A Baptist Church in Eccles, Lancashire, 1831-1842

The People

Altogether, 93 individuals are mentioned in the record, with a total of 37 surnames (Table 1). Deducting the 8 Gileses, the other 22 newborn children, the two surgeons, and the nurse who came from Manchester, this leaves 60 adults, 34 of them women and 26 men, in at least 34 families. As mentioned, there are thirteen couples who have children in the six-year period of the register.  They all have different surnames, except for two couples surnamed Parr, and five of the twelve surnames are borne by one or more other adults in the register. But we get a much clearer picture of the make-up of this community if we note how often the various individuals appear as witnesses to namings of children, other than their own. The following account is arranged on that basis, and is supplemented with such information as could be found in other near-contemporary records, especially census returns, marriage registers and inscriptions on gravestones. (Detailed references are in Tables 4, Table 5 and Table 6).

James HENSHAW is one of the deacons.  He does not appear as a parent, but he witnesses six namings, and there is also Ann Henshaw, who witnesses nine, the largest number witnessed by anyone. There is nothing to show the relationship of these two, but we might reasonably suppose that they were among the older members of the congregation.  We may also suppose that women were not eligible to be deacons, though it is very clear that they were allowed as witnesses.

William and Elizabeth Henshaw are the parents of three children in the period under review, and Elizabeth also witnesses two. William, a weaver, living in Eccles, ^[58] would have been in his late twenties^[59] when he married Elizabeth, whose maiden name was Edge, in 1829,^[60] and he actually had at least five children, the two oldest having been born before the chapel register was started.  But Elizabeth apparently died some time before mid-1841.^{[61] [62]}

The other deacon is John BARLOW, also a weaver. He is about the same age as William Henshaw, but already a widow.^[63] He had married Lois Johnson – called Louisa in the official marriage record -  in 1831,  and they had only the two children, born in 1833 and 1835 and both named in the chapel. John also witnessed four namings, Lois none, and she would appear to have died quite young as she is absent from the 1841 census.^[64]  This is no doubt the reason why (by then) they had another girl, Mary Darbyshire, aged 13, in the same house, presumably helping to look after the children.^[65]

There is another adult Barlow, Mary, who appears as a witness once.

The most numerous family is PARR. There are two couples, Samuel and Ann, and Job and Elizabeth, who produce two children and one child respectively. Samuel witnesses four namings, Ann witnesses six; Job none, but Elizabeth one. And besides these four young adults there is James, relationship unknown, who witnesses three namings.  In this family at least we can guess at a previous dissenting background, from the Old Testament names of the two senior males.

Samuel Parr had married Ann Brittain in 1832.  They lived in a part of Patricroft on the west side of the canal, ^[66]  and, in 1841 at least, Samuel, aged in his early forties, was merely an agricultural labourer - but he could write. He signed the marriage register (as also did Ann) and he signed the chapel register, several times, in a good flowing hand.  Living with them, was a Mary Brittain, obviously a relative, aged 38. It was most unusual in the census – in fact contrary to rule -  for the age not to have been rounded down to 35, and a close examination of the census return shows that Ann’s age was written as 36 at first then altered to 35. We can see that these people knew their own ages, and were willing to disclose them to the census taker.

Job Parr, a little younger than Samuel, was a joiner. He married Elizabeth Rogerson in 1826.  Unusually, the marriage was by licence. It is not obvious why this was so, but it does give us extra help, as we learn incidentally that Elizabeth was below the age of consent.^[67] She was “upwards” of twenty years, which in this case means just twenty, as the age of consent was 21. Job himself could not have been much over 21. It is Elizabeth’s father, Robert Rogerson, who signs, with his mark. Job signs in his own hand, again bold and fluent like Samuel’s, and next day they both signed the marriage register. By mid-1841 they had six children, two born before the chapel register began, and one after it closed.^[68]

The BRITTAIN family is the married couple James and Mary, who produce three children; also Ann Brittain who had married Samuel Parr; and two other adults, Roger and Mary. The name Brittain is prominent in the Eccles area, and we find various other spellings, Britain, Britten, Brittan and even Brittian, not always consistently when the same family appears in different records.  James does not witness any namings other than his own children, and it is not certain that his wife does either.

