THE MIDDLING SORT
One of the fascinating and sometimes slightly disturbing dimensions of family history is the discovery of shared space fractured by time. This is the realization that one has visited, lived in or worked in a town or locality that has already been the setting for the lives of previously unrecognized ancestors.
Hence we find that we have walked in the lost imprint of ghostly but familiar past steps.
In the period 1984 to 1991, I worked as a University Lecturer at Bradford University in West Yorkshire. During this spell, I started a family and we made visited many of the towns and historic sites, as well as making frequent trips to the magnificent Yorkshire Dales.
I became acquainted of course with the Bronte Country and pondered on Victorian life in the mill towns – including of course the role of the sweeping but still grimy and grim landscapes in moulding character and culture.
On one occasion, I remember a visit to Halifax and its extraordinary Piece Hall built in 1779 (pictures above).
I did not know then that I have a real connection with the area and the evolution of the Industrial Revolution in West Yorkshire.
Recently, following my research into my family, I have discovered that I was walking in the steps of the Mallinson branch of my own family.
My father’s paternal great grandfathers were Walter Shorrocks born 1824 (married Ann Collinge) and William Wheelhouse Mallinson born 1831 (married Eliza Jackson). Both families were from what has been termed the ‘Middling Sort’ touched by the Industrial Revolution – that is they were Northerners who ran their own small businesses.
The Shorrocks’ were Brush Manufacturers in Salford, Lancashire and it appears that the Mallinsons were Wire Drawers and Wool Manufacturers in West Yorkshire.
The oldest Mallinson ancestor that can be traced is Joseph who must have been born around 1780 – he is recorded in a marriage certificate as having been a ‘Manufacturer’ in Rastrick but the 1841 and 1851 censuses suggest that he had close relatives who were Wire Drawers living in Hipperholme cum Brighouse.
Joseph’s son Daniel was born 25th November 1806, in Rastrick, West Yorkshire and he died 29 April 1861, at his home 34 John Street, Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire. It seems that he was a Book-keeper by profession. He married my great great grandmother Elizabeth Wheelhouse 19th June 1828 in St Bartholomews Church in Colne, Lancashire (Elizabeth’s father Stephen is recorded as a Corn Miller in Rochdale in the 1841 census).
William Wheelhouse Mallinson married Eliza Jackson in 1854 – she was the daughter of William Francis Jackson who was a stationer. Like his father, William was also a book-keeper. His only child Fanny Eliza Mallinson (my great grandmother) was born in Salford in 1856. She is recorded as the only child of William and Eliza Mallinson in the 1861 census and it appears that her father died when she was 12 years old. By the time of the 1871 census, her mother had remarried to a Henry Hargraves and she is recorded as his step-daughter.
There was obviously a synergy within families between the craftsmen and entrepreneurs on the one hand and the book-keepers and clerks on the other.
Within the businesses it was vital that there was someone who could handle the paper work associated with ordering inputs, invoicing sales and tallying returns. And the roles were often interchanged. For example, my great grandfather Robert Edwin Shorrocks is variously recorded in the censuses as a Foreman Brush Manufacturer, Book-keeper, and Brush Salesman.
But all of them felt themselves to be of the Middling Sort – that is from an independent lower middle class bound together by sayings such as ‘Love your enemies, trust but few – and always paddle your own canoe’ (this motto was prominently displayed on the broken earthenware pot that housed the pens and which sat on the window sill of the kitchen at the farm where I grew up).
RISE OF THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY IN CALDERDALE
The production of woven textiles was at the heart of the Calderdale economy from as early as the 12th Century. Apparently, in the south porch of the medieval Parish Church of St. John’s Halifax, there is a grave cover, dating from around 1150, depicting a pair of cropper’s shears, which provides the earliest surviving evidence of the textile industry in the area.
The poor quality of the topsoil and the cold and wet Calderdale climate created unfavourable conditions for arable farming but proved to be ideal land for sheep grazing and this stimulated the development of woollen textiles production as a supplementary economic activity to subsistence agriculture.
The evolution of a distinctive dual economy of farming and textiles on the uplands surrounding the valley of the river Calder was assisted by another geographical advantage, a proliferation of swift-flowing moorland streams, which provided abundant supplies of soft water for the dyeing and finishing of the woollen cloth.
In the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, cloth was produced by handloom weavers from hand-spun yarn in their own cottages. The production was labour intensive and involved the whole family. The process began with the shearing of the sheep. The raw wool was first picked clean and then greased to protect it during the abrasive carding and spinning operation.
