Part 4
However much faith may vary and forms of belief change, men will always respect those who listen to the voice of conscience, and obey that inward monitor when its behests bring scorn and persecution. The Quakers had the true martyr-spirit, and would not abate a single iota of their testimony either for the fear or the favour of man. In Lurting’s narrative we see the plain, straightforward character of the man. There is no evidence of self-consciousness to mar the picturesque force of the essentially heroic quality of his deeds. Liverpool can boast of some great names, but let her cherish the name of her Quaker hero, “the Fighting Sailor turned peaceable Christian.”
Footnote 1:
We append a few short notices of this family, in chronological order.
1333-1345. In the time of Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, W. Lurtyng, of Chester, is mentioned. See _31st Report of Record Office_, p. 82.
_The following are extracts from the “Liverpool Municipal Records_”:—
1581. On the 21st August, John Lyrting, residing in Juggler Street, Liverpool, was assessed for a “Taxation or Levy at the sum of xvii^d.”—the highest charge in the street being 2s. 6d., and the lowest 4d.—ii., 218.
1617. Thomas Lurting, Juggler Street.—ii., 827.
1628, 7th October. “Item, wee prsent Thomas Lurtinge for switchinge Nicholas Rydinge wth a sticke.”—iii., 63.
1636/7. Nich Lurting first in jury.—iii., 177.
1644. John Lurting, “saler,” burgess of Liverpool.—iii., 359.
1644 and 1649. Peter Lurting and Thomas Lurting, freemen (iii., 361). Also John Lurting, Smith, Wm. Lurting de Cestr, Wm. Lurting, Smith, and Robert Lurting.
1651. “Tho. Lurting, for a Tussle upon Tho^s. Hoskins, iiis. iiiid.”—iii., 506.
1663-4. Peter Lurting, Mayor.
1672. Peter Lurting, tenant of Godscroft, 1s. rent; Rich. Lurting, of a smithy at Water Side, 5s.; Rich. Lurting, Castle Hill, 13s. for 13 yards front.
Footnote 2:
Majorca.
Kufic Coins found in Lancashire.
In the great find of coins at Cuerdale in North Lancashire, besides a single Byzantine piece there were several Kufic coins, along with some of North Italy, about a thousand French and two thousand eight hundred Anglo-Saxon pieces. In these coins, and in those found over the whole of Northumbria are to be seen the evidences of the active commercial intercourse that even in the pre-historic ages prevailed between the Eastern world and the people of the North of Europe, and especially those dwelling on the shores of the Baltic. This has been abundantly proved by the numerous archæological discoveries made from time to time.[3]
Whilst Scandinavia was still in the Stone and Bronze stages of the development of civilisation, merchants came to the Baltic for furs, tin, and the yellow amber so highly prized as an ornament by the oriental women. Indeed Oppert has shown that ten centuries before the Christian era the Assyrians had at least indirect communication with the Baltic shores, the only locality known to the ancient world where the yellow amber could be procured. The references to amber in Homer and Hesiod have not passed without dispute, but the discoveries of Greek coins in various parts leave little or no doubt as to the existence of commercial routes, which went from the Black Sea, by the Dnieper, the Bug and the Dniester, to gain the basin of the Niemen and of the Vistula, and thence spread to the Baltic. The amber commerce in the hands of the Milesians and the Greeks found various routes. The Roman women were as passionately partial to amber ornaments as their sisters of the East, and there is sufficient testimony as to the commercial intercourse of Rome with the barbarians of the North.
