BURY
1853
Bury Parish, principally situated in the Hundred of Salford, and partly in the Hundred of Blackburn, is divided into eight townships, four of which are chapelries, viz.- Heap, Tottington Higher, Tottington Lower, and Musbury; and the townships are Bury, Elton, Walmersley, and Coup Lench, with Newhall Hey, and Hall Car. It comprises an area of 22,240 statute acres; and its population in 1801 was 24,482; in 1811, 27,317; in 1821, 34,335; in 1831, 47,829; in 1841, 62,115; and according to the census of 1851, the parish numbered about 70,000. The population of the township of Bury in 1793, was only 2,900; in 1801, 7,072; in 1811, 8,762; in 1821, 10,583; in 1831, 15,086; in 1841, 20,710; and in 1851, 25,477. The parliamentary borough in 1851 contained 31,262 inhabitants. The Bury Poor Law Union is divided into the three districts of Bury, Pilkington, and Heap. The Bury district comprises the townships of Bury, Elton, Tottington Higher, Tottington Lower, and Walmersley. The Pilkington district includes the townships of Pilkington, Radcliffe, and Ainsworth; and the Heap district those of Heap, Birtle, Ashworth, Pilsworth, and Hopwood. The area of the union comprises 32,208 statute acres; and a population in the year 1851, of 88,797 persons. In the centre of this parish, embedded in the moss soil, trees as black as ebony have been frequently found, and an oak of extraordinary size was dug up at Redvales, where it had lain for probably thousands of years, accumulating firmness of texture without exhibiting any symptoms of decay. The district abounds with stone of excellent quality, and the flags and slate of Horncliffe are held in high repute.
Bury is a respectable and thriving
market town and parliamentary borough, pleasantly situated at the junction of
the East Lancashire with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and in a fertile
valley on the left bank of the Irwell, which runs close to the west side of the
town and intersects the parish from north to south, and is joined by the stream
of the Roach, which after watering the vale of the Heap, forms a junction with
it at the southern extremity of the parishes of Bury and Radcliffe, about two
miles from the former town. Bury is distant by railway from Manchester nine
miles north, forty-one E.N.E. from Liverpool by way of Manchester, eight south
from Rawtenstall, six E.N.E. from Bolton, ninety-five north from Birmingham, and
195 N.N.W. from London.
Though no doubt can exist of a emigrant
Flemings having established themselves in this parish in the reign of Edward
III., nor of their having fabricated their webs from the fleeces grown in the
forest of Tottington, yet the first distinct notice we have of the manufactures
of Bury is in the reign of Henry VIII., when Leland says, “Yerne sumtime made
abowte Beri, a market towne on Irwell.” In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an
aulneger was appointed at Bury, by act of parliament, to stamp woollen cloth,
for the purpose of preventing it from being unduly stretched on the tenders. The
cotton manufacture has now, however, superseded that of woollen, though the
latter, to a certain extent, is still carried on here; and being very favourably
situated in the centre of the great coal fields of Lancashire, and on the banks
of the Irwell, skirted by the Roach, the natural advantages of Bury as a
manufacturing station can scarcely be excelled. Bury is indebted to John Kay, a
native of the town, for his ingenuity in the invention of a new mode of throwing
the shuttle, by means of the picking peg instead of the hand, hence called the
fly-shuttle; and in 1760 his son Robert invented the drop-box, by which the
weaver can use any one of three shuttles, and thereby weave a fabric of various
colours with nearly the same facility as he can weave a common calico. It was
formerly the practice, in the process of spinning, to stop the machine while the
broken threads were united; but in the year 1791, Mr. Henry Whitehead, the late
postmaster of Bury, obviated the necessity of this perpetually recurring
interruption, by suggesting the method of pieceing the end while the
machine continued in motion, which was adopted from that time. To the ingenious
family of the Kays, and to this place, belong the important invention of setting
cards by machinery.