James is in his mid thirties, by profession a hatter, living and presumably working in Catch Inn Lane. ^[69] His marriage, probably, was to a Mary Hughes, in 1832.  (We have to say probably, because the register in question does not specify occupations, and because the date implies that Mary was six months pregnant at the time, which may or may not have been unusual). Of the three children named in the chapel, the first one, Elizabeth, must have died young; but the next two are found in the census, and a fifth, Ann was born later, in about August 1840.

We know there was another Mary Brittain, because on two occasions both of them are listed [13,14], and given that the name of Mary occurs five more times as a witness, we can guess that one was older than the other and it was the older one that was mostly recorded. We can also guess that it is she who was living with the Parr family in 1841, as mentioned above.  The connection of Brittain and Parr families by marriage is strengthened further by the fact that at the naming of Hannah, daughter of  Samuel and Ann Parr, both Mary Brittains were witnesses.

John BARROW  has three children named in the register, all girls, the second and third of them twins.  His wife is named as Mary Ann on both occasions [15, 24].^[70]  The name Mary Barrow (perhaps a different person) also occurs as a witness, together with John when that name appears for the first time. John is a fairly frequent witness, with five namings, but Mary witnesses only the once. The Barrow family have not been traced in any other early records, but we do know the later family history of the twin girls. They married two men, incomers to the district, George Cooper^[71] and John Standeven, both of whose families were prominent in the later Particular Baptist chapel in Patricroft.^{[72] [73]}  John Barrow himself was still living in 1881, in the Standeven household.^[74] He was a farmer (retired by then) born in Eccles about 1810, so he would have been about 23 years old when he first appeared in the record and about 26 when his daughter Elizabeth was born.

The CROMPTON family are also prominent in the chapel register, John and Alice having three children of their own, and witnessing respectively seven and three others. John was a weaver, in Catch Inn Lane (a little later he moved round the corner into Phillips Street^[75]), and besides the three children named in the register, they had two older, and at least one younger.^[76]

There is another adult, Phoebe Crompton, who witnesses one naming – of James Crompton. She too is a weaver, and by 1841, in her early forties, already apparently a widow, with a large family, the older ones also working as weavers. ^[77] It is almost certain that Phoebe’s husband was also called James, and that her own maiden name was Wood,^[78] though there are slight problems in the records which tell us this.^[79]

Samuel and Alice LINGARD witness one naming and subsequently have one child of their own, and Thomas and Elizabeth BOWKER have one child, but otherwise do not appear. These again are prominent Eccles names and it would be difficult to identify the people elsewhere were it not for the fact that they seem to be linked. A Samuel Lingard married an Alice, surnamed Turner, at Manchester in November 1832, and the marriage was witnessed by a Thomas Bowker. Then two months later, also at Manchester, Thomas Bowker married Elizabeth Lingard, and the marriage was witnessed by Alice Lingard. It was rare for a woman to appear as a witness, and this supports the assumption that these are the same two couples as appear in the chapel register. In fact the connection continues there, for when Thomas and Elizabeth have their son James named in 1833, Samuel and Alice both appear as witnesses.^[80]

Some other families have children named in the church, but otherwise show a low profile. Thomas and Johnina BENT have their son Edwin named.  He was born in Pendleton, not Eccles or Patricroft.^[81] In the chapel record, only Johnina appears again, about a year later, witnessing two namings on the same day, Crompton and Lomax. The writer of the record mis-spelled Johnina's first name and had to alter it.  Perhaps we can conjecture that the Bent family were not strongly attached to the Baptist cause, but were personal friends or relatives of the Cromptons and/or Lomaxes.

John and Martha COOKSON also have one child named, and John witnesses one other. As noted above, there is a curiosity over the date of the naming of their own child, and there may be still some doubt that all the records refer to the same couple.