The Arabs, although in the Middle Ages they had the monopoly of the trade, were not its originators, but merely continued an intercourse that had existed from remote antiquity. The mediæval geographers had very little precise knowledge; but in the Mappa Mundi of the tenth century, in the British Museum, the parts of northern Europe indicated with the fewest misconceptions are the countries of the amber trade. The rapid conquest of western Asia by the Arabs was followed by those internal dissensions which led to the formation of independent kingdoms. The Samanides, who reigned in Persia and dominated the shores of the Caspian Sea, were the principal cultivators of the North trade. The Arabs, if they had little taste for maritime commerce, were admirably adapted to be the leaders of great caravans, by which the riches of the East were spread into far lands. From Egypt they went across the Sahara to Nigritia, from whence they brought gold, ivory, and slaves. Passing through Persia and Cashmere they worked in the direction of India. Crossing the immense steppes of Tartary, they entered China by the province of Shen-si. Their caravans to Europe passed by Armenia on the south, and by Bokhara and Khorassan on the east. There were great fairs at Samarcand, Teheran, Bagdad, and other places. The merchants directed their course to the Caspian, and halted at Derbend before ascending the Volga. The itinerary of these pilgrims of commerce can be reconstructed from the Kufic coins and accompanying ornaments that have been found at Kazan, Perm, Tula, Moscow, Smolensk, Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and other localities. The finds of Arabic moneys in the Russian Empire have occurred almost exclusively in the country watered by the Volga, which was the line of communication for the Arabs with the Slavs and Scandinavians of the Middle Ages. The shores of Germany, Lithuania, and Sweden were visited. The most northerly discoveries of Kufic coins have been by the river Angermann, which empties itself in the Gulf of Bothnia. The islands of Gothland, Oland, and Bornholm appear to have been the centre of this commercial activity. Lithuania, Denmark, and Poland, especially the latter, have also yielded to the antiquarian investigator many evidences of intercourse with the Arabs. On the coasts of Pomerania and along the course of the Oder Kufic coins have been found, the southern limit being apparently in Silesia.
Worsaae in speaking of some silver ornaments with a triangular pattern of three or four points, also found at Cuerdale, says “that the discovery of so many coins of this class in Russia, from the Caspian and the Black Sea up to the shores of the Baltic, sufficiently proves that from the eighth until the eleventh century there existed a very lively intercourse by trade between the East and the northern parts of Europe.”[4]
The Vikings, who are usually regarded as simply pirates, had their share in this commerce. From the East came rich fabrics, ornaments and vases, and their bearers carried back in return ermines, furs, slaves, and, above all, amber, which whilst valued as an ornament was also credited with wonderful powers of preserving the health of the wearer. This commerce did not have so much social or political result as might have been expected from four centuries of activity. The grave events alike in Asia and Europe which followed the fall of the Samanides interrupted its peaceful course, and before it could fall again into the old tracks there came the tempestuous interlude of the first Crusade.
From this it will be seen that the occurrence of Kufic coins in the north of England is one of the evidences of the activity of the Danes, and of their commercial intercourse with the nations of the East.
Footnote 3:
For further details on the commerce of the Arabs, and especially as to the extended currency of Kufic coins, J. J. A. Worsaae’s “Danes in England,” 1852; Ernest Babelon’s “Du Commerce des Arabes,” 1882; Le Bon’s “La Civilisation des Arabes,” 1884; may be consulted.
Footnote 4:
“Remarks on the Antiquities found at Cuerdale,” p. 2.
Newspapers in 1738-39.
It may not be uninteresting to describe some of the oldest surviving fragments of Lancashire newspapers which were formerly in the collection of Sir Thomas Baker, and are now, with many others, in the Manchester Free Library. After a fragment of one leaf we have “_The Lancashire Journal_: with the history of the Holy Bible.” Monday, October 16th, 1738. Num. xvi. The printer and publishers are thus set forth:—“Manchester: printed and sold by John Berry at the Dial near the Cross, and Sold by Mr. Ozly at the White-Lyon in Warrington, Mr. Sears at the White-Lyon in Liverpool, Mr. Gough at the Spread Eagle in Chester, Mr. Maddock, Bookseller in Namptwich, Mr. Kirkpatrick in Middlewich, Mr. Davis, Bookseller in Preston, Mr. Sidebottom at the Sun and Griffin in Stockport, Mrs. Lord in Rochdale, Mr. Hodgson, Bookseller in Halifax, Mr. Rockett, Bookseller in Bradford, Mr. Bradley, Peruke-maker in Wakefield; at which places also are taken in all sorts of advertisements to be inserted in this Paper at Two Shillings and Sixpence Each.” There is, after the fashion of the time, very little local news, the object of these early journals being to tell the people what was going on at a distance. We hear (October 16th) of the offence given by the “French strollers” in attempting to perform a play in their own language at the Haymarket. The “patriots” were so riotous in their resentment that “the encouragers of these French Vagabonds, durst not in any Coffee-House or Place where the most Polite resort, either Publickly avow their Sentiments, or declare their Resentment.” From Bristol there is news of rioting by the colliers of Kingswood, as a practical objection to a reduction of wages, from sixteen to twelve pence per day.
