THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CXXV.—LANCASHIRE :—THE TOWNS (Continued).
ITANCHESTER, like other towns in England, profited _AL largely from the persecutions of Alva in the Netherlands, which drove so many ingenious artizans to seek employment in this country. In 1650 the inhabitants of Manchester were reckoned the most industrious in the North of England, and the town is described as being a mile long, with open and clean streets and fine buildings. The Protector, Oliver, thought it a sufficiently important place to return a representative to the House of Commons in 1654. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. augmented the prosperity of the town by a fresh acces- sion of intelligent workmen from France. In 1720 the town is described as the largest, mast rich, populous, and busy village in England—referring, no doubt, to its being unincorporated— having about 24,000 inhabitants within the parish. The woollen manufacture Was gradually superseded by that of cotton. The spinning frame of Arkwright was introduced at Manchester about the year 1770. Before that time "the imports of cotton-wool did not amount to 4,000,000 lb. a year, and the exports hardly ex- ceeded 200,000 lb." In 1785 Arkwright's patent was in its turn superseded, and the imports of cotton-wool in two years' time rose from 12,000,000 lb. to 23,250,263 lb. The French Revolution wars did not check this progress, and the manufacturing pros- perity of the town went-on steadily increasing until 1860, when Vie imports amounted to 1,390,938,752 lb. The recent Civil War in America has, however, given a considerable shock to the material prosperity of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, and Manchester has shared in the depression. The manufacture of silk goods was introduced in 1816, and acquired considerable importance. " Mixed goods of silk and cotton, silk and woollen,
cotton and woollen, occupy many hands, and many hundred persons are engaged in the various branches of handicraft subordinate to the principal object of industry." To these typical employments of Manchester must be added the manufac- ture of machinery and locomotive engines. Manchester is supplied with all the essential accompaniments of a great city, land and water communications with all parts of the kingdom, and religious and educational instruction conducted on almost every "plat- form." The old grammar-school, founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, and the College, founded by llugh Cheetham in 1665 (with its valuable library of 300,000 volumes), —in which latter institution 80 boys receive a plain education, and are afterwards put forward in trade,—and the Commercial Schools, established in 1845, are supplemented by the important scientific college rapidly rising in reputation called Owen's College, founded under the will of a gentleman of that name in 1851. The leading religious denominations have also most of them educational insti- tutions connected specially with them.
Manchester returned two members to Parliament from the Reform Act of 1832, and a third was added by the Act of 1868. Salford had one representative given to it in 1832 and a second in 1868. The two towns of Manchester and Salford now form a great manufacturing metropolis covering some 3,000 acres. The population of the municipal borough of Manchester was in 1861, 338,722, and of Salford 102,449.
Liverpool—the commercia! capital (as Manchester is the manu- facturing capital) of Lancashire, and indeed of the North of England, stands on the east or right bank of the Mersey, "partly on flat ground along the edge of the river, and partly and princi- pally on a gently rising declivity." Part of the site of the present town,—the manor of Esinedune,—as we have seen, was held in the reign of Edward the Confessor by Edelmund. This name appears to have been afterwards modified to Smedone, Smetheden, or Smethe- down, and is now preserved in the appellation of Srnethain's Lane, in Yates' map of Liverpool, and Smett-dene Lane in a map of the year 1768. This lane passed from Edgehill to Toxteth Park, and partly through the park. The original Liverpool, however, is mentioned in the reign of Edward I. as a distinct place from. Smethedon, which in a charter of the reign of Henry III. is said to be on the bay of Toxteth, and to have been wasted by King John. Liverpool does not seem to have existed in the time of Domesday Survey, when its site was part of the great possessions of Roger de Poictiers. According to Camden, this baron erected in 1076 a castle at Liverpool, which Baines supposes to have been really that of West Derby, which was in existence