Carding untangled the knotty mass of wool with special cards studded with iron pins which teased and fluffed out the fibres. The resulting fleecy slivers were then spun into yarn on the great wheel by the women and children – as many as half a dozen spinsters would be needed to keep one weaver working full time. When farm work allowed, the men would weave the yarn prepared by their families.
The cards required pins which were produced by Card Makers who were also often Wire Drawers, as the wire-making process could be adapted to producing combing pins.
At the time of the construction of the Piece Hall in Halifax in 1779, improvements to handloom technology, notably the invention of the Flying Shuttle in 1773 by John Kay, allowed a cloth maker to prepare and weave a ‘piece’ of kersey (a coarse, narrow woollen cloth – one of many different types woven) in time for the weekly market.
After the cloth had been woven, it was taken to a water-powered fulling mill, where it was pounded, scoured and textured by heavy wooden stocks, before being hung outdoors on tenterframes to dry.
The ‘piece’ of cloth represented a significant value and this led to a daunting penalty in the Halifax area for anyone caught stealing cloth from tenterframes. Thieves were subject to summary trial and execution on the Halifax Gibbet, a notorious mechanical guillotine, prompting the town’s inclusion in the well known ‘beggars litany’ – "From Hell, Hull and Halifax, may the good Lord deliver us".
Weavers in Halifax and the Calder valley specialized in making kersey which was a relatively coarse but hardwearing and inexpensive fabric that was always in high demand. Because it was so hard wearing, it was used extensively for military uniforms. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Napoleon’s armies were reputed to have been clad in kersey fabric produced in the Halifax region.
The importance of the domestic and export trade in textiles can hardly be overestimated. By 1700, the British textile industry accounted for 70% of all domestic exports and employed more people than any other industry. At that time, the estimated total value of the national production was £5 million, of which West Yorkshire production was put at £1million, i.e. 20%, significantly larger than any other area of the country.
By the early 1770’s, national production had doubled to £10 million, with growth being most marked in the West Riding of Yorkshire, increasing to £3.275 million, i.e. 33% of total manufacture. Within this, the Halifax area was the pre-eminent producing zone in the region, meaning that Halifax was at the pinnacle of this key element of the national economy. The vast majority of its citizens were engaged in the production and marketing of locally produced woven textiles.
DANIEL DEFOE’S DESCRIPTION
Daniel Defoe writing in 1724 comments on the Halifax of his day as follows:
‘The houses and farms are scattered across this landscape, each farm having a few small enclosures . . . from two acres to six or seven acres each.
‘The air is fresh and sharp, but good and wholesome, not subject to any epidemical diseases to corrupt its salubrity; a true specimen (evidence) whereof may be received from the clear and sound complexion of the natives, together with their compact and well-built bodies.
'Their tempers and dispositions are debonnair and ingenious, generally inclined to good manners and hospitality, giving civil and respectful reception not only to strangers, but unto all others with whom they have occasion to converse.
'On Saturday mornings merchants from Leeds or their factors do buy great quantities of white dressed kersies, which they transport to Hamburg and Holland. Furthermore, for the more effectual providing of the cloth trade, there are in this town three market days, chiefly for corn and wool (that is to say, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays).
There, tradesmen may be plentifully furnished, both to manage their callings and to make provision for their families), at which times very great returns are made, which may sufficiently discover the vastness of the cloth trade, which hath here been managed, and is still carried on, through the blessing of God upon men's honest endeavours.
'Nothing remains more worthy of the reader's consideration than a short description of the benefit which accrues to the town by the small river which skirts it at the east end. This river hath its current from two small rivulets, which unite at a place called Lee-Brigg, about a quarter of a mile from the town, and run in a semicircle stream from that place to the river Calder, which may contain in length not above four miles.
'During which space there is erected or the use and service of the town, in the carrying on of their trade, twenty-four mills all of them constantly carried about by the strength of the stream.
'Namely, eight fulling mills to prepare raw cloth for the dressers; two woollen mills for grinding all sorts of wood that is used by dyers, whose trade it is to dye both wool and cloth; one paper mill, chiefly employed in making such paper as is proper and useful to cloth- workers; one shear-grinder's forge, managed by an accomplished workman, for making and grinding of shears for the use of the cloth-dressers; and one mill for the friezing of cloth, which is so well performed that few come nigh it for fineness and firmness of work.
