Simeon Grisdale – ‘a most systematic rogue’

In an earlier article I told of Simeon Grisdale Senior and finished with his death in Crouch End, Islington in 1825, just weeks after he had been released from debtors’ prison. Here I want to tell of his son Simeon, ‘a most systematic rogue’, of his continual movements, changes of occupation, his repeated bigamy and his spells in jail. There are still some mysteries about his life and the fate of some of his children, plus I don’t even know exactly where and when he died, but I hope it’s still an interesting tale. He was a rogue indeed but I can’t help warming to him.

Broughton, Hants

As mentioned in my earler article titled Simeon Grisdale – bankruptcy and debtors’ prison,  Simeon Grisdale Junior was born in Houghton in Hampshire in 1805. His father, Simeon Senior, was the village baker and chandler and the younger Simeon grew up in rural Hampshire with his younger sister Mary. Whether Simeon Senior’s wife Ruth and his two grown or almost grown children accompanied him to London isn’t known. Maybe they stayed in Hampshire. In any case the next we hear of young Simeon is in June 1830 when he married Ann Jearam in the next door Hampshire village of Broughton. Three children followed: Mary in 1834, William in 1836 (both born in Broughton) and then Simeon in 1839. Baby Simeon died the next year in Over Wallop, Hampshire. But the children were not christened in either of  the Church of England churches in Houghton or Broughton, where the family were living. Instead they were baptized in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in the ancient city of Salisbury, Simeon being said to be a labourer. The theme of Wesleyan Methodism will reappear later.

By 1841 the family had moved to Waight’s Terrace in Southampton and Simeon was a brewer. Perhaps the family stayed in Southampton during the 1840s, but in 1850 Simeon’s long career of bigamy starts. On 25 December 1850, while still married to Ann (she died in Clerkenwell, London in 1867), Simeon married Mary Ann Scott in Chelmsford in Essex, a long way from Hampshire. The circumstances leading to this marriage are, I’m afraid, lost forever, as indeed is Mary Ann Scott’s subsequent fate. I can find no trace of any of the family in the 1851 census, which is strange. Whatever the case, Simeon’s bigamous marriage to Mary Ann didn’t last long. Maybe she discovered he was already married? Maybe, though most unlikely, he went back to his family for a while.

But we do know what Simeon was up to in 1851. The Oxford Journal on 6 September 1851 contained the following report:

IMPOSTER –

On Monday last a man, named Simeon Grisdale, was sentenced to three months imprisonment and hard labour, as a rogue and vagabond, under the following circumstances, detailed in evidence by Mr. Parsons, a grocer, of this town, to whom great praise is due for his promptness in bringing to justice a most systematic rogue. In August last the accused called called upon Mr. Parsons and passed himself off as a local preacher attached to the Wesleyan Methodist persuasion, who was deputed to collect contributions in aid of a fund for building a chapel at a place called Stanford, to which pretended object it appeared, by a collecting book which he presented, a great number of parties in various places had subscribed. Mr. Parsons contributed a sum, but having found out subsequently such particulars as left no doubt that he had been imposed on, he procured a search warrant, and with a constable proceed to Oxford, where he heard the man was, and forthwith apprehended him, when he directly confessed his guilt. At a house where he was living portions of books were found, by which it appeared that he had visited most towns in Berks, Oxon etc, and had drawn upon the public to the tune of £40 or £50, and to such purposes he had changed the locality of the pretended chapel from place to placer as circumstances rendered it necessary. The accused had no defense to make.

Meadvale in 1955

Having most likely been released from prison in December 1851, Simeon, as we will see, arrived in Harefield in Middlesex to ‘open a school’. There he met Mary Ann Clarke, the daughter of Harefield carpenter Thomas Clarke and his wife Ann. In July of that year he married Mary Ann at the registrar’s office in Uxbridge in Middlesex. You have to say he got around.  He stayed with this Mary Ann a bit longer. They had four children together: Margaret in 1855 in Hounslow, Middlesex, Benomi (?) in 1857 in Heston (a suburb of Hounslow), Ruth in 1859 in Speldhurst (Tunbridge Wells) in Kent and Simeon in 1859 in Meadvale in Redhill in Surrey. Son Simeon died aged only six weeks. We can imply that during all these years Simeon was trying his hand at running private schools, though continually moving from place to place.

Certainly when he moved to Meadvale in Redhill in Surrey in 1858 or 1859 he and his wife did become schoolmaster and mistress! They are listed as such in the 1861 census. A far cry maybe from labouring, brewing, obtaining money under false pretenses and God knows what else.

Meadvale was known in the 19th century as Meads Hole. The name means meadowland hollow. Here not only dwellings but also pottery businesses scattered over the common land — some kilns remain. The major hamlet had two butchers, a baker, a draper, a tailor and a grocer’s shop. The first school was held in the village hall with a fee of one penny a week for each child. At the beginning of the 19th century, there was a tanner’s yard adjoining Earlswood Common which was pasture, not park, at the southern entrance to Meadvale.

Perhaps their school was ‘in the village hall’?

Things seemed to be going well for Simeon. But no, he had obviously not repented of his ways – bigamy and collecting money for fictitious Methodist chapels. In September 1862 various newspapers all over the country reported his activities,. This one is from the Kentish Chronicle on 6 September 1862:

A SCHOOLMASTER COMMITTED FOR BIGAMY –

Samuel Russell, alias Simeon Grisdale, a schoolmaster and a Wesleyan local preacher, was brought up Monday last before the Tunbridge bench of magistrates charged with marrying a female named Fanny Kingwood in April last, his former wife being then alive. Fanny Kingwood stated that in Apri, 1862, she was living at Reigate Heath, and the prisoner was living at Redhill, about three miles distant. She became acquainted with him by his coming to see her master for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions. She understood he was a single man, and went by the name of Samuel Russell. After several months’ courtship he induced her, on 5th April, to go to London with him, and the ceremony of marriage was gone through at York Street Chapel, Walworth. Ann Clarke, the wife of Thomas Clarke, carpenter of Harefield, Middlesex, said she had known the prisoner for ten years. He went to Harfield and opened a school, and shortly afterwards became acquainted with her daughter, Mary Ann Clarke, to whom he was married at the registrar’s office at Uxbridge, nearly ten years ago. He was married in the name of Simneon Grisdale. Her daughter was still alive. The prisoner, on being cautioned in the usual way, said, “All that I have to say is, I am truly sorry for it.” He was committed for trial at the ensuing assizes at Maidstone.

As we will see it’s doubtful  that Simeon was ‘truly sorry’.  In any case  on 29 November 1862 Simeon was tried at Maidstone Court in Kent for bigamy and sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Maidstone Prison

Before I continue with Simeon, what became of his (legal) wife Ann and their children? Sometime in the 1850s they had moved to London. In 1861 wife Ann Grisdale (nee Jearam) was a Seamstress living at 36 Chapel Street in Clerkenwell. So too was her recently widowed young ‘Dress Maker’ daughter Mary Midson (nee Grisdale). Son William was nearby working as a ‘Pot Man’ i.e. a glass washer at the British Queen pub off Canonbury Square in Islington.

St Laurence, Upton, Slough

Returning to bigamist Simeon Grisdale. If he completed his full four year sentence (probably in Maidstone Prison) he would have been free at the end of 1866. His first and legal wife Ann died in London in the first quarter of 1867. Did Simeon know? Did he care? We don’t know. We might also conclude that his marriage to Fanny Kingwood had been annulled on his conviction for bigamy. Whether he was still married to Mary Ann Clarke is not known.

Yet on the 9 February 1867 Simeon married again in the Buckinghamshire village of Upton near Slough, this time his wife was widow Maria Compton (nee Stevens). Given the timing it’s quite likely this marriage was bigamous too. It does seem Simeon was a bit of a charmer and ladies’ man! He settled down with Maria and several stepchildren in Upton and he now became a greengrocer (and possibly a draper too). One son was born in 1868, who Simeon again called Simeon – third time lucky. This Simeon, who will be the subject of  a subsequent article, survived, but Simeon’s marriage to Maria Compton didn’t.

By 1871 the family had moved to Acton in Middlesex (now part of London), but they weren’t living together. Simeon is listed in the 1871 census as a greengrocer living at 5 Windmill Terrace on Turnpike Road with his young son Simeon. His wife Maria was living at 4 prospect Terrace on Park Road, working as a laundress, with three of her Compton children plus son Simeon Grisdale – he was recorded twice, both with his father and mother!

But Simeon couldn’t do without a wife. Oh no, he had to marry again, and again bigamously. On 30 November 1873 he married Margaret Mary Downie in Christ Church, in the south London area of Southwark.

And here  the ‘most systematic rogue’ Simeon Grisdale simply disappears. I can find no trace of his death. In 1881 the wife Maria was still in London but said she was a widow, so I guess Simeon died sometime in the 1870s after a full life indeed: from labourer to brewer to schoolmaster, to prisoner to greengrocer; with six wives and multiple bigamies behind him!

Later I will tell of Simeon Grisdale the third, who became a soldier, went to Ireland then to the North West Frontier in India and, well into his forties, fought in the First World War.

Was it a Grisdale Who Walked to London for Justice?

In the little Cumbrian valley of Matterdale there is a local story that has been passed down from generation to generation for more than three hundred years. It tells of how in the late seventeenth century one poor tenant farmer walked hundreds of miles to London to testify in front of the highest court in the land – the House of Lords – in a trial which pitted a group of Matterdale farmers against a powerful local lord of the manor. Is this story true? If so what was it all about and what was the outcome?

Luckily the records of the trial survive in the archives of the House of Lords and so it is possible to reconstruct much of the real history of this small episode. More than this, the long and costly struggle of the Matterdale farmers gives us a lovely insight into the centuries-long, and much opposed, English enclosure process – a process that was just beginning to bite in Cumberland in the seventeenth century.

Matterdale Church, Cumberland

In those days, it was relatively unusual for poor tenant farmers (not to speak of still poorer cottagers and landless peasants) to somehow be able to manage to take their complaints and grievances against their lords all the way through the different levels of the English legal system right up to the House of Lords. It was also quite rare for them to eventually win, as these Matterdale farmers did! Such rarity was both because the legal system was increasingly stacked against poor rural people trying to uphold their age-old common rights against the insidious and inexorable encroachments of powerful local lords, but also it was simply a question of money. Most small farmers simply just couldn’t afford the huge expense of lawyers plus the time and effort required to pursue their case to the very end.

Later I will provide a little background on the English enclosure movement and what protecting common rights meant, as well as giving some colour regarding the protagonists themselves, the judges and the witnesses who were called to appear before the House of Lords. I will also ask if we can identify the person who “walked to London”. But first what follows is the true story of the legal case as best I can reconstruct it.

Background to the trials

Matterdale

Cumberland was a very poor and sparsely populated county. It wasn’t “champion” arable country as was to be found in much of the south and east of the country. It was and still is a land of lakes, mountains and moors. Great barons and lords held almost all the land in “fee” either directly from the King or from their feudal superiors – i.e. from more powerful magnates. The common people, particularly but not only customary tenant farmers, still pastured their livestock on the moors. These once natural rights to “the common treasury of all” had by now become “customary” rights. The Cumbrian farmers’ ‘right of common pasture’ on certain moors near Matterdale lay at the heart of the legal battle that is the subject of this article.

In the seventeenth century, the greatest landowning barons in the area were the Howard family, the Dukes of Norfolk, but another powerful family was the Huddlestons – historically Catholic like the Dukes of Norfolk themselves. Andrew Huddleston had recently converted to Protestantism to avoid the problems and religious persecution suffered by other members of his family. He was the Lord of the Manor of Hutton John. It was Andrew’s actions that were the cause of the farmers’ complaints and legal battles.

The Carlisle trial and the appeal

Hutton John – Andrew Huddleston’s Manor

In 1686, William Mounsey and fifty-three other named customary tenant farmers from Matterdale hired a lawyer and brought a writ, an ‘English Bill’, before the Court of Exchequer in London. Their claim was that they had all had a right of common pasture for their livestock on three nearby moors and wastes in the Manor of Hutton John, called Hutton Moor, Westermell Fell and Redmire.  But that the lord of the manor, Andrew Huddleston, claimed that the three moors were part of his manor and thus ‘belonged’ to him alone and that the farmers had no right of common pasture there. Like his father before him, he had tried to prevent the farmers from making use of these moors for grazing their livestock. When they didn’t stop he impounded (i.e. seized) their cattle. As the farmers couldn’t fight him physically they had had to resort to the law.

The case is called William Mounsey et al, versus Huddleston.

On July 1st 1686, the Exchequer judges referred the case to the Court of Common Pleas, to be heard at the next session of the Cumberland Assizes in Carlisle. This was duly held. The Carlisle assize court was presided over by an itinerant judge; a jury of twelve local men was convened. The judge in the case was called Thomas Powell (later Sir Thomas). The court and the jury heard the arguments of the plaintiff farmers and of the defendant Andrew Huddleston (or at least from their counsels), as well as taking the testimony of other witnesses.

The jury found in the farmers’ favour. But Huddleston wasn’t having any of it. As we will see he was later to argue that the true decision of the jury wasn’t in fact that all these fifty-four Matterdale tenants had a right of common pasture on ‘his’ moors and wastes, but that only he and William Mounsey had such a right. However, in the immediate aftermath of the trial what he in fact did was to continue to harass the farmers and impound their cattle.

The farmers wouldn’t lie down for this. They believed they had right on their side. As the law allowed, they made an appeal to the Court of Appeal to have the trial decision upheld and enforced. This meant returning to the judges of the Court of Exchequer in London when they sat to judge such matters of supposed Error and ‘Equity and Justice’. These sittings were held in the “Exchequer Chamber”. We are told that the judges in the Exchequer Chamber questioned the original Carlisle trial judge, the now ‘Sir’ Thomas Powell, and examined the trial record (the so-called Postea). They upheld the original verdict that all the farmers had the customary right of common pasture and made an injunction restraining Huddlestone from harassing the farmers further.

The House of Lords

London in 1690

Andrew Huddleston still refused to accept the verdict and the injunction made against him that he should refrain from harassing the farmers and impounding their cattle. He decided to appeal to the House of Lords to “reverse” the judgement and decree of the Court of Exchequer and asked that he be “restored to all that he hath lost thereby”.

His petition to the House, written by his counsels Samuel Buck and B. Tonstall, is dated the 3rd of April 1690. His case was that there had been an error in the recording of the verdict of the jury at the Carlisle court and that it had actually found that only he and William Mounsey had the common customary right to pasture their livestock on the moors and not that all the farmers had this right as the Court of Exchequer had found. His petition reads:

At ye next assizes for ye said County after aview averdict was given upon ye said issue that the said Mounsey hath only right of common in Westermellfell and the said verdict was indorsed on ye Pannell and yet afterwards at ye hearing upon ye equity… the said court by reason of ye said verdict decreed that all ye said 53 tenants of Matterdale should enjoy right of Common in Westermellfell and that your petitioner should pay costs and be perpetually enjoyned from distreining any (of) ye said Tenants cattle upon ye said Westermellfell.

He based his case on his contention that:

Ten of the said Jury certified upon Oath filed in ye said Court that it was the meaning of the said Jury that ye said Mounsey had only rights of Comon in Westermellfell and no other of the tenants of Matterdale.

And that:

Ye Postea was not filed in ye Court of Common Pleas….  until ye last long vacacon (vacation) and then notwithstanding ye indorsement Judgement was entered as if it had been found that all ye fifty-three tenants had and ought to have Comon in Westermellfell. All of which your petitioner assignes for Error in ye said Judgement and Decree.

