the first significant technological advance in spinning for literally thousands of years and was the first of three that led, within a generation, to a transformation of cotton working. Though Hargreaves did not publicize the jenny, word of it soon got out and it was quickly taken up across the cotton-spinning districts.60 Edwin Butterworth reported from Oldham that ‘from the year 1770 cotton became the almost universal material for employment, the hand-wheels were all thrown into lumber rooms, the yarn was all spun on common jennies…’61 By 1790 the jenny had been developed to spin 100 threads simultaneously.
The advent of the spinning jenny can reasonably be taken as marking the end of the pre-industrial age in England and it is therefore convenient to break this story of my Tuson family at this point. At least six generations of Tusons had already grown up on the soils of Hutton, Penwortham and Longton, but the transformation that was about to sweep across the Lancashire landscape meant that soon afterwards the family would begin to move away from these roots.
Yarn spun on the jenny was still not strong enough to be used as warp, but this problem was solved by another equally remarkable machine, dubbed the water frame or throstle. The promoter of the water frame was Richard Arkwright of Preston, and though in his patent application of 1768 he claimed to have discovered the principle behind the machine, this was not so and Arkwright was therefore always a controversial figure. His genius, however, lay in building machines that worked efficiently and in demonstrating how they could be incorporated productively into profitable industrial enterprises. Another vital development made by Arkwright was successful mechanization of the carding process, until then a slow and tedious procedure that would have become a hopeless bottleneck in textile manufacture had not he turned his attention to solving it. Arkwright was more buccaneer than prophet, more engineer than dreamer and fits the British stereotype of the despised money maker. In fact, his contributions to applied technology and wealth creation were immense.62 (See 'Processes in the Cotton Industry').
The water frame was so-called because it was too heavy to be successfully operated by hand and therefore required either horsepower or the power of running water, using the mechanism of the water-driven corn mill.63 Adoption of the water mill as a source of power in textile manufacture was the reason that the cotton factories were often called ‘mills’. Yarn spun on the water frame, when hardened with sizing (a starch-water mixture) was strong enough to withstand the rigours of the loom so that it became possible to eliminate the use of linen warp and therefore to produce pure cotton cloth, known as ‘calico’.
A third great invention to speed up the spinning process was made by Samuel Crompton of Bolton in the 1780s. He combined the principles used by the water frame for drawing the thread through rollers with the principles of the jenny for twisting and winding the yarn into a new machine that he called the ‘mule’. This was capable of high productivity spinning of fine yarns and became the mainstay of the Lancashire cotton spinning industry.64
The mule and the water frame, combined with mechanized carding machines, had several important consequences that were soon to be felt in the Preston area – and indeed all across Lancashire. First, the mechanized processes could only be carried out in factories, which meant an end to carding and spinning in the home. Second, the quantity of yarn rapidly became more than the weavers could handle, pushing up the rates paid to handloom weavers and leading to the recruitment of ever-increasing numbers of them, both in urban and in rural locations.65 It was the change from cottage to factory spinning, together with the concomitant division of labour to attend the machines responsible for the different processes, which constituted the world’s first industrial revolution. George Tusoniii and his wife Ellen Hindle, lived to witness these transformations.
Although Preston was not well endowed with sites suitable for the development of waterpower, several water-driven cotton mills were established on the River Darwen between Hoghton and Walton le Dale in the 1780s. More important developments, though, had to wait until James Watt had perfected the steam engine for operation in factories, around 1781. Progress in the mechanization of the cotton industry thereafter was rapid so that by 1786 Watts and his partner, Matthew Boulton, were able to report that people had gone “steam-mill mad”. This is the story of the nineteenth century.
References
1. Leech, E. B., Surnames in Lancashire, Trans. Lancs. and Chesh. Antiq.-Soc., vol. LVIII, Manchester, 1947, quoted in Addison, Sir William, Understanding English Surnames, 1978, B. T. Batsford Ltd., London. ISBN 0 7134 0565 1
2. Much of this paragraph comes from an e-mail sent by ‘Johnny’ a friend of Dave Wane, forwarded to me by Kath Hargreaves, my third cousin and probably the most knowledgeable researcher of the Tuson family, and to whom I am much indebted for help and encouragement. I am still searching for its source. It is NOT Reaney’s ‘A Dictionary of English Surnames’.
