Cheadle Militia 1809

It being the 18^th June and the 199^th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo I came across a reference in a newspaper to the Napoleonic War version of the Home Guard, the militia regiments that were recruited during the years of the war with France and her allies. During the early 19^th century regiments were formed in local communities to defend the country from enemies, both external and internal. Militia largely comprised of the landed gentry or the middle classes, Catholics and some Nonconformists were excluded although restrictions were lifted later when the country faced an acute manpower shortage after 1812 when wars against the French and the Americans drained resources. Over 100,000 men joined the Militia and recruitment increased sharply when there was a possibility of French invasion during 1803-4. The number of men under arms was staggering with something like half of all men of military age donning uniform. The presence of the military in everyday life even finds itself described in the pages of “Pride and Prejudice” with the flighty Lydia drooling over the presence of the uniformed Mr Wickham and his soldier colleagues. The need for large numbers involved in the war caused strains on the manufacturing capacity of British factories and shortages of uniform and weapons were reported which reminded me of similar problems faced over 100 years later when the Home Guard was formed.

Their duties were varied and could include guarding prisoners of war. In 1799 the Staffordshire Militia were called out to guard Dutch prisoners, the task of standing watch over captured enemy combatants grew more onerous as the war progressed and more prisoners were landed in the country. By 1810 prisoner numbers stood at 52,000, some of the number finding their way to Leek which housed 300 French POWs.

The Militia were also called to suppress civil disorder in times of hardship. One example occurred at the “Battle” of Macclesfield in April 1812 when 300 rioters descended on the town demanding shop owners lower their prices.  It was an example of what the late Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm would have called “collective bargaining by riot” Order was eventually restored by the Stockport Militia who even brought up cannon to deal with the disturbances. (On one occasion the Militia sided with the rioters when soldiers in Portsmouth demanded that butchers reduce their prices). Staffordshire Militia were also ordered to Nottinghamshire during the Luddite uprising in the same yea.

There were also times of display when the Staffordshire Militia paraded before the Prince of Wales at Windsor in 1799 to celebrate his birthday.

Discipline could be lax and whimsical; the Dorset Volunteers fined soldiers 6p for laughing when the command of “attention” was given. Nearer home in Cheadle in April 1809 the local regiment “composed of well sized and muscular young men” who were well drilled, but lacked control as the following incident illustrates.  One of the recruits insulted the commanding officer Colonel Wilson. The man was condemned to be flogged, but Wilson revoked the order and addressed the company on the need to follow orders which had a “salutary effect of the corps”

Accidents

I took part in a trade union health and safety course recently. The lecturer made the point about how many lives had been saved by the implementation of the legislation since 1974. It made me think of my own ancestors who had died in accidents at work such as Thomas Sherwin killed in an explosion at the pit at Wetley Moor in 1841. I considered when the view was taken that accidents ceased being the result of Acts of God and began to be seen as a consequence of organisational failure. Of course some attitudes persist. Witness the recent remarks of the Nigerian Aviation Minister who blamed a series of plane crashes on God’s displeasure.

By the 17^th century for the first time statistical evidence began to be collated on the causes of death. The “Bills of Mortality” for London in 1647 give a death rate of unintended as 2.1 per 100,000. For reference, the rate in Britain was 53.6 per 100,000 in the 19^th century. Today it is 0.6. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, accident rates soared with the introduction of unguarded machinery in confined spaces as well as in mining. The state then began to collect data on a more systematic basis and legislated accordingly. The first Factory Acts were passed in the 1840s and inspectors appointed to ensure that laws were enforced. It is difficult to find any suggestion that industrial accidents were caused by divine displeasure, most sought human failing as a reason.

I found in the Oxford Journal of 21^st December 1779 a report of a “shocking” accident when “Mr Cooper’s London Waggon from Manchester being left to the care of a boy about 4 miles from Leek when coming to descending ground and the boy not able to stop the horses to lock the wheels the wagon ran down the bridge and there overturned into the river; whereby Serjeant Adkin, his wife( who was pregnant and near delivery) and a little girl of his; all Passengers therein, were instantly all crushed to death; one Horse was killed, and others much hurt, the Waggon broke to pieces”.