Mr. Robert Peel (afterwards created b
baronet), father of the late eminent statesman, stood at the head of an opulent
and enterprising firm that successfully established printworks here, a
circumstance which has contributed immensely to the commercial aggrandisement of
Bury, and to its elevation to a great degree of pre-eminence as a seat of the
cotton manufacture; and it is mainly owing to the perfection to which this
company brought the art of calico printing that the wealth and importance of the
town have been so considerably enhanced of late years, and by which they have
not only contributed to the prosperity of the country, but have also enriched
themselves.
Though the climate is humid, consequent
on the great quantity of rain which annually falls here, in common with all the
other places in the neighbourhood of those lofty mountain tracts which separate
Yorkshire from Lancashire; yet the parish is considered healthy, and many of the
inhabitants, particularly in the neighbourhood of Tottington, attain the age of
eighty or ninety, and sometimes reach and even exceed the patriaechal age of 100
years.
Early History.- Bury is supposed by
some writers to have been a Roman station. However this may be it is certainly a
place of considerable antiquity, although its present importance is only of
modern date. On the banks of the old course of the Irwell, in a field called
Castlecroft, close to the town, the foundations of a castle that formerly stood
here are frequently dug up, and where coins of the reigns of the Edwards, Henry
VIII., Elizabeth, and the Stewarts, have been found. In 1644, during the civil
wars which raged in Lancashire, this castle was battered by the cannon of the
parliamentary army from an entrenchment called Castle Steads, in the adjoining
township of Walmersley, and from that period the overthrow not only of this, but
of a large number of the castles of this kingdom may be dated. Bury, at an early
period, was one of the fees belonging to the royal manor of Tottington, which
was held by the Lacys, who enjoyed this possession soon after the Conquest,
along with the lordship of Blackburnshire. Robert de Lacy in the 22nd
of Henry II. made a grant of certain lands in the parish, to which Geoffre dean
of Whalley is witness. According to the Testa de Nevill, in the reign of Henry
III., Adam de Buri held a knight’s fee here of the Earl of Lincoln, who held it
of the Earl of Ferrers, the king’s tenant-in-chief, and Bury at that time was
part of the Countess of Lincoln’s dowry. Adam de Beri, according to the
enumeration of the fees of Roger de Montebogon, who died in the 9th
of King John, held one knight’s fee by ancient tenure; and Robert Gredle, baron
of Manchester, gave to another of this family, Robt. de Berri the elder,
fourteen bovates of land, of his demesne of Manchester, to be held, according to
Testa de Nevill, by the service of half a knight’s fee by himself and his heirs.
The manor of Bury, on the death of
Henry de Lacy, passed to Thomas Earl of Lancaster, in right of his wife Alicia,
the heiress of Lincoln. After the death of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, and on the
erection of the duchy of Lancaster in 1351, Roger Pilkington is enumersted
amongst the duchy tenants as holding one knight’s fee in Bury, which Adam de
Buri formerly held of the honor of Lancaster. Edward IV. granted a license to
Sir Thomas Pilkington, a devoted adherent of the house of York, to kernel and
embattle his manor house at Stand, and this continued the family residence till
the reign of Henry VII., when on the attainder of Sir Thomas Pilkington, the
manor of Bury and the estates of the Pilkington family being forfeited, were
granted by the crown under the great seal to Thomas Earl of Derby, and in the 13th
Henry VIII. this is found in the possression of the house of Derby, in which
family it still remains.
Camden, in the reign of Elizabeth,
describes Bury as a market town, not less considerable than Rochdale. Until the
middle of the 18th century, it does not appear that any material
change took place, though the woollen business had been carried on for ages, and
the cotton trade had begun to afford employment to a portion of the inhabitants.
In the south part pf the township is an ancient mansion of the family of the
Starkies, ancestors of Joseph Starkie, Esq high sheriff of the county of
Lancaster in 1799.