3. Kenyon, Denise, 1991, ‘The Origins of Lancashire’, quoted in Hunt, 1997, (see below).
4. Hunt, David, 1997. A History of Walton-le-Dale and Bamber Bridge. Carnegie Publishing. ISBN 1-85936-043-2.
5. This form of dating relates to the ‘Old Style’ or ‘Julian’ calendar, which persisted until 1752. The Julian New Year began on March 25th, so a date shown as 1436/37 implies an event from 25th March 1436 to 24th March 1437.
6. Lancashire Record Office: Hesketh of Rufford [DDHE 22/21 and 22/22]. Howick was a manor from at least 1317, situated between Hutton and Penwortham.
7. Lancashire Record Office: The Rawstorne Muniments, File ref. DDR 10/8.
8. These data can be seen at http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Croston/index.html. Curiously there are no Tuson baptisms or marriages in the parish records at this time. It may be that these Croston Tusons worshipped at a neighbouring chapel that had no burial ground of its own, as was the case with Longton chapel and Penwortham church, recited in Crosby, A., 'Hutton: A Millennium History', 2000, Carnegie Publishing Ltd., ISBN 1-85936-081-5, p.64. 10. Search for Tuson on the CASA website at http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/. Othere areas where Tusons feature in a much less important way on this database in 1881 include Bolton, Oxfordshire, Bath, Southend on Sea and Dartford. 10a. Searson, M., 1988, 'Longton: A Village History', Carnegie Press, Preston, ISBN 0 948789 23 9.
11. The older generations have all been traced by Kath Hargreaves.
11a. See www.behindthename.com. In older references, perhaps prior to the Reformation when the language of the church was Latin, some of the birth entries are in Latin. The earliest references from the registers for Oldham church (which I have seen in published form) include some in Latin.
12. Hunt, D., 2003, ‘Preston, Centuries of Change’, ISBN 1 85983 345 4, Breedon Books. 13. Hunt, D., 1997, op. cit., p. 60.
15a. Searson (op.cit.) has suggested that a multiplier of 4.5 may be applied to the number of properties to obtain an estimate of the population. On this basis Hutton might have had a total population of about 220. Longton, with seventy-eight households, would have had a population of about 350.
16. The CASA website (op. cit.) indicates that Mayor is a surname well localized in Preston and the surrounding area. In Crosby (op. cit). 'Mayre' is mentioned at Hutton in 1451 and 'Mayor' and 'Mair' are also local names.
17. Hunt D., 1997, op. cit., p. 75.
18. There is a curious reference in a document from 1688 held at the Lancashire Record Office under no. DDKE/acc 7840 HMC 628: “Hutton, one of the townes within the Parish of Penworth[am], is sore burdened with their poore, is not at all eased by the rest, notwithstanding they have no poore, some of them, and the rest not in any equality.”
19. The owners were still the Rawstorne family (Victoria County History, Hutton)
20. The CASA website shows that Kellet too is a local name, but perhaps most centred to the east of Preston.
21. According to the definition given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
22. Benson, Anna and Neil Warburton, ‘Looms and Weaving’, Shire Books.
23. In 1759 John Charnley of Mosney, described as a ‘prosperous yeoman’ died, leaving goods worth £139 17s 4d. Hunt, 1997, op. cit. p. 102.
24. I have a copy of the indenture, given to me by Kath Hargreaves. Information can be found in the Rawstorne Muniments, Cat. Ref. DDR5/17, date 4/7/1777, Lancs. Record Office.
25. The CASA website indicates that this is a name centred on Preston and nearby areas to the south.
26. The CASA website indicates this is another local name, centred just east of Preston, but also common in the Preston area.
30. Hunt, David, 1997, op. cit., p. 51.
31. Data on the manors come from the Victoria County History, op. cit., vol. 6. Data on the sale of the Rawstorne land comes from Crosby, op.cit.
31a. Crosby, A., 'Penwortham in the past', 1988, Carnegie Press, ISBN 0 948789 16 6.
The yeoman is described (on page 90) as 'that honest independent race...which formed the link between the rich and poor'.
33. Dickson, op. cit., p. 103
34. Hunt, David, 1997, op. cit. pp.77-81.
35. Small, handcrafted wooden items and utensils.
36. ‘The Rawstorne Muniments, op cit, Cat. Ref. DDR4/3, date 25/1/1772. It is not clear what the difference was between ‘corn and grain’ but the terms may have referred to wheat and oats. ‘Pulse’ by reference to another entry of 1777, may have been beans. ‘Hemp’ was a fibrous plant, hemp cloth being more common than linen until the 14th century (according to Wikipedia), and it may also have been used in sails and ropes that were made in this area. Flax was the crop from which linen was produced, much used in the area at that time for weaving.