A later comment suggested that the boy driver was too young for that level of responsibility.

The accident probably happened on the border of Staffordshire and Cheshire beside the River Dane on the A523.  The road to Macclesfield had been improved and turnpiked in 1762 although the route was later changed by a later road.

The London Waggon was a large cart with benches inside and covered by canvas. It was drawn by 8 horses with the Waggoner walking beside them travelling at 2 miles an hour .It would have taken several days to cover the 200 miles from Manchester to London. The Waggon was an inexpensive form of transport, about half the cost of a stage coach. Travellers could take as much luggage as the vehicle would hold and the horses could draw. The ride was a very uncomfortable and slow experience.

An advert from two years earlier recorded

'This is to acquaint all Gentlemen, Tradesmen, and Others, that Mat. Pickford's Flying Waggons to London Via Leek, Derby, etc in Six days Set out from the Saracen's Head, in Market Street Lane, Manchester, every Wednesday, at Six o'clock in the Evening, and arrive at the Swan Inn, Lad Lane, London, the Tuesday noon following”

The Medieval Forest

Today only fragments of the great forests that surrounded the Staffordshire Moorlands during the Middle Ages remain.  The Peak Forest exists in name only. Delamere is a meagre fragment of what it once was, and Macclesfield was altered massively by the introduction of commercial timber unknown to the medieval verderer. Cannock and Needwood survive but much shrunken by cultivation and encroachment by man. Sherwood, of Robin Hood fame used to cover huge swathes of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. It is much reduced now.

Local place names mark the importance of woods in the landscape with Ashbourne, Oakamoor, Birchall and Westwood marked on modern maps.

In the years after the Conqueror the forests of the King would have stretched as far as the eyes could see. They were protected so that the monarch could indulge their great passion of hunting, and they were determined to protect their interest with punitive laws. King John was famously forced to sign the Magna Carta but alongside the Great Charter he was required to agree to the Forest Charter which enshrined the rights of dwellers in the woods. Both documents were the foundations on which the social structure of England was founded. (The existence of the Forest Charter was used in 2010 by people campaigning against the privatisation of the Forestry Commission)

The forests of the 13^th century were the relicts of the primeval woods of oak, beech, ask and hornbeam, etc that covered the country. By that time game that lived in the forest was protected and harsh punishments were meted out to any peasant who succumbed to temptation. As time progressed the King and the aristocracy became more desperate to protect a vanishing heritage when the woods were alive with much game for the enjoyment of the monarch and his supporters.

There were growing pressures on the landscape as people who lived at the fringes of the forest sought to take advantage of it. Extra meat could be had if you were not caught by the King’s representative, honey was for the taking, acorns could be collected to feed the pigs and wood collected for burning on peasant fires. The needs of the common people could often conflict with the law and the person responsible for maintaining the estate, the Chief Forester.

The records of forest proceedings are full of poaching stories such as the occasion when a group killed 3 deer in the Rockingham Forest in 1255.

“They cut off the head of the deer and placed it with a spindle in its mouth that made it gape towards the Sun in contempt of the King and the foresters”.

And sometimes more locally the friction could lead to violence when in Christmas 1325 the Chief Forester of Cannock William Le Wolf was murdered at Hopwas carrying out his duty by Roger de Swynerton.

By the arrival of the Tudors much of the forest had been surrended to the plough. Even today the woods of Anglo Norman England shorn of their dense vegetation and turned into pasture, still speak to the historian of ancient times, the isolated farms, the clumps of trees here or there and the coppice surviving mid field proclaim the primordial forest

Cross dressing at Biddulph Moor- a 19th century "singularity"

The following “singular” case appeared in the Morning Post in the autumn of 1848 concerning a Biddulph Moor woman. On the 16^th September Doctor Bland ,a physician in the Macclesfield work house was asked to attend a man dying from dysentery who lived in a lodge house in the town. He thought that the man who was aged about 60 looked decidedly feminine around the face. The man named John Smith also had a womanly voice. He spoke to Smith's wife who was with some of her eleven children. She was not married to him, but had met him 14 years ago in New Mills, Derbyshire. Smith worked as an itinerant knife grinder and spoon maker. His wife said that he was a supportive husband. Some days later John Smith died and Bland returned to sign the death certificate. His suspicions were correct and Smith was female. His wife told the doctor that she had only found out the day before Smith's death that he was male when he had her implored to sew the body into a winding sheet. She told Bland that the 11 children had been fathered by her first husband. “John Smith” was buried in Christ Church and a great deal of interest was shown at the funeral.