The next relic is _The Lancashire Journal_, published by John Berry, at the Dial, in Manchester, Monday, July 30th, 1739. No. 57. The first or leading article sets forth the intention of the managers to “introduce” the journals “with a short Essay, Letter, or Discourse, on some useful Subject, Art or Science,” if they can do it without leaving out any “material Paragraph of News.” After a column of foreign affairs, we have an account from “Exon” of one William Wood, who was in the County Ward for £700 at the suit of the King. After having made his chamber-mates drunk, he fastened a rope to the window, lowered himself down near thirty feet, and then by the aid of a scaling-ladder got into a field and so away. “Last Wednesday a Gentlewoman, aged 87, who lives in Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, was married at St. George’s Chapel, near Hyde Park Corner, to a young Gentleman of 23. The Bride was with difficulty led into the Chapel, and was so much fatigued with standing till the ceremony was over, that the Minute they were out of the Chapel they were obliged to go into a Tavern to get something to revive her exhausted spirits.” Then we learn that at the Old Bailey twenty-seven prisoners were tried, of whom two were sentenced to be hanged, and thirteen to be transported, whilst twelve were acquitted. Some more paragraphs of the same nature show how ineffectual were the sanguinary laws which condemned men to death for slight offences. In one of these figures “Francis Trumbles the Quaker, who was to be hung for robbing Mr. Brow on the highway.” “Last week died in Water Lane, Fleet Street, one Anne Deacon, an elderly woman, who used to ask Alms at Church Doors and elsewhere, in whose rooms after her death were found 100 guineas, £35 in silver, and a bond of £150 on a considerable tradesman.” There is a good deal more of foreign news, and the number terminates with _two_ advertisements, one only being local, which offers an apothecary’s shop, near the Exchange, “to be Sold or Lett. * * Enquire, for further particulars of Mrs. Margaret Dickenson, at the Turk’s Head, in Manchester.” No. 61, August 27th, 1739, opens with a dissertation on the figure of the earth, followed by an account of one of the Dublin Incorporated Society’s English Protestant Working Schools, then some foreign news, of which our forefathers would appear to have been very fond. This number is almost entirely filled with paragraphs relating to our differences with Spain, diplomatic and martial. We have also news of the siege of Belgrade, and “that the Grand Vizer has ordered a vast quantity of scaling-ladders to be made, which looks as if he intended to take Belgrade by storm.” From Cork we have the news that Matthew Buckinger died there August 24th. Buckinger was born without hands or feet, and his performances in penmanship were certainly wonderful under the circumstances. “The King has ordered the two Hazard tables at Kensington to be suppressed.” Two advertisements conclude this number—one of a horse stolen or strayed from Cross Hall Park, near Ormskirk; the other of Miller’s “Gardeners’ Dictionary” and Chambers’s “Cyclopædia,” books on sale by Mr. Newton and Mr. Hodges, booksellers in Manchester. The journal ends, “Manchester: Printed by John Berry, at the Dial, near the Cross, and sold by Mr. Nichison, at the White Lyon, in Warrington; Mr. Sears, at the White Lyon, in Liverpool; Mrs. Gough, at the Spread Eagle, in Chester; Mr. Maddock, bookseller, in Namptwich; Mr. Kirkpatrick, in Middlewich; Mr. Davis, in Preston; Mr. Sidebotham, in Stockport; Mr. Rathbone, in Macclesfield; Mr. Foster, in Bolton; Mrs. Lord, in Rochdale; Mr. Hodgson, bookseller, in Halifax; Mr. Rockett, bookseller, in Bradford; Mr. Bradley, peruke maker, in Wakefield; at which places also are taken in all sorts of advertisements to be inserted in this paper, at two shillings and sixpence each.”
Sir Thomas Baker was also the possessor of three numbers of another early Manchester paper. Whitworth’s “_Manchester Magazine_, with the History of the Holy Bible.” Tuesday, January 16th, 1738-9. No. 107 is a small, dingy folio of four pages. Its opening paragraphs are devoted to Muley Abdalah, who, in his abdicating the throne of Morocco, expressed “a great regret that he had cut off but 2,000 heads at most.” We have then a dreadful thunderstorm at Bristol, and a quantity of Court and personal gossip. From “Hawick, in Northumberland, December 14th. This day, died here (aged 105), Mr. William Baxter. He taught school in his youth, afterwards followed malting very closely for above sixty years, and though he lived very freely all that while he was never known to have any disorder but one only, occasioned by a over-discharge of bad liquor, which was carried off by a vomit.” The old gentleman was hearty to the last, and knocked under to “a common fever, which as an Argument of his great vigour terminated in a Phrenzy, and in a week’s Time despatch’d him.” We hear of a wolf breaking loose, which was kept by a gentleman who lives near the vineyard in St. James’s Park, and of the mischief it wrought upon—two milk pails; of an attempted escape from Newgate; and of sundry highway robberies. We have then
“A NEW RECEIPT.