Thus his petition to reverse the decision of the court of appeal was “ by reason of ye said indorsement of Record and ye said Certificates ready to be produced” which proved that “it was not found that any of the said tenants had or ought to have any common…”

Now this all may seem a bit obscure and full of French Law expressions, and it is, but as far as I can understand it essentially Huddleston was arguing that the verdict of the Carlisle trial (no doubt along with a list of jurors) was recorded and annexed to or “indorsed” to the writ on a parchment “Pannell”. This had been either not been seen or was ignored by the Court of Appeal. In addition, the Postea, which was the written report of the clerk of the court after a trial detailing the proceedings and the decision reached, had been delayed in being submitted to the Court of Common Pleas in London and thus had not been seen by the judges of the Exchequer Chamber. He was also claiming that he had sworn written statements (affidavits) from ten of the Carlisle jurymen that they had in fact only found that Mounsey had a right of common and not all the tenant farmers.

On the 3rd April 1690 the House of Lords considered Huddleston’s petition:

Upon reading the Petition of Andrew Hudlestone Esquire; shewing, “That William Munsey, and Fifty-three others, as Tenants within the Vill of Matterdale, in the Barony of Grastocke, in the County of Cumberland, in Mich’mas Terme, 36°Car. II^di, exhibited their English Bill in the Court of Exchequer against your Petitioner, as Lord of the Manor of Hutton John, complaining, that at a Hearing, 1° Julii 1686, it was by that Court referred to a Trial at Law, whether all or any of the said Tenants of Matterdale have or ought to have Common of Pasture in the said Moors, or any Part thereof; and also of the Judgement given upon that Issue, which he conceives to be erroneous,” as in the Petition is set forth:

It is thereupon ORDERED, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, That the said William Munsey, and the Fifty-three other Tenants before-mentioned, may have a Copy or Copies of the said Petition; and be, and are hereby, required to put in their Answer or respective Answers thereunto, in Writing, on Thursday the 17th Day of this Instant April, at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon; whereof the Petitioner is to cause timely Notice to be given to the Defendants, to the End they answer accordingly.

This was a tight deadline for the farmers and their counsel asked for an extension, which the Lords granted on the 15th of April:

The House being this Day moved, “That William Munsey and the Inhabitants of Materdale in Cumberland may have a longer Time to answer to the Petition and Appeal of Andrew Hudleston, they being at a great Distance from London:”

It is thereupon ORDERED, That the said William Munsey and others the Inhabitants aforesaid have hereby Time given them for answering thereunto, until Thursday the First Day of May next, at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon.

The Matterdale farmers gave their answer on the 30th April 1690. They stated yet again that they held they held customary tenements in “the Barony of Greystoke in the County of Cumberland” and that these tenements were “descendible from ancestor to heire according to the custom of the said Barony under diverse rents and services”. In addition they:

Became duly intituled under the right and tithe of the then Duke of Norfolk Lord and owner of the said Barony or otherwise to have common of pasture for all their goates, sheep and cattle levant and couchant on the said customary tenements yearly and at all times of the year in and upon certain Moores or Wast grounds called Hutton Moor, Westermellfell and Redmire or some of them in the parish of Graystoke  as to their customary tenements belonging and which they and their Ancestors and predecessors, tenants of the said customary tenements, had from tyme out of mind enjoyed and ought to enjoy and being molested therein unjustly by the now Appellant who claymes to be Lord of the Manor of Hutton John and that the said Moores and Wastes lye within that Manor and pretended that the now Respondents had no right of common there.

The farmers then described how they had wanted to assert and establish their right of common and had thus presented their ‘English Bill’ to the Court of Exchequer and how their case had been sent for trial at the Carlisle assizes, in the Court of Common Pleas, the question being:

Whether all or any of the customary tenants of the late Henry Duke of Norfolk in Matterdale … have (from) tyme out of mind had and ought to have common of pasture on the waste grounds called Hutton Moor, Westermell Fell and Redmire in any part thereof and at all tymes of the year..

They stated that “upon a long and full evidence and examination on both sides the Jury gave a verdict that all the said customary tenants had common of pasture for their said cattle”, and that this decision had been so recorded in the Postea. They went on to explain how the case “came again to be heard in the Exchequer Chambor” (the appeal court), how the judges had once again examined witnesses, read the Postea and heard counsel for both parties. The judges had also examined the original trial judge, the now ‘Sir’ Tomas Powell, and had “decreed that all respondents had right of common… and that they should enjoy the same without the least disturbance or interruption of the now Appellant (Huddleston) and that “an injunction was awarded for quiet enjoyment and restraining of the Appellant”.

Westermell Fell – Now Great Mell Fell

Basically the farmers were claiming that both the Court of Common Pleas sitting in Carlisle and subsequently the Exchequer appeal court, sitting in the Exchequer Chamber, had found for them. Their rights, they said, had been upheld “in diverse Tryalls at Law”, but that the petitioner Huddleston “being unreasonably vexatious did still molest and interrupt (them) in the enjoyment of their common by impounding their cattle and otherwise and yet (i.e. still) refusing to suffer their right and title to the said common”. Regarding Huddleston’s claim that he had affidavits from ten of the original Carlisle jury, the farmers “suggested that if he had “procured” such certificates then they believed these to have been “unduly obtained” and that “they ought not to be made use of against them in this case” because it would be of “dangerous consequence to admit new evidence” or give credence to any statements of the jurors which were “in opposition or diminution to their verdict entered of record and verified by the Judge before whom the Tryall was had”.

In essence I think we see here the implicit suggestion of the farmers that Huddleston had somehow pressured or extorted the jurors to recant their original decision. We will never know the truth but such things were not unheard of.

Some of the exasperation of the farmers comes to us clearly over the centuries from their final words. Being they said “but poor men” they were “not able to contend with the Appellant who is rich and powerfull and uses all means to weary (us) out”.

They asked that the House of Lords dismiss Huddleston’s petition “with costs” because they had already occurred significant costs and trouble “in the proceedings so far” and that there was still more to pay.

The verdict

The House of Lords in the seventeenth century

The Lords set the 10th May 1690 for the hearing of the case and asked Huddleston to “cause Notice to be given to the Defendants, to the End they attend with their Counsel accordingly” on that day. They also ordered that “Charles Howard Esquire, John Aglionby Esquire, James Bird Esquire, John Mounsey Gentleman, and John Grisedale” should “attend this House, on Monday the 12th of this Instant May, at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon, as Witnesses on the Behalf of William Mounsey and others Respondents, and wherein Andrew Hudlestone Esquire is Appellant”.

The date of the hearing was moved back twice more, both because the “respondents and Andrew Hudlestone” were “far distant from London” and because their Lordships had had to deal with “more weighty matters”. A final date of 4th December 1690 was eventually fixed.

The day before the hearing the Lords ordered that:

The Custos Brevium of the Court of Common Pleas do attend at the Bar of this House To-morrow, at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon, with the Record of the Postea and Verdict in the Cause tried at the Assizes at Carlisle, between Andrew Hudleston Esquire and Mr. William Mounsey; and hereof he may not fail.

The Custos Brevium was the chief clerk of the Court of Common Pleas. The judges wanted to see for themselves the written record of the Carlisle trial which was such a bone of contention.

I give the Lords’ verdict in full:

Upon hearing Counsel this Day at the Bar, upon the Petition of Andrew Hudleston Esquire, shewing, “That William Mounsey and Fifty-three others, as Tenants within the Vill of Matterdale, in the Barony of Graystocke, in the County ofCumberland, in Michaelmas Terme, 36° Car. 11^di, exhibited their English Bill, in the Court of Exchequer, against the Petitioner, as Lord of the Manor of Hutton John; complaining, that, at a Hearing, the First of July 1686, it was by that Court referred to a Trial at Law, whether all or any of the said Tenants of Matterdale have, or ought to have, Common of Pasture in the Moors or Wastes in the Petition mentioned, or any Part thereof, as also of the Judgement given upon the Issue, which he conceives to be erroneous;” as also upon hearing Counsel upon the Answer of William Mounsey, Richard Grisedale, Jos. Grisedale, Thomas Atkinson Junior, Thomas Atkinson Senior, Edward Grisedale Senior, Edward Grisedale Junior, Thomas Grisedale, Thomas Grisedale, John Pauley, William Greenhow, Robert Grisedale, John Benson, John Wilkinson, William Robinson, Michaell Grisedale, William Dockeray, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Harrison, Thomas Hoggart, John Wilson, George Martin, John Harrison, John Neffeild, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Hodgson, William Wilkinson, Richard Wilkinson, John Dawson, Rich. Sutton, John Nithellson, John Robinson, Chamberlaine Dawson, John Mounsey, William Wilson, Robert Hudson, James Hudson, Agnes Gibson, Robert Rukin, John Brownrigg, Michaell Atkinson, John Greenhow, John Birkett, Thomas Brownrigg, William Robinson, Thomas Greenhow, John Gilbanck, Thomas Greenhow, John Gilbanck, John Greenbow, Thomas Greenhow, and John Coleman, put in thereunto:

After due Consideration had of what was offered by Counsel on either Side thereupon, it is ORDERED and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, That the said Petition of Andrew Hudleston be, and is hereby, dismissed this House; and that the Decree made in the Court of Exchequer, from which he appealed to this House, be, and is hereby, affirmed.

The Matterdale farmers had won. At least for the time being they and their descendants would be able to benefit from their common and customary rights to graze their cattle and other livestock on these Cumberland moors. Of course the Huddleston family didn’t give up their quest to deny the farmers their ancient rights and they were finally able to completely enclose Hutton Fell by an Act of Parliamentary Enclosure in the nineteenth century, by which time many of the members of the families who brought Andrew Huddleston to court had already been forced off the land, to move to the satanic mills of the northern industrial towns, to join the army or to emigrate. But that is another story.

Who were the protagonists and their witnesses?

The full list of all the fifty-four Matterdale farmers was given in the Lords final ruling quoted above as well as in the farmers’ answer to Huddleston’s petition. They were all members of long-established Matterdale families. William Mounsey himself was one of the wealthier tenants and came from Brownrigg in Matterdale, others farmed up and down Matterdale valley, from Douthwaite Head in the south to near Hutton John in the north.

As has been mentioned, Andrew Huddleston came from a long line of Catholics, whose cadet branch had become Lords of Hutton John. Andrew’s Uncle John was a catholic priest and had helped King Charles the Second escape following the decisive Battle of Worcester in 1651 and when Charles was restored after the English Revolution he became his confidant and reconciled him to the Catholic faith on his deathbed. Unlike many of his relatives (including his father) Andrew was flexible and converted to the Anglican faith and then set about restoring his family’s fortunes. The Huddlestons remained Lords of Hutton John for centuries to come.

Regarding the witnesses who were called to the House of Lords as witnesses; on November 8th 1690, when Andrew Huddleston petitioned that “your Lordships appoint a day” for the hearing, his counsel also humbly conceived that “Sir Wilfred Lawson Bart., John Pattinson, Thomas Benn and John Huddleston be fit and material witnesses in the cause”. I will have to leave it for a later time to look at who these people were (and it is certainly of interest). Suffice it to say they were obviously being called to bolster Huddleston case regarding the alleged customary rights of the tenant farmers as well to challenge the decision of the jury at the Carlisle assizes as it had been interpreted by the Court of Exchequer.

Brownrigg In Matterdale – Where William Mounsey lived

But if we want to know who the Matterdale farmer was who, according to the local oral history, walked to London to appear before the House of Lords, we need perhaps to look at the witnesses called to give evidence for the farmers themselves. Earlier I mentioned that the House of Lords had ordered that “Charles Howard Esquire, John Aglionby Esquire, James Bird Esquire, John Mounsey Gentleman, and John Grisedale” should “attend this House … as Witnesses on the Behalf of William Mounsey and others Respondents”. Now Charles Howard (of Greystoke) was the brother of Henry the sixth Duke of Norfolk who had died in 1684 and to whom the farmers repeatedly made reference in trying to establish the legality of their rights of common pasture. He was no doubt being called to testify to this effect. John Aglionby’s family had supposedly come over with William the Conqueror and were a long-established Cumbrian gentry family. John himself was a lawyer and a long-serving recorder of the Carlisle Assizes and was thus without much doubt being called to testify regarding the decision of the jury and court in the original trial. James Bird Esq. remains obscure for the moment, but John Mounsey, who was a “gentleman”, was William Mounsey’s brother. He and John Grisedale (certainly a relative of the numerous Grisdales amongst the Matterdale farmers) were probably being called either to give evidence regarding the customary rights of the farmers “from time immemorial” or regarding the verdict of the Carlisle trial.

So perhaps it was John Mounsey or John Grisedale who had “walked to London”? After all they are the two most likely contenders as we know that the House of Lords had demanded their presence. But of course it could equally as well have been William Mounsey himself or one of the other fifty-three, in their capacity as respondents to Huddleston’s petition. Perhaps we will never know.

What was it all about?

It’s certainly pleasing to know that this group of “poor men” finally prevailed over the “rich and powerful” Andrew Huddleston. It was obviously pretty crucial to their future livelihood that they could continue to pasture their animals on the moors.  But where does this small legal fight fit in the longer sweep of English history?

The majority of the English rural population had “from time out of mind” relied upon being able to make use of the huge swathes of England that were not under cultivation or definitively enclosed to supplement their meagre livelihood. They collected wood from the forests for building and heating, they foraged wild fruits, berries and leaves to supplement their diets, they cut peat or turf to burn and they grazed their goats, sheep and cattle on the wastes and moors. This they had done for as long as people had lived in a specific locality – in England certainly from well before the Norman Conquest. Without wishing to romanticise pre-conquest England, the land and it bounty were a “common treasury” for all.

When The Norman French arrived in and after 1066, England was divvied up between the King and his secular and religious followers. The French feudal system was imposed with a vengeance. The long process of denying people their “rights” (to use an anachronistic term) to make use of the Commons had begun. The Norman French Kings created private “forests” for their own hunting while the French religious and lay barons and lords went about reducing most of the population to de facto or de jure serfdom. But while there was  hardly any part of the country that was not owned (or held in feudal fee) by the Kings or the great magnates and lords, there were still enormous amounts of wastes, woods and moors surrounding the hundreds of nucleated, and usually cultivated, villages. The local people continued to use these commons but now their right to do so had become “customary” rather than what we might call natural.

Sheepfold on Hutton Moor

These customary rights were just part of a whole elaborate web of mutual feudal rights and obligations between lords and their vassals. To take the example of Cumbrian tenant farmers, they had the right to live on and work their tenements because their ancestors had before them. They had to pay rents, they owed labour services on the lords’ home farms – including various boon-days when the harvest needed gathering. They had to pay a fine or “relief” when the tenant died and his successor took over and when the manor itself passed from one generation to the next. But they also had rights in the common. By the seventeenth century all these rights and obligations were seen as deriving from custom. Sometimes they were written down but sometimes the customs were just that: customary, and were claimed to have existed from time immemorial.

An important part of the history of the English people in the nine hundred years following the Conquest is the history of how the majority of English people was inexorably deprived of its common rights and slowly but surely forced off the land. This was the process of English enclosures. It took a long time, starting I would suggest in the thirteenth century, gaining momentum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and reaching its brutal climax with the Parliamentary Enclosures of the nineteenth century; by which time England had been effectively fully privatised.

George Orwell once put it thus:

Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so.

In the previous century Karl Marx had already summed up what the Enclosures were all about:

We have seen how the forcible seizure of the common lands, accompanied for the most part by the transformation of arable into pasture, began in the fifteenth century and lasted on into the sixteenth […] The advance that has been made in the eighteenth century is shown in this, that the law itself now became the instrument by which the theft of the people’s land was achieved, although the great farmers continued to use their petty private methods in addition. The parliamentary form of this robbery was to pass Acts for the enclosure of commons; in other words, decrees whereby the great landowners made a present to themselves of the people’s land, which thus became their own private property […] a systematic seizure of communal landed property helped, side by side with the theft of the State domains, to swell the size of those great farms which, in the eighteenth century, were called ‘capital farms’ or ‘merchant farms’, and ‘to set the country folk at liberty’ as a proletariat for the uses of industry.