in the reign of King John. That king—the destroyer of Smethedene—is said to have erected the castle which was dismantled by order of the Parliament in 1659, but of which the remains were only finally removed in 1721, the church of St. George being erected on the site. A copyof a charter of Henry II., preserved in the handwriting of Dr. Adam Clarke, contains the earliest mention of Liverpool. It is dated on the 8th of October, in the 19th year of that king's reign (1173), and declares that the whole estuary of the Mersha shall be for ever a seaport, enjoying all the liberties that apper- tain to a seaport, and that the men of Lyrpul, which they call Litherpul, near Stokestede, on each aide of the water, may come and return with their ships and merchandise freely
and without obstruction. This grant, however, scarcely seems to imply the existence of any distinct town of Liver- pool, but merely of the mariners residing on both sides of the water called Lyrpul or Litherped, and this view is confirmed by the fact that the name of Liverpool does not occur as a place in the returns of the sheriff in the third of John of his receipts from the places in that neighbourhood, such as Crossebi, Waleton, Waver- tre, &c. However, in the ninth year of that reign, the King gave a charter, dated 28th of August, to all his faithful subjects who had chosen to have burgages in the town of Lyrpill, that they should have all the liberties and free customs, in the town of Lyrpul, which any free borough upon the sea had in his land.
In the succeeding centuries the name Litherpul was used inter- changeably with the later form Liverpool. In the reign of Henry
III. the burgesses renewed their charter, but were obliged to pay
a fine of ten marks in money. A merchant guild or society was then established, and it was stipulated that no strangers should carry on business in the town without the consent of the burgesses.
This prohibition seems to have continued in force till about the middle of the reign of George II., when strangers were allowed to
settle in the town upon payment of a small fine, which was also discontinued at the beginning of the present century. In the latter part of the thirteenth century the knightly family of Dc la More flourished in Liverpool and occupied More Hall or the 011 Hall in Oldbell Street, and thenceforward this family continued closely identified with the town. In 1405, Sir John Stanley obtained permission from Henry IV. to fortify with embattled walls his house at Liverpool, which he had lately rebuilt. This house, which was afterwards called the " Tower " (near the bottom of Water Street), had belonged to Sir Thomas de Lathom, whose heiress Stanley married ; and it was for some centuries the occasional residence of the Stanley's, was then turned into an assembly-room, then into a prison, and in 1819 was taken down, and warehouses built on the site. This was the beginning of the connection of Liverpool with the House of Stanley, which has for so long a time been a great feature in its civic history. From a census of the town in 1272 it consisted then of 168 houses. About the 11th of Edward I., Woodside Ferry, opposite to Liver- pool, was first established, superseding the monopoly of the monks of Birkenhead, who had " hospices " on the eastern or Liverpool side of the river. From the answer to a writ of quo warrant°, issued in the 20th of Edward I., against the bailiff and common- alty of Lyverpool, as to their claiming exemption from county dues, it appears that at present they had no bailiff, though they had been accustomed to have one until they were obstructed by Edmund, the King's brother, who would not allow them to have a free borough ; and they produced the charters of John and Henry III. A confirmatory charter was granted in 1332 by Edward III. In the levies for the French wars of that King, Liverpool was rated at one bark and six men, while Bristol was rated at 24 ships and 600 men. The Prior of Birkenhead tried to re-establish his claim to the ferry frotn " Birkhead " to Liverpool in the twenty-seventh of Edward lit., but was opposed by the Crown, on the ground that he took excessive profits for the passage,—i.e., for a man and horse, with or without a load, 2d., and for a man on foot a farthing, and on the market-day at Liverpool, Saturday, for a man a halfpenny, and for a man and his luggage ld. In 1361 the church of St. Nicholas, the patron of seamen, was consecrated, and a burial-ground annexed, previously to which the burials took place at the parish church at Walton. Liverpool, however, continued to form part of the parish of Walton till the year 1699. The town of Liverpool, &c., was