A melancholy occurrence, which caused
the greatest consternation in every part of the town, took place here on the
night of the 4th July, 1787, when the theatre fell, and buried 300 of
the audience in its ruins. Though a considerable number were speedily extricated
from their perilous situation, yet 16 lives were lost, and upwards of 50 had
their limbs broken and were otherwise dreadfully injuried. At a subsequent
period, a still more melancholy catastrophe occurred, by which the inhabitants
of Bury and the neighbourhood were thrown into a state of the greatest
excitement. On the 27th of August, 1831, the Rothsay Castle
steam-packet, when on an excursion of pleasure from Liverpool to Beaumaris,
encountered a violent storm on her passage, and struck on Dutchman Bank, at the
entrance to Braumaris Bay, about midnight, and before ten o’clock next morning
became a complete wreck. No pen could adequately describe the horrors of the
scene. Of the 150 persons on board, 22 only were saved, having escaped on
fragments of the vessel; and of the 128 unfortunate sufferers who perished, 26
belonged to the parish of Bury.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth
century, the parish church, dedicated to Saint Mary, had fallen into a state of
dilapidation, and in 1773 the whole of the building, except the steeple, was
taken down, and re-erected at a cost of about £3500, of which sum equal shares
were paid by the manor of Bury, the manor of Tottington, and the rector of the
parish. The living is a rectory, of which Roger de Poictou, soon after the
Norman Conquest, was patron. Since the reformation the patronage of the rectory
of Bury has been in the Derby family. In the year 1654, an Act of Parliament was
passed, empowering the rector for the time being, to grant building leases for
ninety-nine years, renewable at any period in the interim, which has been the
cause of materially improving this living. In the re-erection of the church,
amongst the old materials found, were a piece of timber, technically called a
pan, upon which was inscribed the Roman numerals DCLXXV, which would carry
the date of the church to the first introduction of Christianity into this
country. It is said, however, that this date was a mere fabrication produced by
the cupidity of the workmen employed in taking down the old building – that they
imposed upon the credulity of a neighbouring gentleman who had promised a reward
to the person who might discover some proof of the date of its original erection
– by inscribing on a piece of the old timber, the letters in question, to which
they contrived to give an appearance of antiquity.
The new structure is handsome and
spacious, and the interior is well finished, and free from gloom. The nave is
divided from the side aisles by plain columns. In the churchyard there are only
two monuments of any peculiar interest, though it is literally paved with grave
stones. One of the monuments is in memory of the Bamford family, of Bamford
Hall, who, while employed in the expedition with Captain Franklin, in his
attempt to explore the Polar regions, fell by the hand of an Indian. The other
is in memory of Lieutenants George and Robert Hood, sons of one of the
officiating ministers of this church. The following are the names of the rectors
of Bury, from 1507 to the present time, with the dates of institution :- John
Nabbes, Richard Smyth, October 21, 1596; Richard Johnes, February 4, 1557;
Walter King, August 18, 1568; Thomas Dearden, Peter Shaw, 1599; Hugh Watmough,
July 6, 1608; George Murray August 23, 1623; Peter Travers, March 16, 1633;
William Rothwell, 1634; John Lightfoot, 1660; John Greenhalgh, Thomas Gipps,
February 26, 1674; James Ranckes, March 5, 1712; John Stanley, July 19, 1753;
Sir William Clarke, Bar.., February 6, 1778; Geoffrey Hornby, September 24,
1818; the present rector is the Rev. Edward James Hornby.
Exclusive of the parish church, there
are eight Episcopal chapels in this parish, namely :- Saint John’s. Stanley
street, St. Paul’s, Wash lane, St. James,s at Bury, at Heywood, Edenfield
chapel, the chapel of Halcombe, and St. Ann’s, at Tottington Lower End. Bury
also contains a Catholic church, dedicated to St. Marie, a neat building of
stone, erected at a cost of £4006, in the Gothic style of architecture, of which
the Rev. James Boardman is the priest; and twenty-two dissenting chapels,
belonging to various denominations, eight of which are in Bury, five in Heywood,
and nine in the other out-townships. Those of the earliest date are, the
Presbyterian chapel, Bass lane, Walmersley, erected in 1664, and re-built 1797,
and Dundee chapel, built about 1690; Silver street chapel, built in 1719, for
the Presbyterians, which had only three ministers during a period of 105 years.