Deprived of the Commons many Matterdale people ended up here

The small victory of the Matterdale farmers in 1690 was important to them, but in the longer term their victory was almost pyrrhic. The Huddlestons wanted more land and they wanted exclusive use of that land. They wanted “private property” in its modern sense. They, like so many other “noble” English families, finally got what they wanted. The bulk of the rural population could no longer support itself. If people couldn’t have access to the commons they were drawn into the new industrial cities and towns there to become a new class of urban proletariat, or perhaps they went to fights the Kings’ wars or had to emigrate to Canada or America or perhaps they were convicted of petty crimes undertaken to feed themselves and their families and were transported to Australia. The descendants of the Matterdale farmers did all of these.

Sources

The details of the hearing of the case William Mounsey et al, versus Huddleston are held in the archives of the House of Lords. Huddleston’s petition: HL/PO/JO/10/1/422/250 and Mounsey et al’s reply: HL/PO/JO/3/184/1. The House of Lords Journal Volume pages 447, 465, 486, 488, 545, 548, 577 and 578 provide further information.

There are also documents relating to the original Carlisle assize trial  held in the Cumbria record office, including D HUD 1/20  and D HGB/1/115.

Grisdale Cockle Fishermen of the Cartmel Peninsula

‘From Silverdale and Kent Sand side
Where soil is sold with cockle shells
For Cartmel eke and Conneyside
And fellows fierce from Furneys fells.’ – From a Tudor Ballad

 The story I want to tell here is a story of poor nineteenth-century cockle fishermen in the Cartmel peninsula, which was then in northern Lancashire but is now part of Cumbria. It is a story of a man called Isaac Armistead Grisdale, who was born in Allithwaite in Cartmel in 1808 and died in the same place in 1881. But before I begin with cockling let us go back a generation.

Isaac was the first child of Thomas Grisdale (1784-1864) and his wife Mary Armistead, who were married in Cartmel on 30 September 1807. The Armistead family came from nearby Heversham and Mary’s father was called Isaac, hence the name which keeps reappearing in this family. Mary’s sister Margaret married Thomas’s brother Joseph in Cartmel in 1816.

Morecambe Bay Cocklers

Isaac’s father Thomas was originally a carpenter or ‘sawyer’ who sometime after his marriage in 1807 took his wife and two children away from Cartmel all the way to the cotton weaving town of Bolton in Lancashire, where the couple had two more children: John in 1819 and William Armistead Grisdale in 1821. Whether they knew it or not they would have been surrounded in Bolton by various Grisdale relatives working in the cotton industry.

But our Grisdale family here eventually moved back to Cartmel and Thomas quit carpentry and tried his hand at what was the main occupation in the area: cockle fishing, and, at times, being a fishmonger. Fishing is what he was doing in 1840 when his son Isaac married Mary Atkinson. It seems that Isaac must have worked with his father in this hard and perilous job of cockle fishing on the sands of Morecambe Bay. He continued to do so for the next thirty years, being variously described as a ‘fisherman’, ‘fishmonger’ and ‘pauper fisherman’, before turning to gardening in his old age, before his death in 1881.

So these are some of the basic facts. I will return to the family later. But let’s look at what cockle fishing entailed on the Cartmel peninsula, something from which both Thomas and his son Isaac tried to make a living, but, at least some of the time, Isaac had to take ‘outdoor’ relief from the parish – hence his designation as ‘pauper fisherman’ in 1851 when he was forty-three.

Cartmel Peninsula

The Cartmel peninsular is not a very big place; all the primary villages are within a couple of miles of each other and all near the sands and sea of Morecambe Bay. At one time or another members of this Grisdale family lived in all of them: Cartmel, Cark, Allithwaite and Flookburgh.

Cartmel Parish is that highly picturesque and interesting district extending from the lower reach of Windermere to the great bay of Morecambe, and projecting southward between the estuaries of the Kent and Leven, being bounded on the other sides by Westmorland. Its surface is exceedingly diversified, alternately rising into barren and rocky hills and sinking into warm and fertile valleys, whose sides are clothed with native wood. On the margin of the western sands, a peat-like incrustation has been formed, but it is rapidly disappearing under the skilful operations of the cultivator. The parish, which comprises an area of about 25,137 statute acres, is about twelve miles in length, and averages from four to five in breadth, and is divided into five chapelries and seven townships, viz.: Lower Allithwaite, Upper Allithwaite, Broughton, Cartmel-Fell, Lower Holker, Upper Holker, and Staveley, which contained, collectively, in 1841, a population of 4,924 souls. The sands between the Lancaster shore and Hesk bank, in this parish, are about ten miles in breadth, and have always been considered as dangerous in the approach from Lancaster to Furness, but in company with the guides who are stationed on them, few accidents occur. Levens sands, on the west side of the peninsula, are about three miles in breadth, and are fordable at low water, but the flowing tide from Morecambe covers the whole sandy plain twice a day, many feet deep in the liquid element.

The History, Topography and Directory of Westmorland, 1851.

Flookburgh was historically the main cockling town, if town we can really call it. It is often stated that Flookburgh derives its name from a local flat fish, known as the Fluke, but many local people say that Flookburgh wasn’t named after the Fluke but the Fluke was named after the village. Another more persuasive suggestion it that actually the name comes from the tenth century Hiberno-Norse settlers of the area and that it means Flugga’s burgh or settlement.

Flookburgh

Flookburgh – about seven miles east of Ulverston – was, at one time, a market town of some importance, largely because it was situated on the major cross-bay route which connected Lancaster with Furness. Having been granted a charter by Edward I, later confirmed by Henry IV, and again by Charles II in 1665, Flookburgh was able to hold a market and two annual fairs.

Cartmel Priory in 1726

Certainly ‘fishing’ for cockles and mussels, and other fish, in the sands and shallow tidal waters of the surrounding bays must have gone on since people had first lived there. Recently one of the last true local cockle fisherman, Jack Manning, told of ‘some ancient fish traps exposed when the River Leven changed course in 2000, taking approximately 20ft depth of sand and salt marsh and exposing a rock scar where ancient fish traps were discovered. These remained visible for the next couple of years. The timbers were well preserved and a sample was sent for analysis, the result showing a date of 1350-1411 so it would seem likely that they had been placed by monks from either Cartmel Priory or Furness Abbey’.

At one time the land south of the village would have been sand and, at exceptionally high tides, the sea washed over the streets. Today the sea is one mile away along a straight road over reclaimed land which leads the campus of the Lakeland Caravan Park.

The BBC visited the peninsula a few years ago and wrote: ‘The process of catching cockles entails rocking a plank of wood (called a jumbo) on the sand to generate a sucking action. The jumbo was unique to the Flookburgh area at one time, but is now more widely used in manual cockle catching. The cockles then emerge from the sand at which point they are either picked out by hand or raked with a garden rake and put into bags. A full bag of cockles will weigh 25 kilos. There may be roughly up to 2000 cockles in a bag…’

The report continues:

Cockles usually bury themselves no more than half an inch below the sand, so they become exposed as the tide recedes. But they have more to them than meets the eye – they will bury themselves deeper in the sand during heavy rain or frosty weather to protect themselves from the elements…and they may even delve deeper during a hot spell in search of a cooler place. You can often spot where there may be cockles lurking by the odd open shell where a bird has feasted or numerous depressions in the sand indicating where they are buried.

Morecambe Bay Cocklers

Until quite recently the cockle fishermen used horses and carts, although until the estuary silted up boats would also come from further afield.

So this was how and where Thomas Grisdale and his son Isaac Armistead Grisdale made their meagre livelihood in the nineteenth century, living in the village of Allithwaite. I guess not much had changed by 1904 when the Westmorland Gazette reported:

The public road between Allithwaite and Flookburgh is still much frequented by drunken and disorderly men and other objectionable animals.  The magistrates at Cartmel on Tuesday did nothing else but inquire into cases of this kind.  Allithwaite is especially to be pitied, for its Saturday nights seem to be made hideous by inebriate men and its Sundays by stray pigs.  The police and the magistrates are struggling bravely to abate both nuisances.  Calm and sweet peace will presently visit the village.

Did it?

Allithwaite and sands

The History, Topography and Directory of Westmorland, published in 1851, precisely when Thomas and Isaac were living in Allithwaite, has a more pedestrian description of the village:

ALLITHWAITE (LOWER) township comprises also a village of its own name, two miles S.S.E. of Cartmel, and the hamlets of Cartlane, two miles E.S.E., and Kent Bank, two and a half miles E.S.E. of the same town, with several dispersed dwellings, bearing different names…

Near Kent Bank, resides the “Carter,” as the guide who conducts travellers over the sands of this part of Morecambe Bay, has long been designated, owing to his name being Carter. His ancestors held the same necessary office during many generations. The original yearly salary was £10, but it has been long advanced to £20, and his stipend in greatly augmented by the gratuities received from the numerous travellers, whom he conducts safely over dangerous sands and shifting channels. The guides were formerly paid by the Prior of Cartmel, but are now paid from the revenues of the Queen, as Duchess of Lancaster. The traveller, when crossing these sands on a hot summer day, is strongly reminded of an Arabian march; the tracks, or roads, are defined by branches of furze stuck in, called “brogs,” and by poles at the edges of the channels.

Under the influence of clear, cloudy, or tempestuous weather, the surrounding scenery assumes an almost endless change of effect, which, combined with the refreshing sea breeze, the easiness of motion, the loquaciousness and jocularity of the guide, renders the journey extremely agreeable, especially in fine weather. “The track is from Holker Hall to Plumpton Hall, keeping Chapel Island a little to the left; and the mind of the visitor in filled with a mixture of awe and gratitude, when, in a short time after he has traversed this estuary almost dry-shod, he beholds the waters advancing into the bay, and bearing stately vessels towards the harbour of Ulverston, over the very path which he has so recently trodden.” At Kent Bank is a large and commodious inn.

Given Lancastrian coastal weather (I know I was born there), it is probably pushing it a bit far to say that ‘the traveller, when crossing these sands on a hot summer day, is strongly reminded of an Arabian march’!

I hope this has given you some idea of how these Grisdales lived in the nineteenth century. It was a hard life and didn’t provide much income even at the best of times. Even with the knowledge of the tides and sands, locals would often still drown when the tide came in fast. In fact Thomas’s brother Joseph was ‘found drowned’ in 1861.

Returning to the family itself: when had it arrived in Cartmel and what became of it. I will be brief.

Sawyer and later fisherman Thomas Grisdale (1784-1864) was the son of a weaver of Cartmel also called Thomas (1737-1807), who had married another Grisdale, Deborah Grisdale, in St Mary’s church in the county town of Lancaster in 1766. The couple had at least eight children, most of whom died young. When Thomas senior died in Headless Cross (near Flookburgh) in 1807 he gave his age as seventy. Although for some reason I can’t find his birth anywhere in or around 1737, I think Thomas senior can be no other than a son of the only Grisdale family living in Cartmel in the mid-eighteenth century: that of John Grisdale and his Heversham-born wife Elizabeth Holme. When ‘widow’ and ‘pauper’ Elizabeth Grisdale (nee Holme) died in 1792, she too was living at Headless Cross, where her putative son Thomas senior died some years later. John had died in Holme in Allithwaite in 1770.

And where had John, the first Grisdale in Cartmel, come from? After their marriage in Heversham in 1825, John and Elizabeth had lived in nearby Crosthwaite and Lyth and had several children there. But they moved to Cartmel sometime prior to 1740 when their first Cartmel child, Elizabeth, was born in ‘Mineside’ in Cartmel (wherever that is). Several more children were born in Holme in Allithwaite.

I’ll return at a later date to John’s origins. It’s most likely they were in Matterdale, and there seems only one possibility.

Finally, what of cockle fisherman Isaac Armistead Grisdale’s descendants? This is also for a future date. But suffice it to say here that this was a very poor family indeed and many children died young. But Isaac Armistead had a son and grandson of the exact same name, Isaac Armistead Grisdale,and his great grandson, David Atkinson Grisdale (1877-1914) emigrated from Yorkshire to Humboldt, Saskatchewan in Canada in 1910, where many of his descendants still live. That’s a story I might tell at a later date.

Isaac Armistead Grisdale’s grandson of the same name

 

A Grisdale Métis Family in Manitoba

In the late 1830s and early 1840s three young brothers attended school together in what would become, but wasn’t yet, the Canadian city of Winnipeg. They were pupils at the Red River Academy, the first school established in the Red River Settlement, an area of Manitoba where Lord Selkirk had established English and Scottish farmers. These settlers in the Red River area weren’t however the first people there. The indigenous peoples, mostly of the Cree and Ojibway tribes, had been there for a long time. There were also the Métis, people of mixed race – French/Indian or British/Indian – who mostly worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the fur trade. It was for the children of these people that the Red River Academy was started.

On land granted by Selkirk to his settlers for religious and educational purposes the Reverend John West of the Church of England founded in 1820 the church of St. John. This was located about two miles below the Forks on the west bank of the Red. The mission gave rise to the Red River Academy, later St. John’s College. It was established for the training of a native ministry and for the education of the sons of Hudson’s Bay Company employees.

Red River Academy

The three brothers were called Thomas, John and William Bunn. They were the only children of the Métis, or ‘half-breed’, couple Dr John Bunn and Catherine Thomas, who at the time lived in the small Red River Settlement of St. Paul, known as Middlechurch. Catherine’s father was Welsh but her mother Sarah was a Cree Indian. Dr John Bunn’s father was English, but his mother Sarah McNab was a Scottish/Indian Métis.

All the boys’ family were or had been employees in one capacity or another of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Dr John Bunn was the first native-born doctor to practice medicine in the Red River Settlement.   His English-born father Thomas was employed as a writer by the Hudson’s Bay Company at the company’s York Factory (trading post) in Manitoba.

Young John was well cared for by his father and by his Scottish grandfather, John McNab, a surgeon and the chief factor at York Factory. Thanks to their generous assistance, he attended a good school in Edinburgh and then began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. ‘In 1819, when he had only two years’ medical training, not enough to graduate, he was persuaded by McNab to accept a position as surgeon at Moose Factory. Upon reaching Moose Factory in September of that year, Bunn had grave misgivings about the wisdom of his grandfather’s decision in sending a not yet fully qualified doctor into the wilderness of Rupert’s Land. Uneasy as he was about his future, during the next five years Bunn gained considerable experience by serving the HBC as a surgeon at several posts as well as on the company’s ship, the Eddystone.’

York Factory 1812

John’s entry in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography continues:

With no real taste for a nomadic existence, Bunn in 1824 left the HBC service and moved to the Red River Settlement to begin a private medical practice. Here, in the vicinity of Middlechurch, he lived with his father who had retired two years earlier. Here too, on 23 July 1829, he married Catherine Thomas, the daughter of his father’s close friend Thomas Thomas, a former governor of the Northern Department. Because of his family connections and his professional status, Bunn was able to move easily in the influential circles of Red River society. A witty, good-natured, and vigorous man, with a dark complexion and a handsome bearing, Bunn the doctor was as popular with the HBC establishment as he was with the half-caste population of the settlement.

Feeling the need to upgrade his qualifications, Bunn again attended the University of Edinburgh during the 1831–32 academic session, and returned to Red River in 1832 not with a degree but as a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons at Edinburgh. He was happy to come home to his wife Catherine who had cheered him with her affectionate letters while he was abroad. A little over a year after his return, on 3 Jan. 1834, came her death, and he never remarried. He and his three small boys… continued to live comfortably in his father’s household which was ably managed by his halfbreed stepmother Phoebe Sinclair Bunn.

Dr John Bunn

With the lack of European women it was fairly common, in fact usual, for English and Scottish employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the remote west of British North America to take  native Indian wives, marriages often entered into via a native ritual and thus not recognised by the Church of England. The same was true, and for a much longer period, of the French fur trappers, voyageurs and traders.

There is much more to tell about this fascinating man, but our concern here is with his sons. When the three boys were pupils at the Red River Academy the headmaster was John Macallum who came to Red River in 1833 as a schoolteacher, working at £100 per annum at the academy. In 1836, having married one of his mixed-blood students, he became headmaster in 1838 and having initially leased the buildings from the HBC, which owned the property, he eventually purchased the school for £350 in 1841.