Defoe also illustrates the complex patterns of trade that developed within England as West Yorkshire’s successful specialization in exports stimulated domestic demand:
'Their corn comes up in great quantities out of Lincoln, Nottingham, and the East Riding; their black cattle and horses from the North Riding; their sheep and mutton from the adjoining counties every way; their butter from the East and North Riding; their cheese out of Cheshire and Warwickshire; more black cattle also from Lancashire; and here the breeders, the feeders, the farmers, and country people find money flowing in plenty from manufactures and commerce.
Thus this one trading, manufacturing part of the country supports all the counties round it, and numbers of people settle here "as bees about a hive."
THE PIECE HALL
The story of the Piece Hall is told as follows by local historians:
‘At the close of the first American war, when trade again began to advance rapidly, the old piece hall of Halifax became insufficient for the wants of the town, and about the year 1780-5 a much larger and handsomer piece hall was erected. It was built of free-stone, stood in the lower part of the town, and was erected at a cost of £12,000.
This hall is a large quadrangle, occupying the space of 10,000 square yards. It has a rustic basement story, and above that two other stories fronted with colonnades, within which were spacious walks leading to arched rooms, where the goods of the respective manufacturers in the unfinished state were deposited, and exhibited for sale to the merchants every Saturday, from ten to twelve o'clock.
This building was considered to unite elegance, convenience, and security. It contains 315 separate rooms, and has the merit of being proof both against fire and thieves’.
‘When it was built, the Piece Hall was a highly visible statement of the great wealth, pride and ambition of the cloth manufacturers. Although built for trade, it also embodied the most cultured sensitivities of the Enlightenment; these bluff northern manufacturers deliberately chose a design for their building which adapted the neo-classical orders of architecture derived originally from the Romans, illustrating their fascinating mix of purpose and idealism’.
WHEERE THER’S MUCK, THER’S BRASS
Taking up the story:
‘About the beginning of the nineteenth century the steam-engine, and a great variety of new and improved machines for spinning and weaving cloth, began to be introduced in this part of the country. From the abundance of water-power, the introduction of steam was less rapid here than in some other places.
Fortunately for Halifax, it possessed abundant supplies of coal as well as of water, and gradually the steam-engine established itself here as the rival, the ally, or the successor of the water-mill.
The check given to the industry of Halifax by the change in the motive power soon passed away, and in the year 1821 the population of the town, including those parts of it which extend into the townships of Northowram and Southowram, had risen to 14,064 persons, of whom 12,628 were in the township of Halifax.
At that time, 1821, the population of the wider parish of Halifax amounted to 93,050 persons, having considerably more than doubled during the sixty years which had elapsed from the commencement of the reign of King George III in 1760, when it amounted in round numbers to 40,000 persons.
It is also central that many of the inhabitants were Dissenters, with Quakers being a prominent group in the 17th century and Methodists being important in the 18th century. Both of these churches emphasized self-reliance and modest living.
They also put great store on education - and the need to provide small businesses with family members who could keep the books.
So the immense wealth generated by the wool industry in the 17th and 18th centuries was built to no small degree on the frugality and thrift shown by the inhabitants of West Yorkshire.
From the trade grew complex systems of consignment ordering and consolidation and payment. London provided the apex of these chains of advances and payments as it was well-placed to store and ship orders to Europe and the American Colonies (receiving inward movements by canal and pack-horse).
At the same time, the financial surpluses generated by the wool trade fuelled the rise of modern banking and accounting. As the industry moved from water power to coal powered textile mills, economies of scale became attractive and overdraft facilities were provided to fund innovation and larger plants. Cheque accounts were also developed to facilitate financial settlements.
At the local level, the habit of saving was reinforced by the development of building societies (e.g. Halifax, Bradford and Bingley, and Leeds) to provide revolving funds for the purchase and construction of new houses for members.
Cooperative societies were also formed to pass on economies of scale in the purchase of household necessities (e.g. the Rochdale Pioneers) and simple saving accounts (e.g. the Penny Bank) were also provided.
RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
John Smail has analyzed the complex social and economic interrelationships that underpinned development. These include:
• A self-reinforcing history of innovation and willingness to adopt new manufacturing practices
• The emergence of a business-friendly and business-like popular culture
• The development of a complementary money market
• The emergence of more demanding patterns of consumption that percolated down from the elite.
Smail also draws attention to what may be termed investments in 'Social Capital':
‘One of the most striking features of Halifax's history in the decades after 1750 is the host of associations that were formed to accomplish specific projects - to reorganize a workhouse, build a canal, start a library.