A new Presbyterian chapel, erected on the site of a former one, in Bank street,
at a cost of about £5000, was opened on Friday, the 22nd of October,
in the present year (1852). The building is erected in the pointed or
perpendicular style of ecclesiastical architecture, which prevailed in England
during the 15th century. The structure consists of a nave, four bays
in length, divided longitudinally by two rows of stone pillars, and pointed
arches, into centre and side aisles; a chancel, two bays in length, similarly
divided, and two transepts up the east and west sides opening into the nave near
its junctionwith the chancel, by pointed arches of loftier and larger dimensions
than the rest. The total length of the interior from north to south is 81 feet 6
inches, the total width of nave and chancel 48 feet 10 inches, and the width
across the transepts is 68 feet 4 inches. The nave and chancel are of equal
width and height, and externally the roof presents one unbroken line against the
sky; but internally those two portions are divided by the arch above-mentioned.
The Rev. Franklin Howarth is the present minister. A new Baptist chapel was
erected in Spring street, in 1852, at a cost of £1200, raised by subscription.
The building is of stone, in the Gothic style of architecture, and the Rev.
Joseph Harvey is the present minister.
In the parish of Bury, the public
charities are not so numerous or so important as in many other parts of
Lancashire. The free school, founded by the Rev. Roger Kay, M.A., rector of
Tittleton, in the county of Wilts, in 1726, stands pre-eminent amongst these
parochial benevolent institutions. For the perpetual endowment of this school,
he settled in trustees all his freehold estate called Chadwick Hall, or
Chadwick, in the neighbouring parish of Rochdale, and a rent charge of £25 per
annum, upon his estate of Ewood Hall, in the township of Haslingden, in the
parish of Whalley. It is directed by the original statutes of this school, that
the headmaster shall be paid the sum of £50 annually for his services, and £20
annually to the usher; but in consequence of the increased value of the
property, the head master now receives £200 a year, with a house rent free, and
the usher receives £100.
The Hon. and Rev. John Stanley, rector
of this parish, and other inhabitants, founded a school here in 1748, for the
education of 80 boys and 30 girls, which has since been converted into a
national school. A spacious building was erected by subscription, as a school
house at a cost of £1000, the land on which it stands being given by the Earl of
Derby. The other charities belonging to the parish are Tottington school,
erected in 1515, and endowed with £12 per annum, together with the interest of
£200. James Lancashire, in 1737, bequeathed £50 to each of the schools of
Unsworth chapel, Heywood chapel, and Walmersley. James Starkie, in 1749,
bequeathed £30 for the use of Heywood school. Edenfield school is entitled to an
annual income of £3 or £4. Baldingstone school, in Walmersley, is supported by
the rent of a tenement called Bentley, augumented with the sum of £50. Ann
Bamford, in 1778, bequeathed £30 a year, with premises for a free school, at
Heywood, together with £1000 for the use of such Schools, to be laid out in
land, but dying within twelve months from the date of her will, the statute of
mortmain took effect, and the bequest became void. Robert Shepherd granted a
rent charge of £9, subject to a deduction of £1 10s. to poor housekeepers, and
William Yates, in 1810, bequeathed the interest of £400 to deserving persons of
the same township. On the parish tablets are recorded several other bequests of
small amount. A savings bank was established at Bury on the 1st of
April, 1822, which is open on every Wednesday, from two till four, and on every
Saturday, from two till four, and from six till eight. Mr Abraham Wood is
treasurer, and Mr. John George Thomas Child, is the actuary.