Under Macallum’s guidance it (the school) maintained a high level of excellence. During his tenure courses were offered in Greek, Latin, geography, Bible study, history, algebra, writing, and elocution.

It was later said that Macallum’s school ‘prepared a goodly number of postmasters, clerks and future chief traders and chief factors’ for the HBC and that he was a ‘conscientious and faithful worker”, but who ‘perhaps over-estimated the use of the rod’.

John Macallum

He was in fact ‘a strict disciplinarian, with a strong sense of morality’.  Despite his own marriage to a mixed blood girl, if Indian or mixed-blood mothers were not formally married he refused to allow them to visit their children at the school. One contemporary commented on this policy as being ‘fearfully cruel for the poor unfortunate mothers did not know that there was any distinction’. Macallum was also ‘an exponent of corporal punishment, he employed a rod more than three feet long’.

Such was the school life of the three Bunn brothers. Their mother would likely have not been allowed to visit them if she had lived; unfortunately she had died in 1834 when the boys were still very young.

The third and youngest brother, William, died in 1847, aged just fourteen. Thomas was the oldest son; he was born in St Paul in 1830 and was to go on to great things. Second son John, who was born in 1832, never achieved any fame, but it was one of his daughters who would marry into the family of the Bolton-born future Bishop of Qu’Appelle John Grisdale.

Thomas Bunn (third from left back row) with Louis Riel (middle second row)

Having left school Thomas Bunn first remained in St. Paul where he married Métis Isabella Clouston in 1854. Three children followed until Isabella’s untimely death only three years later. He then moved to the nearby St. Andrews where he married Rachel Harriot in 1859. Eventually he moved further up the Red River to St. Clements near Selkirk. He became a member of the Church of England and a freemason. ‘He was able, therefore, to have some influence in the Indian community and to enter English society in Red River. In January 1868 Bunn was appointed a member of the Council of Assiniboia and held this office until the council ceased to function in September 1870. On 17 Dec. 1869 he succeeded W. R. Smith as executive officer of the council with a salary of £100 per year.’

Here a little history is called for. It explains Thomas Bunn’s involvement in the ‘Red River Rebellion’, better said the Red River Resistance:

In 1869 Louis Riel had begun to organize resistance to the transfer of the North-West to the dominion of Canada without prearranged terms. Bunn was elected a representative from St Clements to the council of English and French parishes convened on 16 Nov. 1869 to draw up terms for entry. He hoped for a united front to negotiate these terms of union with Canada. Most English settlers, however, were disposed to think that Canada would be just, and if it were not, that Great Britain would ensure a fair settlement. Many English were willing to support Riel’s policy of union through negotiation, not so much because they thought negotiation was necessary, but because they hoped thus to preserve peace in the Red River Settlement. Bunn tried indeed to pursue an intermediate position, and the strains were sometimes great. By accepting Riel’s policy, Bunn, in a sense, made himself Riel’s English half-breed lieutenant, despite the fact that there was no bond between the men.

On 19 and 20 Jan. 1870, a mass open-air meeting was held to hear Donald Alexander Smith, commissioner of the Canadian government. Bunn was chairman of the discussion. It was decided that a convention should be held to prepare terms for negotiations with Canada, and that delegates should be elected. Bunn was one of those appointed to a committee to arrange the elections. He himself became a delegate from St Clements. From 27 January to 3 February, the convention prepared a second list of rights and approved the formation of a provisional government. Riel made Bunn secretary of state in the provisional government.

On 24 August the military forces of the crown under Colonel Garnet Joseph Wolseley reached Upper Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and the provisional government was swept from power. Bunn survived its fall and may have been present at a meeting of the Council of Assiniboia which Wolseley revived in an attempt to settle the situation. Indeed, Bunn continued as usual in Red River society and set out to establish himself in the new order. As a man of some education and a fluent speaker with a judicious cast of mind, he decided to go into law. He was called to the bar of the new province of Manitoba in 1871, and was clerk to the First General Quarterly Court held in the new province on 16 May 1871. St Clements returned him as its first member to the provincial Legislative Assembly on 30 Dec. 1870. Thus Bunn’s career decidedly bridged the way from the old order to the new. His early death in 1875 cut short his passage into it.

During all this time that Thomas Bunn was becoming a prominent local politician and being involved in events that shaped the history of Canada, his brother John was pursuing a much more humdrum career as a ‘clerk’ with the Hudson’s Bay Company – exactly the sort of role that the Red River Academy had been founded to prepare such Métis children of the company’s employees for.

St Paul’s Anglican Church

But John didn’t enter the service of the HBC until 1867 when he was 35. What he did before that is unknown. All we know was that he married Jemima Clouston in St Paul in 1859 in his home settlement of St. Paul. Jemima was the sister of Isabella, John’s brother Thomas’ wife. Eight children were to follow, the first few born in St. Paul, the reminder at the various HBC trading posts John was posted to. Between 1867 and 1878, John was a HBC clerk in three factories or trading posts in the remote and wild west of the country: Lac Ste. Anne, Fort Victory and Bow Fort. In 1878 he retired back in the Red River Settlement and ‘died after a brief illness that year’. His wife Jemima was to live until 1888.

It is with his daughter Annie Bunn that we are concerned with here. Annie was born in 1866 in St. Paul in the Red River Settlement but, as we have seen, she spent most of her childhood living with her family in various remote HBC factories. In her 1885 ’Declaration concerning her claim to participate in any grant to Half Breeds living in the North West Territories’, she stated, ‘I lived with my parents in the north West Territories from 1867 to 1877’. I will return to this declaration later.

Following her father’s death, Annie continued to live in St Paul’s with her mother and siblings. In 1891 we find her living with her sister Isabell and brother William in the growing city of Winnipeg. It was probably in Winnipeg that Annie met her future husband Joseph Grisdale.

Bishop John Grisdale circa 1900

Here we have to leave the Métis world of the Red River Settlement and go back a little to the grim world of the Lancashire cotton mills in England. I have previously written three pieces about a Bolton cotton bleacher called John Grisdale who was first a missionary in India before coming to Manitoba in 1873, and who eventually was to become the Anglican Bishop of Qu’Appelle. (See here, here and here). During one of his many trips back to England in 1882/3 John discussed Canada with his brother Joseph, who was at that time a ‘railway clerk’ in Bolton. When John returned to Canada in 1883 his brother Joseph came with him. At first Joseph lived with his brother John in Winnipeg. In 1883 John was a canon of St. John’s Cathedral in Winnipeg and a Professor of Theology at St. John’s College (the successor to the Red River Academy). But in 1894 he had been appointed dean of Rupert’s Land. In 1891 we find Joseph living with his brother and his family in comfortable circumstances in Winnipeg. No doubt with his brother’s help Joseph was now a ‘Bank Manager’.

And so it was that in some way at some time bank manager Joseph Grisdale met and fell in love with Annie Bunn. They married in Winnipeg in 1893. We can only wonder if Dean Grisdale officiated at their wedding.

Private Percy John Grisdale (1896-1916)

Initially the family stayed in Winnipeg and had two children there: Percy John Grisdale in 1896 and Eveleigh Grisdale in 1899. In the 1901 census Joseph and his family are still in Winnipeg and Joseph is said to be an ‘accountant’. But sometime prior to 1904 the family moved north up the Red River to Selkirk where two more children were born: twins Edwin and Roland in 1904. The family continued to live in Selkirk until sometime after 1911, Joseph still being a bank manager. But they soon moved on, to Calgary in Alberta. In the 1916 census we find the family living in Calgary with Joseph listed as a ‘bookkeeper’. Son Percy is listed too, but he is said to have been overseas. You can read his story here. Eventually, sometime after 1921, Joseph took his family to Vancouver, where he died in 1950. I don’t know where and when Annie Bunn Grisdale died.

Grisedale cattle ranchers in California

“Later that night, the Joads come across the Weedpatch camp, a decent, government-sponsored facility where migrants govern themselves, thus avoiding the abuse of corrupt police officers – “The Grapes of Wrath” – John Steinbeck

Today near Bakersfield in Kern County, California there is a large Grisedale cattle ranching family at the Granite Station Ranch. The E in the family name was added after the family first arrived in America in 1908. Back in Westmorland, England, from where they came, they were just Grisdales. Before I tell the story of the family’s trek from a wet sheep farm in the Lake District hills to the sun of California let me start with a very strange coincidence.

On 5th June 1917 two young Grisdale men registered to join the US Army in Bakersfield in Kern County, volunteering for service in the First World War. One was 28 year-old Frank Joseph Grisdale and the other was a 24 year-old called Robert Thornber Grisedale (whose younger brother Francis Thomas had registered just four days before). Although it is unlikely that they met that day, they may have later in or around Bakersfield where they both lived for the rest of their lives. If they did ever meet they might have wondered if they were related given the unusual nature of their name, unusual at least in California at that time. Of course they were related, but they would have to go back to the seventeenth century in Matterdale before their families would have known each other and back to 1600 or earlier to Dowthwaite Head Farm in Matterdale before their two ancestral lines joined.

Kern County Map 1916

Frank Joseph’s family had first come to Canada from Cumberland in 1816/17. The instigator of the move was Wilfred Grisdale, who I have written about before (see here). Part of his family subsequently moved to Deerfield in Isabella County in Michigan in 1877 (see here) where Wilfred’s great grandson Frank Joseph was born in 1888. Sometime prior to 1910 Frank had been drawn out West, probably hearing of the opportunities in the recently booming oil industry in Kern County. Until his death in 1952 in Bakersfield Frank worked as an oil well digger in Kern County, principally in the Kern River Oil Field. I will tell his story at a later date.

Kern River Oil Field

Robert Thornber Gris(e)dale was the first son Thomas William Grisdale, a moderately well-to-do sheep farmer in Longsleddale, north of Kendal in Westmorland. Thomas William was born on his father’s Yoad Pot farm in Selside, Westmorland in 1859. In 1892 he married Agnes Thornber, the daughter of Kendal accountant and real estate agent Francis John Thornber and taken on his own farm called Well Foot in Longsleddale. Robert Thornber was born there the next year – being named after his farmer grandfather Robert Grisdale and his mother’s maiden name – followed in 1895 by Francis Thomas, named after his mother’s father, Francis Thornber, and his own father Thomas.

Well Foot Farm, Longsleddale, Westmorland

I told something of the earlier history of the family in a story about a Robert Edward Grisdale, the son of Thomas William’s brother Richard, who emigrated to Canada (see here). I also wrote about the family a little further back in Matterdale and then in nearby Martindale, Patterdale and Hartsop (see here). There are other related stories on this site, including a murderous one here.

Returning to Thomas William, although he was a successful tenant farmer he couldn’t buy his farm and ‘every time he made any money the landlord would increse the rent’. ‘So after this happened three times they (the family) left for the US where they could buy and own the and they farmed.’ On 6 May 1908 the family boarded the passenger ship RMS Etruria in Liverpool bound for New York, where they arrived nine days later. They gave their ultimate destination as ‘Kern City’ California. Being ‘sponsored’ immigrants they didn’t have to go through Ellis Island.They most likely went to join Agnes Thornber’s younger brother and sister, James Henry Thornber and Elizabeth Thornber, who had emigrated to Montana in 1892. In fact another brother called John Peters Thornber had made the move first, in 1890, ending up in Madison, Iowa.

RMS Etruria at Liverpool

Regarding James Thornber, ‘The History of Kern County’ published in 1914 tells his story best:

JAMES H. THORNBER.— The Thornber family descends from Anglo- Saxon ancestry and for generations has been represented in Westmoreland in the north of England, where Francis Joseph and Elizabeth (Peters) Thornber passed their entire lives, the former being engaged as an accountant. The parental family comprised six sons and six daughters and the eighth in order of birth, James H., was born in the village of Kendal, July 3, 1875. Two sons and two daughters are still living and all of them have come to America, the older son, John P., being a resident of Bartlesville, Okla., while the two daughters. Mrs. Agnes Grisdale and Mrs. Elizabeth Marriott, make their home in Kern county, Cal., the headquarters also of the fourth member of the family, James H. The last-named attended the Kendal grammar school in Westmoreland, and later was a student in the Friends’ school at the same place. After he was graduated at the age of fifteen years he was employed in the village until 1892, when he crossed the ocean to the United States and proceeded west to Montana. Securing employment on a ranch near Chinook he soon learned the business of operating a stock farm on the plains. Later he became interested in operating the Black Coulee coal mine, besides which he also engaged in general contracting.

Montana cattle

Upon selling some of his interests in Montana in October (actually May) of 1908 Mr. Thornber came to Bakersfield. Shortly afterward he purchased one hundred and twenty acres of land in the Weed Patch. The task of transforming the raw acreage into a productive farm was one of great difficulty, but the land was rich and fertile and ultimately produced fruit and alfalfa in paying quantities. Since 1909 he has made his home in East Bakersfield, where he owns a residence at No. 1601 Pacific street. Besides having a real-estate and insurance office at No. 919 Baker Street, he is engaged in the building of cottages and bungalows and these interests, together with the supervision of his Montana ranch, which he still owns, keep him busily occupied.

Ever since he came to this city Mr. Thornber has been connected with the Chesbro Methodist Episcopal Church of East Bakersfield, where at this writing he officiates as president of the board of trustees and president of the adult bible class. With the cooperation of the pastor of this church he organized a Sunday-school at Toltec No. 2 and since then he not only has acted as superintendent, but in addition he has given exceptionally faithful and efficient service in the capacity of local preacher.

Being deeply interested in the religious life of the oil fields, he gives freely of his time, ability and means to promote the cause of Christianity in that particular portion to which he has been called. While living in Montana he was married at Chinook, September 23, 1900, to Miss Alice Greenough, a native of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, and a daughter of the late John K. and Minnie (Currier) Greenough, the former born in Concord, N. H., of Mayflower stock, and the latter a descendant of Scotch forbears. In 1886 the family removed to Chanute, Kans., where Mrs. Thornber was reared and educated, remaining there until 1899. In that year the family located in Chinook, Mont., where the marriage of the young people occurred. Interested in social functions and active in church work, Mrs. Thornber’s deepest affections, however, are centered upon her four children, Chester Harve, Grace Elizabeth, Agnes Myrtle and Alice Celia. Fraternally Mr. Thornber belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America and Bakersfield Lodge No. 224, F. & A. M., also with his wife is identified with Bakersfield Chapter No. 25, Order of the Eastern Star.

Actually James Thornber came to Kern County in May 1908, not October, the same month that the Grisdales were on their way to New York. Obviously the move had been planned in advance. In fact Elizabeth Thornber, having married farmer Edward Allen Marriott in Chinook, Montana in 1899, moved to Bakersfield in Kern County before 1907, so maybe it was her who first attracted her brother and sister and their families to come to California. It is interesting to note that James Thornber having tried his hand at cattle ranching in Montana, and having bought a farm outside Bakersfield, soon abandoned farming and became what his obituary in 1959 called a ‘pioneer realtor’, just like his real estate agent and accountant father back in Kendal in Westmorland.

Jut before leaving England Thomas William Grisdale had sent a lot of money to a local Bakersfield bank for later use to buy land. But when he arrived he found that the bank had misspelt his name as Grisedale and thus Thomas decided it was easier to continue with the misspelling ‘on the account – and everywhere else – rather than to have the bank change the name on an account that was already open’.