Take Homer’s Invention, with Pinder’s high strain, Theocritus’ pure Nature, Anacreon’s soft vein; To Virgil’s sound judgment join Ovid’s free air, And Juvenal’s keen Satyr to Horace’s sneer; To Spencer’s Description add Milton’s Locution, And Dryden’s close sentence to Boileau’s conclusion; Of Antients and Monderns [Moderns] take the Flower I hope, All these put together make our English POPE.”
Next we have a letter relating a sharp trick of some American-Spaniards, followed by the sage reflection that “its greatly to be lamented that the Isle of Cuba, and some other rich and fertile places of their Empire in this part of the world, is not possest by some more industrious People, who would find a much more laudable, as well as profitable, Imployment than pilfering from their Neighbours.” No. 108, January 23rd, 1738-9: “We hear a Gentleman’s Corpse is in Arrest at an Undertaker’s in the Strand, upon a Judgment and Execution for Debt. It’s to be hop’d the Friends of the Deceased will let the Attorney move the Corpse, have it apprais’d by the Sheriff, and take it in Part of his Bill and Costs.” “On Saturday between Four and Five o’clock, a young Woman, servant at Walthamstow, coming to town, was robb’d near Temple Mill by a Footpad; and, whilst the villain was stripping her, being with his back towards the River, the young Woman push’d him into the River and he was drowned. She is since gone distracted.—On Thursday last the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley, Fellow of the College of Physicians and a great Antiquarian, was marry’d to Miss Gale, sister to Roger Gale, Esq.: a fortune of £10,000.” There is an account of a shock of earthquake felt in Halifax, Huddersfield, and other parts of the West Riding. “We hear from Banbury that a village within a mile of that town no less than eighteen people are gone to be dipped in the salt water for the bite of a mad dog, and that a few days past a young man of the said village, who was bit by a dog about Michaelmas last, died raving mad, though he had been at the salt water for a cure.” “Manchester, January 23rd.—We hear from Bury that the inhabitants of that place have agreed to prosecute at their joint expense any person that shall commit an act of felony there. This is worthy of imitation, for rogues often go unpunished lest the charge thereof should fall upon a single person, which is very unreasonable, because the publick reaps the benefit.” The number concludes with an advertisement of a sale by auction at the Angel, at Manchester. From No. 111, February 13th, 1738-9, excluding most of the foreign news, we glean the following items:—“London, February 6th.—Last week two persons were sent to prison by the Bench of Justices at Hick’s Hall for endeavouring to seduce some manufacturers in the glass trade, in order to send them to Holland, where a glass house is lately set up, and who very much underwork us by having English coals 25 per cent. cheaper than the manufacturers in and about London. But it is to be hoped that the Parliament will take these affairs into consideration.—Yesterday morning a gentleman going in a chair from a tavern in Pall Mall to his lodgings at Knightsbridge was robbed by the two chairmen between Hide Park Gate and Knightsbridge of his watch, money, &c.; then they pull’d him out of the chair and threw him into a ditch, after which they made off.—Last week Thomas Piercy, a blacksmith of Deptford, in Kent, about 25 years of age, was married to Mrs. Brookes, a gentlewoman of a considerable fortune in the same town, aged about 70. This gentlewoman has had four husbands before.—Prices of corn at Manchester: White wheat, per load, from 18s. to 20s.; red wheat, from 15s. to 17s.; barley, from 8s. to 11s.; beans, from 11s. to 12s.; meal, from 13s. to 14s.” There is plenty of talk about the convention with Spain, which need not be repeated. These citations may suffice. They are fair samples of what may be found in the local newspapers of the first half of the eighteenth century. The early Lancashire journalist was a man of many parts. Thus the _Lancashire Journal_, in December, 1740, is said to be “printed by John Berry, Watchmaker and Printer, at the Dial near the Cross, who makes and Mends all sorts of Pocket Watches, also makes and mends all sorts of Weather Glasses, makes all sorts of Wedding, Mourning, and other Gold Rings, and Earrings, etc., and sell all Sorts of New Fation’d