As John Brewer has noted, such voluntary associations were a new political form in the eighteenth century, and they enabled provincial merchants, tradesmen, and professionals "to exercise collectively an influence in the community far beyond that conferred by their individual incomes."
They were therefore a form particularly suited to the needs of the commercial and professional elites in places such as Halifax. Since English society denied this group structured opportunities to exercise their influence and meaningful acknowledgment of their social prestige, they had to create their own institutions and these institutions helped to create class identity’.
Smail goes on to sketch the widening chasm which separated the widespread Middling Sort of the 17th century (the large and loosely defined congeries of independent rural artisans and small landholders) from the true upper Middle Class that developed as large-scale manufacturing gradually reduced the descendants of most of the original families to the status of wage labourers working for large-scale textile firms.
Well in a of course, there is some truth in this interpretation even though it has a somewhat Marxist ring.
But there is another reality that comes through family history. That is that the thrift, enterprise and self-sufficiency of the 17th century artisans formed a foundation for some of the best strands in modern society – in terms of both their notions of what can be achieved by self-help and their commitments to building a civil society.
And these ideas also live on in families that pay their way, and in middle-way politics where caring about community is balanced with caring about cost.
POSTSCRIPT - THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES
From 1812-13 much of the West Riding was the scene of riots, murder and pitched battles as bands of armed Luddites went on the rampage. In Yorkshire the majority of Luddites were croppers, tough and highly skilled men who earned good wages cropping and finishing wool using heavy hand-held shears.
In a time of economic depression and food shortages, the livelihoods of the croppers were threatened by the invention of new shearing machines that made their once-prized skills obsolete.
In February 1812 unemployed croppers began to hold secret meetings and form societies to plan attacks on the hated frames. The meetings were held at the St Crispin Inn, Halifax with the connivance of the landlord John Baines, who hoped to turn the local discontent into a revolution that would topple the monarchy.
New recruits were obliged to swear an oath of secrecy known as ‘twisting in’, and throughout February, March and April Luddite disturbances became increasingly frequent. Mills and workshops all over the West Riding were attacked, and the hapless owners had to stand aside as their new frames were destroyed by gangs of men armed with sledgehammers and crowbars.
In April a gathering of Luddites led by a cropper named George Mellor descended upon Rawfold’s Mill in the Spen Valley, but were driven off by musket fire. Several Luddites were wounded, two later dying from their injuries, and the defeat brought about a change in Luddite strategy.
Up until now they had confined themselves to attacking the frames and leaving the owners unmolested, but the hard-nosed Mellor gave his followers new orders: ‘Leave the machines but shoot the masters’.
This led to the murder of a mill owner named William Horsfall, who had unwisely denounced the Luddites as cowards and sworn that he would ride up to his breeches in their blood. On the afternoon of 12th April Mellor and his cronies William Thorpe, Thomas Smith and Benjamin Walker lay in wait for their man in some woodland on Crosland Moor. When Horsfall rode by on his way home from Huddersfield market the gang burst out of cover and shot him dead.
The murder of Horsfall changed the character of the Luddite disturbances, and from then on they became increasingly violent. Following the assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival, at Westminster in May a new government was formed that took a merciless attitude towards civil disorder. Troops were poured into West Yorkshire and by the summer of 1812 over a thousand red-coated soldiers were stationed in the area.
George Mellor and his gang were soon captured and subjected to a show trial at York. Though there was little doubt that Mellor was guilty, his case became notorious for the corrupt methods used against him. The end came when one of the gang, Benjamin Walker, turned king’s evidence and supplied damning evidence against the rest of the gang. Thirty-six hours after conviction (which meant no time for an appeal) he, Thorpe and Smith were executed before a silent crowd.
Sixty-three other Luddites were tried before the same Commission and another fourteen executed. Others including the republican host of the Crispin Inn, John Baines, were sentenced to be transported to the colonies, and there were only seven acquittals.
The heavy sentences demonstrated that the Luddites were considered to be more than mere criminals, and that the government was determined to crush the threat they posed to the established order - as was done with the Peterloo Massacre of Chartist demonstrators in Manchester in 1819 and the containment of the agrarian Swing Riots that followed in the southern and midland counties of England in 1830.
But the ideals of these movements lived on in accumulating demands for the extension of the voting franchise and the foundation of modern labour unionism.
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