Weedpatch, Kern County in the Dust Bowl era

It seems highly likely that when Thomas William Grisdale (or Grisedale as he now was) and his family arrived in Kern County it was they who took on the difficult ‘task of transforming the raw acreage (of James Thornber’s farm in Weedpatch) into a productive farm’ and who ‘ultimately produced fruit and alfalfa in paying quantities’. In the 1910 census Thomas William and his family are living in precisely the Weed Patch area and Thomas was said to be a farmer on a ‘general farm’. Weed Patch, just southeast of Bakersfield, was to have a sad history in the Dust Bowl era in the 1930s and even featured in John Steinbeck’s novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. I’m not sure how long Thomas William continued to farm at Weed Patch; in 1917 when both his sons enlisted in the army his first son Robert Thornber Grisedale was working as a ‘farmer’ on Roland Hill’s cattle station in nearby Tehachapi, while his younger son Francis Thomas was a farmhand working for his father. As both brothers registered for the army in the Vineland precinct of Kern County, which is right next to Weedpatch, and gave their address as East Bakersfield, I presume their father was still farming there. This seems confirmed by the many entries for ‘T W Greisdale’ in the Bakersfield City directory as living on Route 4 well into the 1920s, this road led through Weedpatch – unfortunately I can’t find him in the 1920 census. I’m not certain whether all this is actually as it was. The family say that once Robert Thornber Grisedale went to introduce himself to his Thornber relative in Bakersfield ‘but found him not at all interesting in associating’.

Sadly  while serving in the  US Army (L Company, 364th Infantry, 91st Division) in France, Francis Thomas was killed on 4 October 1918, the very day that the German government sent a message to US President Wilson to negotiate terms on the basis of a recent speech of his and the earlier declared ‘Fouteen Poimts’; Francis was sitting under a tree when hit by a shell. Initially buried  in France, his body was returned to Bakersfield in 1921. I don’t think Robert ever joined the army as later on he said he was not a veteran.

Robert Thornber and Eva (Weller) Grisedale

Before 1930 Thomas William and Agnes Grisdale had retired to Bakersfield and were living at 118 Douglas Street in Highland Park. Agnes died the same year aged 68 and Thomas the next, aged 72.

Turning now to the only surviving son, Robert Thornber Grisedale; in 1920 he was still in Tehachapi but by now was working in the local oil industry as a ‘Wagon Driver’ for a ‘Wholesale Gas and Oil Station’ having married Michigan girl Eva May Weller the previous year. The couple had a child, Francis Robert, in 1921 but he died the next year. The next child, Grant Edward Grisedale, was born in Bakersfield in 1925 but grew up ‘on his parent’s cattle ranch’. Two more children followed: Frank Weller in 1929 and Mona Jean in 1930. I presume Robert bought his cattle ranch, called the Granite Station Ranch, between 1925 and 1930 when the family were already living there and where their descendants still breed cattle. Perhaps one day one of the family will tell me? The ranch is north east of Bakersfield on Granite Road near Glenville. Westmorland-born Robert Thornber Grisdale died aged 92 in 1986. His son Grant Edward Grisedale, who returned to the ranch in 1958 and eventually took over its management, died in 2010 aged 85. I won’t presume to tell anything more of the family’s recent history – that’s for them.

‘Making hay’ and janglings – the life of the curates of Matterdale

Many of the Matterdale Grisdales became priests. I’ve written about a few already, notably the Rev. Dr. Robert Grisdale, the founder of Matterdale school; John Grisdale, who was curate of Troutbeck in Westmorland; Solomon Grisdale who died in  mysterious circumstances; and Benjamin Grisdale who was with his friend General Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown, when the Americans finally won their independence. There are many more. At the upper end of the scale was the Rev. Dr. Browne Grisdale, who became the chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle. Then there was another Solomon who was curate of Steeple Morden in Cambridgeshire for many years, also Richard Grisdale the curate of Crook in Westmorland, and even Joseph Grisdale, the son of the first Solomon already mentioned, who became the schoolmaster and vicar of Wymondham in Norfolk. This is not an exhaustive list. But what about closer to home in Matterdale itself?

Here I’d like to tell just a little about the life of the curates of Matterdale church, particularly in the seventeenth century following the very unfortunate ‘restoration’ of King Charles the Second. At this time and later the curate of Matterdale Church was Thomas Grisdale. He was the incumbent for fifty-two years, from 1666 until his death in 1718.  What was the life of these curates like? What type of men were they? How and by whom were they paid?

The unfortunate restoration of King Charles in 1660

Perhaps it might be good to start with the words of one of England’s greatest historians, Thomas Macaulay. Referring to the seventeenth century, Macauley wrote:

The Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections, which in acquirements, in manners, and in social position, differed widely from each other. One section, trained for cities and courts, comprised men familiar with all ancient and modern learning . . . men of address, politeness, and knowledge of the world; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he had learned to write. The other section . . . was dispersed over the country, and consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. . .  The clergy [in these rural districts] were regarded as a plebeian class. … A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson. . . . Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. … It was a white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up like the children of the neighbouring peasantry. His boys followed the plough, and his girls went out to service.

Thomas Macaulay

Among the priestly Grisdales we might include in the first section the Rev. Dr. Robert Grisdale, the vicar of rich St. Martins in the Field in London; the Rev. Dr. Browne Grisdale, the chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle and even his brother Benjamin Grisdale, a very well connected army chaplain. But all the rest squarely fall into Macaulay’s second segment, certainly including Thomas Grisdale the long-serving curate of Matterdale. They were to be sure ‘not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants’.

Of course there was a lot of blatant class snobbery coming from the landed gentry when they ever mentioned lowly curates like Thomas Grisdale. One story I like was told by W. J. Conybeare in his excellent The Church in the Mountains published in the Edinburgh Review in 1853. Conybeare was concerned with Wales, Cumberland and Westmorland, all poor ‘mountainous’ areas. He says that a ‘gentleman who resides in Westmoreland’ had written:

As a rule the clergy here are of a low order, and rarely associate with the gentry. In our own village, for instance, where the clergyman is not by any means a bad specimen, no servant is kept at his house, and several of his sons have been brought up to handicraft trades. We are very good friends, but he could not visit at my house. . . . His sister was waiting-maid to a friend of ours.

Conybeare adds wryly:

As an illustration of these statements, it may be worthwhile to mention that the writer of these pages, some years ago, when in a boat on one of the Cumberland lakes, observed upon the road which ran along the shore, a man and woman ride by on the same horse, the man in front, the woman behind. “There goes our priest and his wife,” said the boatman. On landing, soon after, the worthy couple were seen making hay together in a small field which the clergyman farmed.

Good on them!

Matterdale

Conybeare mentions another friend he had consulted ‘who was well acquainted with the diocese of Carlisle who estimated ‘the proportion of the hill-clergy in Westmoreland and Cumberland, who are “more or less intoxicated at one time or another, at parties, fairs, or markets “as one-sixth of the whole number.’ Another informant wrote that ‘several of the clergy’ in his neighbourhood were ‘notorious drunkards’.

‘The social position held by the clergy may be inferred from the above statements’, says Conybeare, adding that their status was in fact ‘precisely the same with that assigned to their predecessors by Mr. Macaulay’.

Conybeare goes to great length to explain the social, economic and political causes of this situation as well as to show how the prevailing view was unfair. I will quote just a little of this fine work:

We have said that Mr. Macaulay’s account of the rural Clergy of the reign of Charles II. would apply almost verbatim to the Mountain Clergy of the present century (ed. the nineteenth). We may add that this condition of things originates in the same cause which he assigns for it; namely, the inadequacy of the parochial endowments. But here we must guard against misconception.

Let it not for a moment be supposed that we consider poverty a degradation to the preacher of the Gospel. God forbid that wealth should be necessary to the ministry of a religion which made the poor of this world rich in faith — a religion whose apostles were Galilean fishermen. A clergy may be very ill-endowed, and yet, by a judicious system of organisation and discipline, and by a proper provision for its education, it may command not only the love of the poor, but the respect of the rich. The efficiency of the Scotch establishment during the last century and a half is a decisive proof of this.

But if we have a clergy taken from the poorer classes of society, and left in indigence, without education, without superintendence, without organisation, and without discipline, then it will inevitably become despised and despicable.  Not that a priesthood of vulgar paupers is in reality more contemptible than a hierarchy of well-bred Sybarites; for, in the sight of God, Leo X. was perhaps more despicable than Tetzel; but that the cultivated Epicurean will be able to veil his faults under a more decent disguise.

The careless and undevout members of an uneducated peasant clergy will retain the low tastes and coarse vices of the class from which they sprang; and the zealous (who at the best must be a minority) will disgust their more intelligent parishioners by an illiterate fanaticism. These may be followed by the ignorant, but will be ridiculed by the educated; those will be deservedly despised by rich and poor alike.

When men who are appointed by the State to be the religious guides and examples of the people thus forfeit both the respect of the wise and the esteem of the good, the object of their mission is defeated.

Matterdale Church

I have no idea what type of curate or man Thomas Grisdale was; he was, as I have said, the curate of mountainous Matterdale for fifty-two years, throughout Charles II’s reign and beyond. I do hope he occasionally got on a horse with his wife Elizabeth Grisdale (nee Noble), my own 6th great grandmother, and made a little hay. He may have liked the odd beer or two too.

But although Thomas was in all likelihood looked down on by the local gentry, it seems he was well regarded by his parishioners. Not only was he their curate for fifty-two years but somewhat after his death we find testimony to the fact that the people of Matterdale could and always had chosen their curates and were very happy with them.  The testimony in question was written by the ‘inhabitants’ of Matterdale between 1735 and 1747 to Bishop Fleming of Carlisle:

To the Right Reverend Father in God George Lord Bishop of Carlisle the Petition of the Inhabitants of the Chappelrie of Matterdale humbly showeth  That the Chappel of Matterdale is now Vacant that when the Revd Mr. Woof left us before he resigned the place some of the Inhabitants of our Chappelry waited on our Rector the Reverend Mr. Law at his house at Graystock and acquainted him that Mr. William Todhunter of Dacre would be very acceptable to us and hoped he would give him his nomination.

Greystoke Rectory

He told us he had given his Consent to the Rev. Mr. Rumney’s son Leonard as soon as Mr. Woof had resigned the place.  We drew a writing and with one consent subscribed it to certifie him we were agreed to Recomend to his approbation Mr. William Todhunter and requested of him to give his nomination as his Predecessor had always done to the Person we requested and we told him we believ’d we had a Right and that it was our Duty so to do, He Replied if we had any Right he did not want nor would he have it and that your Lordship was the Properest Judge and to you my Lord, we would refer it.

Wherefore my Lord we Begg you would give us leave to lay our case before you as Briefly as we can and that Mr. Grisdale was the Person we requested his nomination which is the antientest we believe that is at Rose Castle will testefie and Mr. Clerk that succeeded him was the Person the Inhabitants requested and Mr. Taylor that succeeded him was the Person we requested his Father yet Living can testefie and Mr. Walker that succeeded him is at this time Mr. Atkinson’s Curate at Kirkby Thore and will testefie he was the man we requested and Mr. Atkinson that succeeded him was the man we chose and his Lordship your Lordship’s predecessor put him in when our Chappel had been long vacant and Mr. Woof was the man the Major part of the Inhabitants subscribed with If the Revd Mr. Law can say this is not the very truth we’ll say no more and with submission, the reason why we should have something to say we think is because we endowed the Chappel with the salrie  my Lord our Ancestours raised forty pounds (a great sum for so poor a Chappelry when money was so scarce) and lent it at two shillings i’th pound and when the Interest of Money lowered that it would not make four pounds a year and when it was in danger of being lost we withdrew the money and agreed to pay two shillings sixpence out of every eight shillings rent Tenement which makes about four pounds ten shillings and which with our little Glebe and surplice dues is the salary at this day and some or other is and has been all ways willing to accept of it and we hope we may say we have not one man that had any Blemish in his life and conversation and that the service of Almighty God has been performed with as much Decencie and as good Order as in any Chappel in your Lordship’s Diocess, so we desire your Lordship would be pleased to take the matter into Consideration and do sincerely assure you my Lord that your Judgment and determination shall be final and for ever put an end to our onnhappy janglings and we shall still continue to pray.

Rose Castle, the residence of the Bishops of Carlisle

The issue involved here was quite simple: the inhabitants of the chapelry of Matterdale had always chosen their own priest, because, as they say, they paid for him. ‘Mr. Grisdale’, i.e. Thomas Grisdale, ‘was the person we requested, his nomination is the antcientes (ancientest) we believe that is at Rose Castle (the residence of the Bishop’s of Carlisle) will testifie.’ They also chose or requested all Thomas Grisdale’s successors until Mr. Woof and say how this can be proved. Their curates had never been imposed on them against their will – until now.

Now the Revd Mr. Law, the rector of Greystoke, Matterdale’s mother church, was going to impose his own choice: Leonard Rumney, the son of a local vicar who was no doubt a friend of Mr. Law. Regarding the parishioners’ right to choose their own curate the Revd Law had replied that even if they had this right ‘he did not want nor would he have it’. He didn’t give a damn; he’d have his own man.

Actually neither Leonard Rumney nor William Todhunter was appointed.

Greystoke Church

Returning to the reason the parishioners had this right, they rightly said because their ancestors had endowed the Chappel with forty pounds to pay the curate’s salary, even though this was a ‘great sum for so poor a Chappelry when money was so scarce’. When this endowment had proved insufficient they had changed to paying yearly ‘two shillings sixpence out of every eight shillings rent Tenement which makes about four pounds ten shillings’ – there being thirty-six tenements of this value in Matterdale as we shall see.

Regarding the character and performance of the curates the people of Matterdale had chosen from Mr. Grisdale onwards, the Revd. J. Whitseside had this to say in his excellent 1901 article Matterdale Church and School:

We have been accustomed in late years to some severe strictures on the morals and manners of the old dale priests from critics who too hastily assumed that what was true of a few might be asserted of many. It is, therefore, refreshing to have the testimony of the people of Matterdale — “We have not had one man that had any blemish in his life and conversation.” The whole document is most honourable to the dalesmen, testifying both to their sturdy native independence and their willingness to submit to constituted authority in the Church.

I wrote about the origins of Matterdale church in a recent article (see here). What is abundantly clear is that from the very start in about 1566 when the first ‘chapelry of ease’ was allowed in Matterdale and certainly from 1580 when the chapel got full parochial rights i.e. the right to perform weddings, baptisms and burials, the inhabitants of the valley had always had to pay not only for the curate but for the church building as well.

A document that was in the church safe in Matterdale dated 1699 reads as below. Please do note that all the YEs and YTs for ‘the’ and ‘that’ do not mean people actually talked like this. The Y was just a letter signifying the sound TH; contrary to general opinion nobody ever said ‘Ye Olde Tavern’ or the like.

Whereas about ye eight year of Queen Elizabeth (1566) the Inhabitants of Matterdale did petition for having a church att ye said Matterdale which was granted in Bishop Best his time (1561-1570) with a pviso that they should maintain a Currate att it which ye said Inhabitants did pmise and Ingage to doe.

And in order thereto did make up about fforty pounds Church stock amongst them that ye use thereof might goe to ye Currate which was then Lent forth att two shillings the pound or more. But in ye time of King James the First (1603- 1625) when money came to a Lower use the said Inhabitants were forced to take ye said Church stock into their own hands And pay to ye Currate two shillings which hath so continued ever since.

Now we considering that often part of ye said Church stock is lost and we have it to make up again And often times we have much cost and trouble with sueing for yt which is in dainger to be lost And also when a Tenant dyes ye widow and younger children hath it to pay to ye heir forth of ye deceased man’s goodds And therefore we having ye said Church stock in our own hands doe agree and Covenant to lay it upon our own Lands so that every Tenement of eight shillings Rent shall yearly pay to ye Currate two shillings sixpence of Current English money as a known due forth of ye land accordingly, and to ye first Covenent.

And so every one yt hath more or less rent after yt rate and to continue from ansestor to heirs accordingly as is hereafter subscribed …. doe hereby bind ourselves our heires executors successors on our land as wittnesse our hands and sealls In ye eleavent year of ye Reigne of King William ye third over England &c. and in ye year of our Lord God 1699.

This document includes the signatures of thirty-six inhabitants and how much each is paying towards the upkeep of the curate Thomas Grisdale. It is interesting to note that seven of these thirty-six are other members of the Matterdale Grisdale clan.