Mettal, Buttons for Coats and Wastcoats, and hath Great Choice of New Fation’d Mettal, Buckles, for Men, Women, and Children, all sorts of Knives, fine Scissors, Razors, Lancits, Variety of Japan’d Snuff Boxes, Violins, Fluts, Flagelets and Musick Books, Box, Ivory, and Horn, Combs, Silk, Purses, Spectacles, Coffee and Chocolate Mills, Wash Balls, Sealing Wax, and Wax Balls for Pips, Correls, Tea Spoons, Fiddle Strings, Spinnet Wire, Naked and Drest Babys,[5] Cards, Cain for Hooping, Bird Cages, etc., with several other sorts of London, Birmingham, and Sheffield, Cutler’s Wares, and variety of Dutch and English Toys. He also sells (notwithstanding what is, has, or may be advertised to the Contrary), the True Daffy’s Elixir, Doctor Anderson Sick Pills, Chymical Drops, being a speedy cure for coughs, colds, and Asthma’s, Doctor Godfreys Cordial for Children, Doctor Bateman’s Drops, Stoughtons Elixir, Hungry Water, Spirits of Scurvy Grass, Flower of Mustard in 3d. Bottles, Oyl of Mustard, and all sorts of Snuffs, at the Lowest Rates.” The variety of his wares has affected both his spelling and his punctuation.
We cannot estimate the feelings of our great-grandfathers as they turned over the leaves of their small paper; but the antiquary of the present day would gladly dispense with a good deal about bashaws and conventions for a little more about those who lived and moved and had their being in this county.
Footnote 5:
This is not a slave trading announcement as the unwary might suppose. “Baby” is an old word for a doll. It has survived in the Lancashire dialect in its more extended meaning of a small image or representation. “Aw’ve a book full of babs” is a phrase in Edwin Waugh’s most famous poem.
A Lancashire Naturalist: Thomas Garnett.
A memorial volume of the late Mr. Thomas Garnett, of Low Moor, Clitheroe, was printed for private circulation, and some notice of it will be of interest to many outside the narrow circle for whom it was originally prepared. Mr. Thomas Garnett was one of three brothers. Mr. Richard Garnett distinguished himself as a philologist, and became an assistant-keeper in the British Museum; Mr. Jeremiah Garnett was for many years the editor of the _Manchester Guardian_, and Mr. Thomas Garnett settled at Clitheroe, where he passed an active life as a manufacturer, but instead of allowing business to absorb all his attention, he found pleasant and healthful recreation in agricultural and scientific observation. The results are now gathered in this volume—“Essays in Natural History and Agriculture, by the late Thomas Garnett, of Low Moor, Clitheroe. London: printed at the Chiswick Press, 1883.” Only 250 copies were printed. The editing has been the work of the author’s nephew, that accomplished scholar and friend of all students, Dr. Richard Garnett, of the British Museum. The first paper contains a number of facts and observations relating to the salmon, chiefly based on Mr. Garnett’s experience in Lancashire. Written as long ago as 1834, it contains a plea in favour of a wise and not vexatious measure for the protection of the salmon fisheries. He believed that the salmon enters and ascends rivers for other purposes than propagation. In support of this view he cites what in Lancashire is called “streaming.” Thus in winter the fish not engaged in spawning, trout, grayling, chub, dace, etc., leave the streams and go into deep water. Another reason is their impatience of heat, which leads the grayling, if the weather is unusually hot at the end of May or beginning of June, to ascend the mill-streams in the Wharfe, by hundreds, and to go up the mill-races as far as they can get. The “salmon” par he holds to be neither a hybrid, nor a distinct species, but a state of the common salmon. In 1851 he wrote some papers describing his own experiments in the artificial breeding of salmon. His interest in the fish is shown by the following quotation:—“I have had fish sent from two different gentlemen living on the banks of the reservoirs belonging to the Liverpool Waterworks: these were beautiful fish, three in number, more like the sea trout than the salmon, and the largest of them weighing two pounds. I had put them into the brooks running into the reservoirs three years before. I also learn that a beautiful specimen of the _Ombre chevalier_ (French char) was taken out of Rivington reservoir. About a thousand had been put in by me two years before.”