We would expect to find some married couples without young children, but of course this particular record cannot show if they were married or not. It is a fact however that five surnames appear with just two first names each, one male and one female in each case. Thomas and Ann LOWE figure as witnesses to five namings — the same five — and Anne is also witness to a birth, i.e. she is evidently a midwife. This looks very much like a married couple of an older generation. Records show that they married in 1816, had a child in c. 1818,^[82] and by 1841 they had a family of six (Table 4). Other possible couples are Thomas and Ann HILL, John and Sarah JOHNSON, and Isaac and Ann MOSS. Hill and Johnson are common names, and there is little point in searching indexes for them, but Moss is less common and more local. An Isaac Moss did indeed marry an Ann, maiden name Turner, at Eccles in1825. We have met the name Turner once already, and it recurs yet again, for Isaac and Ann witnessed the naming of one of the Lingard children, and an Elizabeth Turner was another witness at the same time.

Martha CHAPMAN, as already noted, witnesses a birth in a professional capacity as a nurse, and William and Martha Chapman witness one naming each. They are different namings and there is nothing to show that they are a couple or that it is the same Martha.

The other two midwives, or “birth witnesses” are not called “nurse”, but they were also presumably well experienced. Elizabeth JACKSON acts as midwife for two, and also witnesses the namings of the same two, which suggests that she was a chapel adherent, though as yet we know nothing more about her. The other birth witness, one of the two who attends the Barrow twins, does not witness the naming. She is Isabella WILCOCK, living in Factory Row, a relatively crowded district in the industrial area north-east of  Patricroft Bridge.^[83] Her husband is Andrew, a labourer. Isabella would have been about 50 years old at the time she was mentioned in the record, and Andrew about 8 years younger, though in the census he too is nominally “50”. At the time of 1841 census, they had a family of nine. The six oldest were all in work, but the two youngest, aged 10 or upwards, were not, nor apparently were they attending school.^[84]  There was also a baby, William, born in May 1841.  Perhaps he was a grandchild rather than child of Andrew and Isabella.  It is also of interest that they have a young child of another family living them, Sarah Barlow, aged 3. The name is familiar, but not to be confused with the Sarah Barlow referred to above, who was older and living elsewhere.

We would also expect to find a number of single people who actively support the church, and this seems to be the case. The most prominent are two men and one woman: Thomas GREATRIX witnesses seven namings, John ROYLE three, and Anne Price ROSE witnesses five.  Greatrix or Gratrix is another noted Eccles name, and we cannot identify Thomas without more collateral evidence.^[85] Rose however is not a local name.  Anne Rose is the first person to appear in the register besides the minister and the Henshaws: she witnesses the first naming, in 1831. There are signs that she too stands apart from the rest either socially or in terms of education. She is the only one outside the minister's family to have a middle name, and although her first name is a popular one, she spells it Anne, like Mary Anne Giles, and differently from the six other women called Ann.^[86] Examination of handwriting suggests that it was Anne Rose who actually wrote the register entries, i.e. that she was the church secretary.^[87]  She is not found in Barton in the 1841 census – had she left the district along with the Gileses? Was she a relative?

Finally there are individuals who each witness one naming only. Already mentioned are Mary Barlow, Roger Brittain, Judith Bryce, Phoebe Crompton, Elizabeth Turner and Isabella Wilcocks.  The others are: Maria Armitage, Alice Bradburn, Ann Carefoot, Henry Crombleholme, Jane Fletcher, Thomas Grey,^[88] Alexander Grieg (a Scotsman?), Peter March (should this be Marsh, a commoner name in the area?), Charlotte and Elizabeth Rogerson^[89] (relatives of Elizabeth, Mrs Samuel Parr?), Mary and Ellen Taylor (sisters?). No doubt this list includes some who had no real connection with the church, as already suggested for the Bent family. The proportion of women to men who only witness is eleven to four. This may be typical of church congregations, or it may be that friends of the mother rather than the father would tend to be invited as witnesses.

© Roderick D. Cannon.