James the first, another disastrous king

So since King James’ time, the initial forty pound endowment had been replaced by the two shillings and sixpence paid by each of the thirty six eligible tenement holders. And it seems that this was usually done. The Rev. J. Whiteside quotes the former president of the Cumberland and Westmorland antiquarian and archaeological society as saying: ‘The origin of these chapelries requires to be made known: their salaries are charges on the land, but the deeds creating the charges are at this date rarely forthcoming, and in some places the land owners, who are liable to them, are beginning to repudiate the payment on the ground that they are voluntary payments, were abolished with church-rates or other frivolous and shabby pretence.’ ‘‘A repudiation, says Whiteside, ‘which has not taken root in Matterdale’.

In summary, since 1566 or slightly thereafter, the inhabitants of Matterdale had not only paid the ‘priest wage’ as it was known but also chosen him themselves, subject to the approval of both the Rector of Greystoke and the Bishop of Carlisle – that is until the Revd Mr. Law came along.

In the seventeenth century the average rural priest-wage was very low indeed, generally between five and ten pounds per annum. As we have seen, at best Thomas Grisdale’s wage would have been four pounds ten shillings. How did he and his predecessors and followers survive? Here we have to look at what is called the parish ‘Glebe Terrier’ or just ‘Terrier’.

A seventeenth century Glebe Terrier

A glebe terrier is a term specific to the Church of England. It is a document, usually a written survey or inventory, which gives details of glebe, lands and property in the parish owned by the Church of England and held by a clergyman as part of the endowment of his benefice, and which provided the means by which the incumbent (rector, vicar or perpetual curate) could support himself and his church. Typically, glebe would comprise the vicarage or rectory, fields and the church building itself, its contents and its graveyard… “Terrier” is derived from the Latin terra, “earth”.

The glebe terrier would be drawn up at the time of each visitation, an official visit usually by the archdeacon. The Archdeacon would visit each parish annually, and the bishop visited outlying parts of his diocese every few years to maintain ecclesiastical authority and conduct confirmations.

Each church was entitled to a house and glebe. The glebe lands were either cultivated by the clergyman himself, or by tenants to whom he leased the land. In those cases where the parsonage was not well-endowed with glebe, the clergyman’s main source of income would come from the tithes.

In 1704, when Thomas Grisdale was still curate, such a Terrier was made of Matterdale by the Rector of Greystoke, the summary reads:

Imprimis. One dwelling house with a byer and a barn (sixteen yards in length) to be built at the charges of the hamlet, when they fall; the repair onely at the Charge of the Curate. Item, One Close by estimation two Acres: Item, the Chapple yard ; by estimation half an acre. The curate has right of common (and liberty to get peats and turff) both within the liberties of Weathermealock and Matterdale. Every tenement (whereof there are 36 in number) pays 2s 6d except one cottage called Park Gate which pays 2s onely. Total 4I 9s 6d. For every marriage is 1s 6d whereof !s is due to the rector of Graystock and 6d to the Curate.

Notice the thirty-six tenements in Matterdale (of a certain standing and value), the farmer of each one except one having to still pay the 2s 6d each year, thus giving the total of 4l 9s 6d. In addition we see that the curate might earn a bit more from marriages (though twice as much went to the rector) and had rights of common including getting peat and turf to burn in his ‘dwelling house with a byer and a barn’.

A latter Terrier in 1776 gives slightly more details:

A perfect Terrier of all the Houses Lands Tenements and augmentations and yearly profits belonging to the Curacy of Matterdale in the parish of Graystock in the County of Cumberland and Diocese of Carlisle.

1.  A Thatch house Three lengths of Timber containing a Barn & a Byer with about two acres and a half of arable and meadow ground. Valued at about Two pound ten a year. This lays in Matterdale.

2. Two shillings and sixpence a Tenement which comes to Four pounds Ten shillings.

3. One fourth of an estate lying and being at Burton-in- Lonsdale in the parish of Thornton and County of York let at yearly rent of Ten pound. N.B. No Houses.

4. Brunt Sike Estate in the Hamlet of Howgill in the parish of Sedbecg and County of York containing a dwelling House Bam adjoining a Stable and Loft ov’ it with Twenty four acres of arable and Meadow Ground known by the names of Holme Little Close Hills — Gate House Close High Broom & Thoresgill Let at the yearly rent of fourteen pounds.

5. One half of Hause-foot Estate in the parish of Orton County of Westmorland with a Fine House with one half of the Barn Byer and Stables £7 l0s a year.

Given under our Hands this 4. day of June 1776.

William Wright Curate. Solomon Grisedale Chapelwarden.

Of course these other rents didn’t go to the curates of Matterdale.

Finally we should mention one other way the curate and his family could survive. The Rev. Whiteside tells us that the Matterdale curates were also entitled to ‘Whittlegate’. What is Whittlegate? In Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland, Daniel Scott wrote this in 1899:

The old customs peculiar to Cumberland and Westmorland of “Whittlegate” and “Chapel Wage” have long since passed out of the list of obligations imposed, although the rector of Brougham might still, if he wished, claim whittlegate at Hornby Hall every Sunday. The parsons of the indifferently educated class already alluded to had to be content with correspondingly small stipends, which were eked out by the granting of a certain number of meals in the course of twelve months at each farm or other house above the rank of cottage, with, in some parishes, a suit of clothes, a couple of pairs of shoes, and a pair of clogs. Clarke gives the following explanation of the origin of the term: —

“Whittlegate meant two or three weeks’ victuals at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled among themselves; so that the minister could go his course as regularly as the sun, and complete it annually. Few houses having more knives than one or two, the pastor was often obliged to buy his own knife or ‘whittle.’ Sometimes it was bought for him by the chapel wardens. He marched from house to house with his ‘whittle,’ seeking ‘fresh fields and pastures new,’ and as master of the herd, he had the elbow chair at the table head, which was often made of part of a hollow ash tree — a kind of seat then common.

The reader at Wythburn had for his salary three pounds yearly, a hempen sark or shirt, a whittlegate, and a goosegate, or right to depasture a flock of geese on Helvellyn. A story is still (1789) told in Wythburn of a minister who had but two sermons which he preached in turn. The walls of the chapel were at that time unplastered, and the sermons were usually placed in a hole in the wall behind the pulpit. One Sunday, before the service began, some mischievous person pushed the sermons so far into the hole that they could not be got out with the hand. When the time came for the sermon, the priest tried in vain to get them out. He then turned to the congregation, and told them what had happened. He could touch them, he said, with his forefinger, but could not get his thumb in to grasp them; ‘ But, however,’ said he, ‘ I can read you a chapter out of Job that’s worth both of them put together!'”

So this I hope might give just a flavour of the life of the Matterdale curates in the seventeenth century and beyond.

The Plague Destroys a Grisdale Family

‘From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and from battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us.’  English Liturgy, 1547

The plague, along with starvation and repression, has been the perennial lot of the English people, as indeed of so many others. Cumberland was no exception. Here plagues have struck from time to time from at least the thirteenth century. A hundred years after the above English Liturgy was written the plague came once again to Cumberland and wiped out dozens if not hundreds of families. One of these was a Grisdale family in the small Cumberland market and industrial town of Keswick.

St. Kentigern’s, Crosthwaite, Keswick

On the 5th of February 1620, Thomas Grisdale married Alice Birkett of Seathwaite in St. Kentigern’s Church in Keswick. With one (perhaps relevant) exception this is the first mention of a member of the Grisdale family in Keswick. Over the next twenty-five years with two wives Thomas had nine children, some died young but many survived. What had brought Thomas to Keswick? And where had he come from? As to the reason that Thomas came to Keswick, there is I believe only one explanation. The only reason for someone to come to the town of Keswick at this time was to work in the German-run copper smelter situated at Brigham in Keswick. In an earlier article I showed how German miners had been brought over by Queen Elizabeth, and how the industry had developed (see here). Once the mines and the smelters were fully up and running in 1569, we find a certain John Grysdall mentioned twice. In the August 1569 accounts – the Germans did accounts seven times a year- John is listed as a ‘peat carrier’. He received payment for delivering 3 hundred (loads) of peat from ‘Flasco’ (present-day Flaska near Troutbeck in the north of Matterdale parish) to the copper smelter at Keswick. He did the same again later in the year. And in 1571 an Edward Gristal (Grisdale) of Threlkeld was also paid as a peat carrier for deliveries from Flasco.

In the middle of 1567 the Company began keeping its own carts and horses, for building and for carriage of special articles close to Keswick; but this did not supersede the use of English packhorses for charcoal, peat, ore, and a little later for stone-coal.

An eighteenth-century Copper Smelter

While one can imagine why charcoal was needed for the smelting of ore, what was the peat for? Chemistry, Society, and Environment: A New History of the British Chemical Industry (ed. Colin A. Russell et al, Royal Society, 2000) explains:

Copper ore was mined and smelted at Brigham, near Keswick in Cumberland, under the auspices of the Company of Mines royal… The sulphide ores used at Keswick were subjected to preliminary roasting to burn off excess sulphur, and then treated with nine horseloads of peat and five horseloads of ‘stone coals’ (a horseload was equivalent to 109 litres). Limestone was added as a flux and after smelting a matte or “green stock” was run off. Subsequently, about eight days’ recovery of matte was roasted with six peat fires, each hotter than the last, to produce “copper stone” or “black copper”. This was smelted once a month to give “rough copper”, and involved three separate smelting with lead ore to extract the silver from the copper matte. This process of making copper at Keswick took eighteen weeks and five days.

I believe Thomas either worked in the Brigham copper smelter or worked for the German miners in another way. As to my second question: Where had Thomas come from? There can really be no doubt. Thomas married in 1620 and thus was most probably born in the 1590s. At this time, and for a while thereafter, there are no Grisdales recorded anywhere else but Matterdale, and the majority of those lived in Dowthwaite Head. We have already seen that there were two Grisdales lugging peat to Keswick shortly after the Germans started copper mining and smelting, thus Thomas too descended from the Matterdale Grisdales – even if (as might just be the case) he was related to Edward Grisdale, the 1571 peat carrier of Threlkeld.

Dowthwaite Head Farm

In the vast majority of cases the sixteenth-century Grisdales are listed as living in Dowthwaite Head. Clearly this was where the family had originally settled (see here). Around the time that John and Edward Grysdall were lugging peat on their packhorses from Flasco to the smelters at Keswick, we find Robert, two Christophers, Edward, Thomas, Richard and two John Grisdales, all with two exceptions living at Dowthwaite Head. Finally, in 1581 the Cumberland militia was called out yet again in the face of the never-ending threat of Scottish raids. At the Penrith Muster on that year nine Matterdale ‘bowmen’ of military age turned out: John, William, Christopher, Robert, Edward, Richard and three named Thomas. I think it highly likely that our Thomas Grisdale of Keswick was either a son (or possibly a grandson) of one of these nine Matterdale bowmen. We left Thomas marrying Alice Birkett in early 1620. Six children followed, all baptized in Keswick church: Susanna 1621 (died the same year), Jayne 1625 (died the next year), Alice 1628, Edward 1631, Robert 1632 and Ann 1638.It seems that then Thomas’s wife Alice died, because on 24 July 1638 Thomas married again, this time to Ann Hayton of Abbeyholme. Four more children were born to Thomas and Ann: Joyce 1639, Edward 1641, Thomas 1643 and Jayne 1645. From this we can imply that as well as Susanna and Jayne (from Thomas earlier marriage to Alice) who had died as babies, son Edward (1631) had in the meantime died as well. This just left six children: Alice, Robert, Ann, Thomas and Joyce and Jane. I mentioned that Thomas’s wedding in 1620 was the first mention of a Grisdale in Keswick, except for one. On 14 January, 1620 just three months before Thomas married Alice, there is a record of a Jenet Grisdale being baptized in Keswick church, the daughter of ‘Thomas Grisdale of Keswick’ and his wife Jennett. It is of course possible that Jenet’s mother Jennett died in child birth and, if we are dealing with the same Thomas, he very quickly remarried Alice. As we will see it is sure that daughter Jenet survived.

A Plague Victim

And so the years passed and Thomas’s children started to grow. But then in 1646, only a year after Thomas and Ann’s last child Ann was born, disaster struck. The plague came to Keswick. I’d like to follow Dr. Henry Barnes, who in September 1889 gave a talk to the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society called Visitations of the Plague in Cumberland and Westmorland. Barnes asked: ‘At the outset it may be asked, What was the plague? What kind of disease was it?’ He continued:

It may be sufficient to remark that among the various nationalities of antiquity and in the middle ages the word plague was used in its collective sense, and included the most various diseases that occurred in epidemic form, ran an acute course, and showed a heavy mortality. Some of these visitations have no doubt been visitations of the true oriental plague, a disease characterized by inflammatory boils and tumours of the glands, such as break out in no other febrile disease. On other occasions it may have been the sweating sickness…. It is probable also that smallpox and typhus formed some of the epidemics and were included under the head of plague.

Back to Keswick. Andrew B. Appleby in his Famine in Tudor & Stuart England (1977) tells us:

Plague ravaged Carlisle in 1645, spread to Keswick in 1646, Cockermouth in 1647, and St. Bees in 1650. This seems to have been the same epidemic, although it took four years to cross Cumberland.

Keswick, Cumberland

Regarding Keswick, which is in the parish of Crosthwaite, Appleby continues:

The number of burials increased dramatically in May (1646) and continued high through September – the usual plague season. Of the 93 persons dying between May 14, the beginning of the epidemic, and July 28, 80 came from Keswick, 11 from “Estenbec” (nearby in Crosthwaite), and the homes of two others were not shown.

He says:

The striking characteristic of all the dead who can be geographically placed in no more than two communities indicates that the disease did not spread into the rural parts of the parish. Most of the parish was spared in 1646, in contrast to 1597 and 1623.

When I first looked at the early Crosthwaite parish registers I was appalled to find dozens of deaths and burials within a few short months in 1646. The registers also show what Appleby states, namely that the plague started to bite on May 14. One of the Keswick families it struck was the Grisdales. Here are the Crosthwaite burial entries for just a few days in May:

May 17 – Alice Grisdale of Keswick May 17 – Robert Grisdale of Keswick May 19 – Thomas Grisdale of Keswick May 20 – Joyce Grisdale of Keswick May 20 – Jenet Grisdale of Keswick May 29 – Thomas Grisdale of Keswick

The Plague in seventeenth-century England

This means that  at least three and possibly four of the seven remaining children of Thomas Grisdale died in the plague in just a few days. Also one of the two Thomas Grisdales who died was obviously Thomas himself. The Grisdale family of Keswick had been completely wiped out. It’s most probable that the Alice who died was Thomas’s 18 year-old daughter, which would imply that mother Alice either survived or had died in childbirth in 1645. (See comment below for more information of the survivors) Unfortunately as most of them died there is no testament of any sort to the destruction of this poor family, with of course the exception of the parish records. In place of such a testament I’d like to quote a Rector called Robert Lenthall whose family died of plague in 1647 in the village of Great Hampden. Below is what he wrote. I’ve left the spelling unchanged and not replaced the ‘YE’s and ‘YT’s by THE and THAT. Contrary to popular belief people never said YE (as in ‘Ye Old Pub’), the Y was just a letter signifying the sound TH.

My daughter Sarah Lenthall was buied ye eleventh day of August Ann: Supra (1647) she came from London to Whickham (High Wycombe) & on ye Saturday only to see us and so to returne ye morrow in ye afternoon to Whickham againe, but then fell sick & on Wednesday morning following being ye 11th of Aug. About an houre before Sun rise dyed of ye sickness & so on ye Evening we buried her in ye Meade called Kitchen-meade by ye hedgeside as you go downe into it on yor left hand, a little below ye pond at ye entrance into ye meade: She was aged 14 yeares eleven months & seaventeene days – had she lived to Bartholomew day she had been 15 yeares of age. Susanna Lenthall my wife dep’ted this life Thursday evening about eight a clock ye 26 of August, she died of ye sickness comfortably & in peace & was buried ye 27 by hir daughter Sara. John Gardiner a childe yt lived in my house died of ye sicknes & was buried August ye 29th. Adrian Lenthall my sonne a hopeful young man & neere one & twenty years dep’ted this life of ye sickness, Thursday morning a little before day breake & was buried at ye head of his sister Sara’a grave ye same day, being ye 2nd of Septe’b. My cosen John Pickering a lad of about 13 yeares of age, dying of ye sickness, was buried the 25 of Septeb 1647. Robert Lenthall, Rector

J. F. D. Shrewsbury recounted this story in his A History of the Bubonic Plague in the British Isles. He added:

It is more than 300 years since this simple yet moving lament was written in the bitterness of his grief and loneliness by a man bereft by bubonic plague of wife, children, and kinsman within the space of one month. Because they were the victims of that dreaded disease he dared not bury them in consecrated ground and erect a monument over their resting place; but he has given his loved ones a more lasting memorial, one that will endure as long as the printed word is read and long after the costliest gravestone has crumbled to dust.