Several new schools have recently been
erected in this town and the surrounding townships. The Holy Trinity School,
situate in Georgiana street, is a handsome stone edifice, in the Elizabethan
style, erected in 1851, at a cost of £2000, raised by subscription, and a
parliamentary grant. It is divided into three compartments, one for the
accommodation of 150 boys, one for 200 girls, and one for infants, of whom 200
are generally in attendance. John Shaw and Amelia Rutter are the present
teachers. St. Paul’s National School, situate in Taylor street, near Rochdale
road, is a neat building of brick, erected by subscription in 1852, for the
accommodation of 150 boys, and the same number of girls. The present teachers
are George Henry Bowes. and Ellen Wood. Pimhole School, conducted on the
National system, is a commodious edifice, situate at Pimhole, about one mile
from Bury, and erected through the benevolence of Mr. Thomas Openshaw, an
opulent cotton spinner, of the town, for the accommodation of 200 pupils. George
and Theresa Wilson are the master and mistress. The Choristers School, in
connexion with the Parish church, is situated in the Wylde, and was established
in 1850, for the purpose of training about 20 boys for the musical service of
the church. The course of instruction comprises a good plain education, and a
thorough knowledge of music. This excellent institution is entirely supported by
the rector. Mr. Edward Spark is the choir master. The Wesleyan School, opened in
1851, is a neat brick building, in Clerk street, erected by subscription, at a
cost of £1000, and will accommodate 600 children.
The town of Bury has made rapid strides
in the scale of improvement during the last twenty or thirty years. Many
important alterations and improvements have been effected; old and dilapidated
buildings have given place to handsome new erections, the streets are becoming
spacious, and on every hand indications of growing prosperity, private
enterprise, and public spirit, are manifested.
The establishment of a Dispensary for
the recovery of the sick poor, situate in Moss street, may be noticed among the
modern improvements, as well as a number of Sunday and Day schools for the
instruction of poor children, together with the establishment of several
newsrooms, a public library, a mechanic’s institute, and a horticultural
society.
The town is governed by three
constables, appointed at the annual court baron, held on Whit Monday, by the
agent of the Earl of Derby, and the magistrates hold petty sessions every Monday
and Friday, in the Town Hall, Market street, a neat stone building, recently
erected by the Earl of Derby, and to which is attached the Derby Hotel, also
built by his lordship. The acting magistrates are Richard Ashton, Esq., Edmund
Grundy, Esq., Joseph Knowles, Esq., and James Harrison, Esq. The County Court,
for the recovery of debts to any amount not exceeding £50, is likewise held in
the Town Hall, John S. T. Greene, Esq., of Leigh is the judge. In addition to
the cotton and woollen manufacturers, there are in the town and neighbourhood
several large iron and brass foundries, extensive engineering establishments,
and bleaching and dye works, which, with the numerous cotton mills and factories
in the district, afford employment to a large portion of the inhabitants.
The neighbourhood abounds with valuable
and inexhaustible coal mines, which with the plentiful supply of water from the
several streams that meander through the town and its vicinity, in conjunction
with the canal navigation, and subsequent railway advantages, have all combined
to render Bury a flourishing seat of the cotton and other manufactures. The
making of hats is also a branch of some importance here. The town is brilliantly
lighted with gas, and the Waterworks Company, established in 1839, furnished it
with an abundant supply of water.
In the centre of the Old Market place,
opposite the Parish church, stands the Peel monument, erected by subscription in
1852, at a cost of £3000, in memory of the late eminent and lamented statesman,
the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., father of Mr. Frederick Peel, the present
member for Bury. The pedestal on which the figure stands, is composed of Scotch
granite, 12 feet 6 inches in height, enclosed within a strong iron palisading,
having a gas lamp at each corner, and the figure by which the pedestal is
surmounted, being 10 feet in height, gives to the whole a commanding appearance.
There are three annual fairs held at
Bury, namely, on the 5th of March, the 3rd of May, and 18th
of September, and the market, which was formerly held on Thursday, according to
the charter, has long been discontinued, but custom has established a market on
Saturday, which is well supplied with provisions. The Market Cross, an ancient
stone column, bearing the date of 1659, having fallen into decay, was taken down
in the year 1818, Marriages were proclaimed at this cross in the time of the
Commonwealth.