After subsequent investigation Bland found that the dead woman had been born Sophie Locke in a cave at Croker Wood, Sutton and moved to live with her extended family who lived on Biddulph Moor. Sophie followed her father's occupation as a tinker and knife grinder. The Lockes were an itinerant lot and spent the year moving around the country, although they always wintered on the moor. From an early age she dressed as a male and often accompanied her brother around the pubs in Biddulph and Congleton where the two would dance and play the violin. She appeared to be a volatile soul and pretty handy with her fists. Sophie got involved in a massive punch up at Bolton Green in Lancashire and in the fight a breast was exposed. News of the incident got back to Biddulph and the community impressively kept the secret for the remainder of her life. Over the years whenever she met someone from the town she became very wary and withdrew from society although the concealment held. She rarely visited Biddulph Moor after the Lockes were accused of sheep stealing.

She lived as a husband to several women including one whom she married in Winster Church in Derbyshire. The story is that a serving girl became pregnant after a liaison with a local squire. Sophie was encouraged to marry the woman and bring the child up as the “father” and this relationship lasted some years. The woman that Doctor Bland met had lived with Sophie for about 14 years and spent the year travelling around the country with Locke and her large brood of children. Taking part in the hop picking in Worcestershire every autumn was something that the family enjoyed.

As I said earlier Sophie gained enjoyment from challenging men to fight. On one occasion at Bosley she was making a noise in a local pub. She was defying a room full of men when in walked a hawker from Biddulph that she knew. She exchanged compliments with the man and then left.

She was described as being dark haired, of wiry build and very swarthy ( that sounds very “Saracen “ to me). The writer of the “Morning Post article remarked “ that she would draw the attention of many admirer of the gypsy picturesque”.

The death of Robert Peel 1850

The death of Margaret Thatcher has resulted in heated debated about her 11 years in office. The divisive nature of her politics has split the nation ,but there can be no doubt that she was a transforming political figure. Her demise and the way in which the news has been regarded bought to my mind the death of another Tory Prime Minister 163 years ago.

In many ways there are many similarities between Robert Peel and Margaret Thatcher, gender aside. Both came from provincial towns, Grantham and Bury. Both were outsiders. Peel was a representative of the new industrial class- the family had made money in textiles. Thatcher was the daughter of a shop keeper. And bought success and eventual damage on their own party- the Conservative Party and both were driven from office by erstwhile allies. The issue that bought Peel down was him changing his mind on legislation that protected the price of bread, the Corn Laws. This policy was bought in after the Napoleonic Wars to protect the income of the landowners who were the backbone of the Tory Party. Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846 after pressure exerted by the highly successful pressure group the Anti Corn Law League. It split the Tory Party between those who supported protection and those in favour of Free Trade. The divide led to the Tories being out of power for 30 years. Repeal had a dramatic impact on food halving its price directly benefiting those on low incomes.

When Peel died in a riding accident in 1850 there was a universal sense of loss especially among the working class. This sense of grief was felt in Leek when a meeting was held in the Swan in September 1850 to consider what to do to honour Peel's memory who incidentally was a Staffordshire MP- he represented Tamworth.

Mr Doxey a working man spoke at the meeting said that as a consequence of Peel's Government “ We are in a state of peace, our trade was good, and we are blessed with an abundance with food and clothing within the reach of the working man. We have also our Mechanic Institute where knowledge was cheap and many excellent institutions, where the needy were carried for. He was an admirer of a great man , through whose influences the condition of the poor had so much benefited”

 A show of hands at the meeting proposed that money raised in Leek should go to the building of almshouses for the poor. Another view outlined in a poster addressed to the Working Men of Leek favoured public baths in the town as had been erected to Peel's memory in Macclesfield.

 I don't know what happened to the funds that were collected, but around the industrial north still exist memorials to the Tory Statesman. Peel Park's still exist in Bradford, Blackpool and Salford.