Indeed. What happened to the Keswick copper smelting works where Thomas might have worked?  I’ll let the great Lakeland historian Collingwood explain in his own inimitable words:

In 1604, James I granted a charter confirmatory to the Company, including the names of Emanuel and Daniel, sons of the late Daniel Hechstetter. The Keswick mines survived them both, though Joseph, son of Emanuel, lived to see the wreck of the Smelthouses, which he managed in his turn, at the Civil Wars. It is usually said that this was perpetrated in 1651 by Cromwell’s army on the march from Edinburgh to Worcester. But General Lambert’s troops took Penrith in June, 1648, and Colonel Ashton’s forces came in September of that year to raise the siege of Cockermouth Castle. There were several opportunities, without casting the usual blame on Cromwell, for Parliament men to attack the headquarters of a royal monopoly. How far it deserved attack is quite another matter.

Keswick today

Norman Atkinson Grisdale’s one-way trip to Gallipoli

It was now broad daylight and the situation in Suvla Bay was verging on chaos.”  (Captain Cecil Aspinall-Oglander)

If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
(Rudyard Kipling)

I guess everyone is aware of the horrendous debacle and needless loss of life that was the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Here I’d like to tell the story, as best I can, of the trip that one young Keswick man called Norman Atkinson Grisdale made to Gallipoli, never to return.

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.
(A. E. Housman)

Norman Grisdale was born in Grasmere in Westmorland in 1895, the second child of Joseph Grisdale and Jane Atkinson. Joseph had been working in Grasmere as a shepherd and later gardener, but in 1899 his young wife Jane suddenly died, leaving four year-old Norman and his older brother Joseph without a mother. Joseph soon took the family back to Keswick, where this part of the Grisdale clan had been living and working, mostly as pencil makers, since the 1770s. Before that of course the family had been in Matterdale. Joseph married Eleanor Mumberson in Keswick in early 1901 and a baby daughter christened Mabel soon arrived. Norman went to school in Keswick, but in his early teens he started work as an apprentice with Mr Postlethwaite, a grocer in the Brigham part of Keswick.

Just after the Great War started Norman and his brother Joseph, like so many other Cumberland Grisdales, joined the Border Regiment. Norman’s battalion was the newly-formed 6th (Service) Battalion. Just before the Keswick brothers left for war they posed with their parents and sister for a photograph. See here.

In what follows I would like to credit Richard Overton whose work on the 6th Battalion at Gallipoli I have rather extensively quoted.

In early 1915 things were going badly for the French and British in France and Belgium while the Russians were doing even worse on the Eastern Front. If Russia collapsed many German divisions would be freed to fight in the West. ‘A Gallipoli expedition remained the only feasible method of directly assisting Russia by means of opening up the Dardanelles.’ A first British division reached Gallipoli in June, but General Sir Ian Hamilton asked for more. ‘At successive meetings of the War Council on 6th and 17th June Kitchener was authorised to offer Hamilton, firstly, the three remaining divisions of the New Army not yet detailed for use on the Western Front, namely the 10th, 11th and 13th and, secondly, urged by Churchill, two Territorial divisions, the 53rd and 54th. To speed up the transportation of these divisions three of the biggest passenger liners were chartered, this despite the scale of the loss that would result if they were sunk by submarines.’

Norman Grisdale’s 6th Battalion of the Border Regiment were part of the 11th Division, so rather than heading for France they were set for Turkey. One of the passenger liners chartered was the Empress of Britain. ‘Thus it came about that 33 Brigade of 11 Div, with 6th Borders in it, sailed from Liverpool on the Empress of Britain escorted by two destroyers on 1st July and reached the base in Alexandria on the 12th. Here it was necessary to carry out reorganisation of stores and equipment – involving much physical work for soldiers unused to the heat.’ The Empress of Britain reached Mudros harbour on the Greek island of Lemnos on 18 July 1915.

Here is a poem written by Lt. Nowell Oxland of the 6th Border Regiment while aboard the Empress of Britain (with Norman) bound for Egypt and Greece, and ultimately Gallipoli.

Outward Bound

There’s a waterfall I’m leaving
Running down the rocks in foam,
There’s a pool for which I’m grieving
Near the water-ouzel’s home,
And it’s there that I’d be lying
With the heather close at hand,
And the Curlew’s faintly crying
‘Mid the wastes of Cumberland.

While the midnight watch is winging
Thoughts of other days arise.
I can hear the river singing
Like the Saints in Paradise;
I can see the water winking
Like the merry eyes of Pan,
And the slow half-pounders sinking
By the bridges’ granite span.

Ah! To win them back and clamber
Braced anew with winds I love,
From the rivers’ stainless amber
To the morning mist above,
See through clouds-rifts rent asunder
Like a painted scroll unfurled,
Ridge and hollow rolling under
To the fringes of the world.

Now the weary guard are sleeping,
Now the great propellers churn,
Now the harbour lights are creeping
Into emptiness astern,
While the sentry wakes and watches
Plunging triangles of light
Where the water leaps and catches
At our escort in the night.

Great their happiness who seeing
Still with unbenighted eyes
Kin of theirs who gave them being,
Sun and earth that made them wise,
Die and feel their embers quicken
Year by year in summer time,
When the cotton grasses thicken
On the hills they used to climb.

Shall we also be as they be,
Mingled with our mother clay,
Or return no more it may be?
Who has knowledge, who shall say?
Yet we hope that from the bosom
Of our shaggy father Pan,
When the earth breaks into blossom
Richer from the dust of man,

Though the high Gods smith and slay us,
Though we come not whence we go,
As the host of Menelaus
Came there many years ago;
Yet the self-same wind shall bear us
From the same departing place
Out across the Gulf of Saros
And the peaks of Samothrace;

We shall pass in summer weather,
We shall come at eventide,
When the fells stand up together
And all quiet things abide;
Mixed with cloud and wind and river,
Sun-distilled in dew and rain,
One with Cumberland for ever
We shall go not forth again.

The plan was, as it evolved, to enable a breakout from Anzac, ‘where the Australians and New Zealanders had been hanging on since April encircled and overlooked by the Turks’. ‘With this force substantially increased a breakout might be achieved but the beachhead at Anzac was so cramped that there was a strict limit to the number of additional troops that could be brought in, particularly as they would have to be landed secretly and hidden out of sight. Hence it was decided to make a landing at Suvla simultaneously with the breakout so that the operation could be launched on a broad front and the Turks could be attacked from outside as well as from within the circle.’

Mudros Harbour 1915

On the island of Mudros Grisdale’s 33 Brigade ‘was singled out from the other two brigades of 11 Div to proceed to Helles and relieve the Royal Naval Division in the line for ten days from 20th July’ where the 6th Borders  did ‘good work done in improving trenches’.

On 2 August the Battalion rejoined the Division on the island of Imbros, their jumping off point for the Suvla landing, which was scheduled for the night of 6/7 August. (Sooner would have been better but this was the first night for a month to offer suitable conditions, when the attacking troops could approach the coast in the dark but have the advantage of moonlight after getting ashore.) The night attack would be made by 11 Div and would be followed up at dawn by 10 Div who would be leaving from the island of Mitylene.

The few days spent on Imbros by 6th Borders in hot and dusty camps proved to be very trying and debilitating. Dysentery was rife, reducing the strength of the Battalion for the forthcoming landing, and many of those who stuck it out were weakened by diarrhoea. The men were kept hard at it until the last minute but even as late as the day of departure, 6th August, junior officers were in ignorance of the plans and their part in them beyond the landing itself, so insistent were Hamilton and his staff at GHQ on secrecy. For the same reason, maps were issued too late to be studied properly. It was not until midday of the 6 August that the men were told the landing was to take place that night. Secrecy was important but Hamilton and his staff at GHQ seem to have overdone it.

Soon after 3 pm the troops fell in on their battalion parade grounds and an hour later the Division began to embark, some (including 6th Borders) on to destroyers with lighters in tow, some straight on to lighters. These were motor lighters specially designed for landing troops. Capable of carrying 500 men they had armoured sides, drew only seven feet of water, and had a ramp to allow quick, dry exit under enemy fire.

As part of the 33rd Brigade the 6th Border Regiment were set to land at Suvla bay an action that was to turn into chaos. Here is a full report by Richard Overton of the landing at Suvla Bay in which Norman Grisdale and his battalion took part:

The fleet set off from Kephalos Bay, Imbros for Suvla an hour after sunset which was 7.15. Apparently confident and in good heart – trusting in its commanders. This trust, as the Official History show only too clearly, was sadly misplaced. The trouble started at the top with the appointment of a wildly unsuitable person to command IX Corps in Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford. Hamilton had asked for a General who had proved himself on the Western Front, perhaps Byng or Rawlinson, but Kitchener ruled this out. Instead by an argument which had everything to do with seniority and nothing to do with fitness for the post, he settled on General Stopford who was 61 years old, in semi-retirement, and had never commanded large bodies of troops in the field. This combination of disqualifications was evident at the time of the appointment but what was not evident was that he was a weak man who would be dominated by his chief of staff, Brigadier General Reid VC. The latter had a fixation about the importance of artillery in offensive operations, a sound principle on the Western Front against an organised system of trenches but one which did not apply at Suvla where the Turks were few and their trenches negligible. Want of adequate artillery support would become a regular excuse for inaction.

One rung lower down, Major General Frederick Hammersley commanding 11 Div would also prove to be inadequate, at age 57 having lost the resilience of youth. In the letter to Kitchener leading to the superseding of these two officers (when it was too late) Hamilton compared the combination of new troops and old generals to putting new wine into old bottles with results that turned out equally unfortunate.

The voyage from Imbros took less than two hours and the leading battalions of 32 and 33 Brigades were safely on shore at B beach by 10 pm. The troops on the destroyers had to wait for the return of the lighters to the ship and this applied to 6th Borders who landed about midnight with 6th Lincolns. These two battalions were initially in divisional reserve. The landing had achieved complete strategic surprise. The local Turkish forces only amounted to three battalions and their nearest reserves were known to be 30 marching miles away at Bulair.

British troops at Suvla Bay August 1915

Turkish posts had been located at the two horns of the bay at Lala Baba and Ghazi Baba, also at Hill 10 midway between the two. A battalion of 32 Brigade dealt with the former (though at considerable cost) and the latter was soon knocked out as well, but there was difficulty and delay in dealing with Hill 10, the specific responsibility of 34 Brigade whose landing had gone disastrously wrong. Unlike the other two brigades, 34 Brigade had landed within the bay itself, the lighters struck hidden reefs and could not be got to land, and the troops had to wade ashore through deepish water. Furthermore, by a navigational error, the destroyers had anchored south of the Cut and about 1,000 yards south of their intended station. The battalion charged with the task of dealing with Hill 10 was misled by the wrong landing place and could not even locate the hill.

This was a severe setback no doubt. Yet the best part of two brigades (32 and 33) were standing by at or near Lala Baba, and had either brigade commander taken the initiative an attack on Hill 10 could have been mounted from this direction. The failure to do so may be attributed partly to lack of impetus from above – Stopford had not come ashore and so did not even know what was going on – and partly to poor briefing due to excessive secrecy.

As it was, by dawn the only success achieved was the capture of the two horns of the bay, and the situation was verging on chaos. The beach was under persistent rifle fire and two or three Turkish guns were dividing their attention between the troops ashore and the numerous vessels in the bay. The confusion was if anything increased by the arrival at daybreak from Mitylene of the two brigades of 10 Div.

Sulva Bay August 1915

Hill 10 was finally taken about 8 am, its hundred defenders retiring eastwards, and with the bay safe at last it should have been possible to move against objectives further inland, initially Chocolate Hills. But lack of leadership at the top was again evident. By mid-morning a stream of contradictory orders and reports was being passed between Hammersley and his brigade commanders as he strove to organise the attack on Chocolate Hills. Stopford, nursing an injured knee, was still ineffectually on board the sloop Jonquil, IX Corps HQ to date.

When eventually Chocolate Hills were assaulted that evening 6th Borders was in on the action. They and 6th Lincolns were brought out of reserve at Lala Baba to lead a general attack. To save time as daylight was already fading they wisely ignored orders to skirt the Salt Lake and marched boldly across it and assaulted the west end of the hill, Lincolns leading and Borders in close support, while two Irish battalions from 10 Div attacked the east end. At last Chocolate Hills were captured, not before daybreak on the 7th as intended, but after nightfall.

The Battalion got off relatively lightly in the matter of casualties with two officers wounded, four other ranks killed, three missing and 51 wounded. Next morning it was ordered back into divisional reserve at Lala Baba.

Norman Atkinson Grisdale was one of the 6th’s battalion’s 51 wounded, probably on the assault on Chocolate Hills as the light was fading on 7th August. Norman would have been taken down to the beach for evacuation. While waiting there he wrote back to his parents at 13 Wordsworth St, Keswick, saying that, as the local newspaper, the Carlisle Journal, reported on 31 August:

Pte Norman Grisdale of the 6th Border, who left the employment of Mr Postlethwaite, Grocer, Keswick to enlist soon after the war started, has written to say he is wounded in the shoulder, but does not think his condition is at all dangerous. He was wounded on the 7th at the Dardanelles and is expected to proceed to a Cairo Hospital.

Wounded being evacuated at Suvla Bay

 

Norman was indeed evacuated to a hospital in Cairo, but whether from an infection of his shoulder wound or from other causes he died there on 16th August 1915, before his letter had reached his parents and the Carlisle Journal. Norman’s brother Joseph also served with the Border Regiment in France but survived the war and went on to marry. Norman is buried in the Cairo War Cemetery at Al Qahirah, Plt: D.33.

Grave of Norman Atkinson Grisdale in Cairo

 

The Landing at Suvla Bay

You may talk of Balaclava,
Or of Trafalgar Bay,
But what of the 11th Division,
Who landed at Suvla Bay?

They were part of Kitchener’s Army,
Some had left children and wives,
But they fought for England’s freedom,
And fought for their very lives.

It was on the 6th of August,
We made that terrible dash,
And the Turks along the hillside,
Our boats they tried to smash.

The order came, “Fix bayonets!”
And out of the boats we got,
Every man there was a hero,
As he faced the Turkish shot.

Funnels of the ships got smashed,
Whilst the sea in some parts was red,
But we fought our way through the ocean,
To the beach that was covered with dead.

Creeping, at last, up the hillside,
Whilst shot and shell fell all around,
We made one last desperate effort,
And charged o’er the Turkish ground.

The Turks at last gave it up,
When our bayonets began to play,
For they turned their backs to the British,
And retired from Suvla Bay.

There were the Lincolns, Dorsets, and Staffords.
Notts and Derbys too,
The Border Regiment was there,
The rough and ready crew.

Then we had the Manchesters,
With the Lancashire Fusiliers by their side,
The lads who come from Lancashire,
Who fill your hearts with pride.

The Yorks, East Yorks, and West Yorks,
The Yorks and Lancs as well,
Who fought for good old Yorkshire,
Were amongst the lads who fell.

The fighting fifth were fighting,
The Northumberland lads you know,
Whilst the good old Duke of Wellington’s,
Were keeping back the foe.