granted by John of Gaunt in the 17th of Richard II. to Thomas de la More, of "Liverpull," Robert de Derby, Richard de Hulme, and William de Roby, with various fines and other emoluments and privileges connected therewith ; and this was confirmed by Henry IV. Henry V. confirmed the franchises of the borough ; but in the 11th of that reign the burgesses petitioned Parliament against the usurpations of the Duchy officers in holding courts with strong hand in the borough, contrary to the old charters, which granted the burgesses a court of their own; and the Parliament referred the petition to the King's Council, to do right to the petitioners by authority of Parliament. In the time of Henry VI., the Stanley's of the Tower, and the Molyneux, constables of the castle of Liver- pool, and who resided at Croxteth, near West Derby, were in arms to assert the limits of their respective possessions. Liverpool, of course, did not escape from the social disorder which ensued from the Wars of the Roses, and the families of Stanley and Molyneux were both protninent in those contests. In the reign of Henry Leland describes the town as follows :—"Lyrpole, alias Lyverpoole, a paved town, hath but a chapel. Walton, a few miles off, not far from the Le, is parish church. The King hath a castelet there, and the Earl of Derbe hath a stone house there. Irish merchants come much thither as to a good haven. Good merchandise at Lyrpool, and much Yrish yarn, that Manchester men do buy there. At Lyrpole a small custom paid, that causeth merchants to resort." In 1565, however, Liverpool had only 138 householders and cottagers, and the inhabitants, petitioning Queen Elizabeth in 1571, call it her "poor decayed town of Liverpool." This decay was perhaps caused by the Irish wars. It had then 12 barks, with 75 mariners, and 223 tons' burthen. At the beginning of the next century the town is described by Camden as being the most convenient and frequent passage to Ireland, and more celebrated for her beauty and populousness than for her antiquity. Liverpool was once joined for fiscal purposes with Chester, and in the middle of the 17th century was still a comparatively small place. In 1650 there were only 15 ships, mostly sloops and schooners, belonging to the port. The gradual filling-up of the Dee, and the consequent decline of Chester, gave fresh advantages to Liverpool as a port for the exportation of the salt of Nantwich and other places in Cheshire. In the year 1697, it contained about 5,000 inhabitants. In 1709 it had about 8,000, and nearly 6,000 tons of shipping, and an Act was then obtained for the construction of a wet dock, —the first wet dock of England,—and it was opened in 1718.
This dock was filled up in 1826, and "Revenue Buildings" erected on its site. An Act of Parliament for a second dock was passed in 1738. In the middle of this century the port had about 400 ships, though there were only two inns in the place, and no stage- coach came nearer than Warrington. Since that time other docks have been erected, and their total area is now nearly 300 acres, with quay-space of about 17 miles in length, the formation costing about £13,000,000 sterling. Of course, the extension of the manufacturing energies of Lancashire has necessarily swelled largely the prosperity of the port of Liverpool, though it is not strictly a manufacturing town. Though there are several manu- factures in Liverpool, soap manufactories, sugar refineries, iron and brass foundries, &c., shipbuilding naturally takes the lead, and mer- chants in connection with foreign trade, particularly cotton, are the predominant civic element. TheWest-Indian interest, now fallen from its former greatness, had in Liverpool for some time a sort of capital, and largely influenced its social habits. We need not now record the iniquities of the slave trade, which undoubtedly contributed considerably to the prosperity of the town at one period. The ships then conveyed from Liverpool to the African coast hardwares, cutlery, and woollen goods, and left that coast laden with negroes for the West-Indian plantations, from which the slavers returned laden with sugar and rum. This trade was suppressed in 1806.
In the Civil Wars of the reign of Charles I., the Parliamen- tarians of Liverpool were led by a member of the old family of More—John More—who has left some notes of the proceedings of the Long Parliament. The town was besieged for twenty-four days by Prince Rupert, and then taken by storm, when a con- siderable slaughter of the garrison and townsmen ensued. This slaughter was closely followed by pestilence and famine.
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