37. Op. cit, e.g. pp. 149, 627.
38. David Hunt 1997, op. cit. p. 78.
39. Ralph Thoresby, a diarist, visited Preston in 1702 and said of the River Ribble ‘the channel up to the town is broad and shallow, that they have little commerce that way, and no merchants or manufacture’ (see ‘The Diary of Ralph Thoresby’, p. 390 on Google Books). In 1691 a witness in a fishery dispute said the port had declined, but he had known boats of 40 tons reach the Marsh, just north of Penwortham. (Hunt, 2003, op. cit. p. 105). Pigot’s Directory of Lancashire for 1830 reported that with the aid of Spring tides boats of up to 150 tons could reach Preston Marsh.
40. Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, p. 4.
41. Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, p. 6.
42. Swann, June, 'Shoemaking' Shire Album No. 155. Contact www.shirebooks.co.uk.
43. 10,000 to 4,000 BC
44. Higham, Mary C., in Roberts, Edith (ed.), 1998, ‘A History of Linen in the North West’, published by the Centre for North-West Regional Studies, University of Lancaster. ISBN 1-86220-064-5.
45. Hunt, 2003, p. 33.
46. Hunt, 1997, p. 100.
47. The distaff was a stick or staff on which loose flax, or other fibres, could be held ready for spinning. Spinning wheels had a distaff attached, but portable ones allowed a woman to take her spinning with her when away from home, for example travelling to market. A woman with a distaff was considered to be industrious.
48. Winterbotham, Diana, in Roberts, Edith (ed.), 1998, op.cit. p.27.
49. Winterbotham, Diana, in Roberts, Edith (ed.), 1998, op.cit. pp.36-37. 49a. Searson (op.cit. p. 24) states that this plague, and another in 1623, besides affecting Preston also affected Longton and the communities around it.
50. Quoted in Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, op. cit. pp 57-59.
51. Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, op. cit. p. 314-316.
52. Hunt, 1997, op. cit., p. 100 mentions a linen weaver at Walton-le-Dale in 1768 and see Robinson, Margaret, in Roberts, Edith (ed.), 1998, op.cit. p.46.
53. Winterbotham Diana, in Roberts, Edith (ed.), 1998, op.cit. pp. 26 & 32. See also Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, op cit., p. 15.
54. See Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, op. cit.
55. Hunt, 1997, op. cit. p. 100.
56. Timmins, Geoffrey, 1996, ‘Four Centuries of Lancashire Cotton’, Lancashire County Books, ISBN 1-871236-41-X
57. Geoffrey Holmes and Daniel Szechi, ‘The Age of Oligarchy – Pre-industrial Britain 1773 – 1783’, 1993, Longman, ISBN 0582 20955 2, p.134.
58. Hobsbawm, 1969, Penguin Books, The Pelican Economic History of Britain, Vol. 2, Reformation to Industrial Revolution, p 254.
59. Quoted in Timmins, Geoffrey, The Last Shift, Manchester University Press, 1993, ISBN 0 7190 3725 5
59a. See Wadsworth and De Lacy Mann, op. cit.
60. Life-sized working models with about twenty spindles can be seen at Helmshore textile museum near Accrington and at Quarry Bank mill, near Styal in Cheshire, belonging to the National Trust.
61. Edwin Butterworth, 1856, ‘Historical Sketches of Oldham’ reprint of 1981 by E. J. Morten, (Publishers), Manchester. ISBN 0 85972 048 9
62. A series of early carding ‘engines’ can also be seen at Helmshore.
63. A bank of water frames that would clearly be too heavy to work by hand is on display at Helmshore.
64. A model of Crompton's mule can be seen at Helmshore and large industrial mules with many scores of spindles that can be seen in operation both at Helmshore and at Quarry Bank.
65. As told by Jim Heyes (A History of Chorley, Lancashire County Books, 1994. ISBN 1-871236-31-2), the jenny and water fram were not always regarded as a blessing. For example, in October 1779 at Birkacre in Chorle a mob attacked a mill partly owned by Richard Arkwright where they wrecked the new spinning machinery and burned the buildings containing them, fearing that the machines would take away their livelihoods. This, however, coincided with a slump in the cotton industry when a French fleet was able to restrict the importation to Britain of raw cotton. It foretold more serious riots when the power looms eventually began to take away the livelihoods of the handloom weavers.