And far away o’er the hillside,
Beneath the bloody clay,
Are some of the 8th Battalion,
Who tried to win the day.

So remember the 11th Division,
Who were all volunteers you know,
But they fought and died like heroes,
Going to face the Turkish foe.

—Anonymous

Five Canadian Light Horsemen – The Story of Lionel Grisdale

On the 30th of October 1921, the Mayor of the small Ontario town of Thorold in Welland County was unveiling a cenotaph in the new Memorial Park to honour the young men of the town who had died in the Great War. According to historian Alun Hughes, ‘the Mayor was barely able to speak, since his two sons… were among the 54 names of fallen soldiers listed’.

Thorold Cenotaph

The Mayor was called Grisdale, to be precise Frederick Gideon Grisdale; his family had been living in Welland County for about a hundred years. Frederick’s Grandfather Gideon had helped build the first Welland Canal and then been one of its lock keepers. His father Robert John Grisdale had won a medal for fighting the Fenian Raiders in 1861. But now Frederick was ‘barely able to speak’ as he saw the names of his sons, Arthur and Lionel, carved in stone in front of him.

Both Arthur and Lionel had been carpenters when they joined up within a few weeks of each other in late 1915. Arthur, aged 21, joined the Canadian Field Artillery, while Lionel, aged 18, enlisted in the Canadian Mounted Rifles; he would later transfer to the 1st Hussars, Canadian Light Horse.

At the start of August 1918, the Canadian army in France was participating in the Battle of Amiens.

‘The Battle of Amiens (8 – 28 August, 1918) would see the start of a string of successes for the allies that would leave the German Army a shadow of its once mighty self. To spearhead the upcoming attack, the strongest and freshest formations were called upon to spearhead the attack and so the Canadian and Australian Corps moved up to the front at Amiens. The Canadians deployed with three divisions forwards… Each division had attached to it a battalion of 42 British tanks. Also deployed was the Cavalry Corps to exploit the expected breakthrough.’

Lionel Grisdale was with these divisions. He was a Trooper with the 1st Hussars, Canadian Light horse, and part of the ‘Cavalry Corps’.

Canadian Light Horse, 1918

Lieutenant George Stirrett was a troop commander in the 1st Hussars. He wrote a detailed account of the activities of the Canadian Light Horse throughout the war. When we get to the summer of 1918 he tells us:

At the end of July, 1918, in preparation for the Battle of Amiens, the Canadian Light Horse was ordered to move by night to Saleux, south of Amiens. Here we were broken up and a squadron attached to each of the attacking brigades. LCol Leonard took command of the Hotchkiss Gun Detachment (18 guns) which worked along the Amiens – Roye Road and helped maintain liaison with the French on the right.

During the early part of August I was attached, with my troop, to the Canadian Third Divisional Headquarters. As the attack should be on August 8th, the Brigade Major came to me and said that the first thing they had to do was to get over a small creek about ten feet wide. There were three bridges in the Third Division sector. Our job was to determine as soon as possible after the attack started, whether or not these bridges had been destroyed. As soon as this was determined, my troop would have to deliver messages to the advancing elements of Third Division. That was right at dawn.

By 9:00 A.M., the brigade Major came to me and said, ‘Stirrett, we’ve got so far that they have passed their objectives. Now we have lost our troops and haven’t any communication with them.’ He said that I was to take all the men I had and send them out. They were to try and contact anyone from the Third Division and bring back a message telling where they were and what they were doing. There being not yet any radios and the signals had not yet had time to get out their signal wire. We spent the rest of the day trying to contact advancing elements…

The next day, August 9th, Skirrett tells us:

We got a report that a German artillery unit had disappeared into a hollow about a mile away. A squadron of the Scots Greys was in the area and was asked if they wanted to go after these Germans, who were to the right, on the French side of the road. The Scots officer said that he could not go. Lieutenant Freddy Taylor, a First Hussars Officer, and a bit tight at the time, commanding the 1st troop, took five men and headed out towards where the Germans had been seen…

Germans at Amiens

Trooper Grisdale was one of these five men who headed out with the ‘tight’ Lieutenant Taylor.

They found the Germans about 2000 yards ahead of the advancing French infantry. It was a German artillery ammunition column, hidden in an excavation, and their horses had nose bags on as they were on a rest stop. One man held the horses while Taylor and the others moved forward with their rifles to the edge of the bank. From there, they were able to shoot every horse and a few men so that the German column couldn’t move. Then Taylor said every man for himself, and to get back the best way you can. They went back, losing one man while two were wounded.

I’ll come back to Skirrett’s account soon, but let’s continue with the account of these events written by James McWilliams in his book Amiens: Dawn of Victory:

“On the extreme right flank where the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles advanced along the Amiens – Roye Road there occurred an incident, insignificant strategically but typical in many ways of the events of Friday, August 9. The 5th had by-passed Arvillers, a town to their right in the French sector, and assisted by four tanks had pressed on to take their own objective, Bouchoir.”

“The French south of the road had been stopped in front of Arvillers despite the support of Brutinel’s Independent Force. Around 5:00 the men of the two motor machine gun batteries fought their way into Arvillers and captured twenty-five prisoners… The 5th CMRs, looking over their right shoulder and seeing groups of the enemy retreating from Arvillers in the French sector, dispatched a platoon and one tank to occupy and mop up the village at 5:30.”

At 5:40, in the words of the War Diary of the 5th CMR.

A considerable number of enemy vehicles (a German ammunition convoy, as it turned out) were noticed retiring South eastwards from Southern outskirts of Arvillers. This was pointed out to a squadron of Imperial Cavalry who had just moved up in close proximity to our H.Q., and we suggested that they could with very little difficulty, make a good capture, but they were either unable or unwilling to seize the opportunity.

The Wrecked Church of Arvillers

“Instead, five volunteers from the Canadian Light Horse offered to tackle the ammunition convoy. Lieutenant F. A. Taylor and his men had been sent forward from Brigade Headquarters to deliver a message. Now Taylor, Sergeant Duncan, and Privates Dudgeon, Grisdale and Hastie mounted and galloped to a line of old trenches south of the road. There they dismounted and worked their way along the trenches.”

Here we can hear what Lieutenant Freddy Taylor himself wrote about what happened:

I decided to rush the convoy and left the trenches. Some resistance was offered so I opened fire and shot the officer and 12 or 15 men. The remainder, about 20 men, surrendered. Heavy rifle and M.G. fire was opened on us from the trenches so we seized the lead horses and rushed them toward our own lines. The enemy advanced some machine guns within 400 yards and as I realized there was no chance of getting the convoy clear, I shot some of the horses and rushed my prisoners into the trench… as a body of the enemy were advancing with the intention of cutting us off.

Canadian Troops at Amiens 1918

McWilliams continues:

Meanwhile another platoon of the 5th CMR and a tank had been dispatched to help the five Light Horsemen bring in the captured ammunition convoy. But while they were on their way the French put down a belated rolling barrage on Arvillers where the CMRs first platoon was mopping up with the aid of a tank. Both platoons and both tanks were hastily recalled. Taylor and his four men were split up and forced to abandon their prisoners. When they reached Canadian lines, two were missing – Hastie and Grisdale. It is believed that Grisdale stayed with his wounded comrade. That night a search was carried out and the body of Private Hastie was found having apparently died of wounds. There was no trace of Grisdale.

And thus it was that Trooper Lionel Grisdale died: staying behind to help a wounded comrade.

There is one final thing to add. There were several versions of these events, though not regarding Lionel’s death. Lieutenant Skirrett writes:

LCol Leonard asked me to determine exactly what had happened and to determine whether or not Taylor should get a decoration. After I turned in the full story, Taylor was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the surviving men… were awarded Military Medals (MM). When I had talked to the men involved, each had told a different story, as if they had not all been in the same place at the same time. They all said they had never seen anything so ridiculous or so foolish in the whole war. I conclude that I thought the whole action quote reckless.

Whether Lionel’s father Mayor Frederick Grisdale knew these scanty facts regarding his son’s death three years later when he unveiled the cenotaph in Thorold, I don’t know.

What about Frederick’s other and older son Arthur? As I mentioned, Arthur had joined the 8th Battalion of the Canadian Field Artillery as a Gunner. He died on the killing fields of the Somme, ‘near Courcelette’ on 4 November, 1916. Maybe I’ll tell his story later.

Grace Grisdale Elopes with a Serial Womaniser in Seattle

In 1911 the following report appeared in Washington State’s Tacoma Times:

 Girl of 15 Disowned By Rich Uncle When She Elopes. SEATTLE, June 22.

Early this morning, as the steam schooner Redfield, bound out of Seattle for Nome, passed the three-mile limit that marked the vessel’s entrance Into the domain of the ‘high seas, there occurred a strange wedding.

Fifteen-year-old Grace Grisdale became the bride of C. G. Pike, 35, first engineer of the boat. The knot was .tied by Captain McKenna, master of the vessel.

James Grisdale, the girl’s grand uncle and nearest relative, followed them to the pier and caused the girl to be detained by the police. A superior court judge heard the story, however, and ordered the girl turned over to the expectant bridegroom. The grand uncle is a pioneer of the Puget Sound country and is worth $100,000.

He disowned the girl when she decided to go to Alaska with Pike.

I won’t here go too much into Grace’s ancestors, suffice it to say that both she and her grand uncle James were descended from the early Canadian settler Wilfred Grisdale, who had arrived in North Monaghan in 1816/17 (see here).

Seattle Harbor

Grace was born in 1895 in Bay City, Michigan to ‘Contractor’ Robert Grisdale and his wife Jessie E. Defoe. She was christened Dolores Grisdale but obviously she was known as Grace. Grace was the couple’s fourth and last child. For a reason we do not know shortly after Grace was born Robert and Jessie divorced and Jessie disappears from view. Several surviving children were sent to live with various relatives. But Grace was sent to Saint Vincent’s Orphanage in Detroit. But at some point we know she went to live with her rich great uncle James in Washington. He had made his money in just a few years by operating logging camps and who was at the time living in Eagle Harbour, Kitsap.

A Steam Schooner in Alaska

And so aged fifteen (actually 16) she had wanted to elope with ‘35’ year-old Calvin Greene Pike, for that was his full name. Having ‘tied the knot’ on board the F. S. Redfield, Calvin and Grace were on their way to Alaska. But then in August 1911:

The 469 ton 160 foot wooden gas screw F S Redfield stranded and was lost near Cape Prince of Wales at 10:00 p.m. Saturday August 19, 1911.  The vessel departed Unalaska July 19, 1911 bound for Cape Prince of Wales.  There were 23 crewmen and 350 tons of general merchandise aboard.  She had about a third of a deckload of freight.  The following are excerpts from the wreck report filed by James McKenna, master of the F S Redfield:

“3 mi. east Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska”  “South gale, rainy, dark, cloudy”  “South gale and current setting in to shore, could not head to sea”  “Stranded”  “Anchors let go; dragged until she struck”  “One day after vessel went aground, the mate went ashore and telephoned for the Revenue Cutter Bear at Nome, who arrived 48 hours later and rendered all possible assistance by helping lighter cargo and carry crew to Nome”  “Total loss”

The F S Redfield, valued at $25,000 was a total loss.  The cargo, which was worth $10,000 was damaged $5,000 on the report.  The F S Redfield had insurance of $12,500 on the vessel and $3,500 on the cargo.  There was no loss of life.

It seems that Grace was still on board when the ship was lost because another report reads:

The vessel stranded and lost when anchors dragged in gale; it was transporting supplies to Government schools in Alaska. Cutter Bear came to the rescue and carried crew and cargo to Nome. Grace Grisdale, 15, who had stowed away on the trip, ended up marrying First Engineer, C.G. Pike, with the ceremony conducted by Captain McKenna.

Now Calvin seems to have been both a trickster and womaniser, and there’s nothing much wrong with either. In the 1910 Census he is found in Seattle listed as a steamship captain aged 36 and born in Kansas of parents from North Carolina. The age fits more or less with the newspaper report and it must be what he told people. But there are two lies. First, he was born in Staley, North Carolina not Kansas, and his parents were Solomon Franklin Pike and Martha Staley, so he was 30 not 36. Having been brought up in Chatham, North Carolina it’s true that in 1900 he had gone to live with his uncle Lawson Pike and his family in Kansas, but Kansas-born he was not. More interestingly, in 1910 Calvin, although living alone, was said to be married, and this just months before his elopement with young Grace Grisdale.

Calvin and Grace seem to have had one son: John Calvin Pike, born in 1913. In the future John Calvin would give his birthplace at either Oklahoma or Missouri, following in the path of his father in this regard. In 1914 Calvin and his wife Grace are listed in a Seattle directory and he was said to be an ‘engineer’, on a steamship no doubt. In 1918 Calvin is still listed as an engineer in Seattle but no wife is mentioned. It seems however that sometime after 1914 he had left young Grace Grisdale because in December 1916 he married (for a third time) Lena E. Baettner in Seattle.

His lying about his age continued. When Calvin was drafted on 12 September 1918 in Seattle he gave his address as 117 Clay, his occupation as a Bridge Foreman and his employer as Monson Construction. He even gave the name of his father as Solomon F. Pike. But he continued to add 6 years to his age, giving his date of birth as 29 March 1874, when it was in fact 29 March 1880. Later when he registered for service in WW2 in Edmonds, Washington in 1942, he’d given up this lie and gave his correct date of birth. He said he was ‘self employed’.

His relationship with Lena Baettner didn’t last long either, because by 1920 he had moved on to his fourth ‘wife’ Myrtle Beatrice McPherson. Actually he might not have married Myrtle as he was probably still married to Lena, but Calvin and Myrtle had and lost their first child called Tupper McPherson Pike in 1920. Tupper died in Cle Elum near Lake Kittitas which is far away from Seattle. It looks like Calvin and Myrtle had had to flee. His parents brought him back to Edmonds to be buried.

Calvin and Myrtle’s Grave in Edmond’s Memorial Cemetery

Three more children were to follow: Calla B. Pike (1926), Solomon A. Pike (1927) and Martha R. Pike (1930), the births it seems being nowhere recorded. In 1930 the family were living in Currie, Snohomish, Calvin first being a concrete contractor and then a building labourer. But even now although Calvin gives his age and place of birth correctly it seems his dissembling hadn’t finished. In the 1930 census the place of birth of 17 year-old John Pike’s mother (Grace Grisdale) was given as California! I wonder what Calvin had told his son about his mother?

Calvin’s wife Myrtle died on 29 December, 1848 in Edmonds, Snohomish.

But Calvin Pike’s serial womanising was not over yet. Here was man in his sixties who had had at least four ‘wives’ and had slipped down from being a ship’s captain, through being a ‘bridge foreman’ to working as a building labourer; a man who was continually lying and trying to evade the authorities. You’d have thought he had had enough! But good on him, no! In Omak, Douglas County, Washington State, on the 14th May 1949, just a few months after Myrtle’s death, when Calvin was 69, he married again. This time his wife was a married mother of 49 called Ida Ellen Kopsala. There must have been something of urgency because on the day they married Calvin had to apply to the court to waive the usual three day waiting period before a wedding licence could be issued, which the court duly did. Why the rush?

But Calvin’s exploits were nearly over. He died on the 10th of  June 1950 in Everett, Snohomish in Washington State. Ida died in 1958.

But let’s go back. What happened to Grace Grisdale who had eloped with Calvin aged 15 (16) aboard his steamer in 1911? Not too long after she split with Calvin Pike, Grace married Richard Edward Cantwell in Tacoma, Washington on 7 September 1920. She gave her name as Dolores Grace Grisdale (not Pike). But something must have happened because in the 1920 US census we find her married but living alone in Tacoma: as ‘Grace Cantwell’. She was a hotel ‘servant’. Richard, it seems, was back in Charleston, South Carolina living with his mother! What was going on? The answer is that Richard was an Epileptic. We find him in the South Carolina State Hospital in Columbia in 1930 and he died there in 1941 of ‘epilepsy’, which the records say had it’s ‘onset’ in 1918! Poor Richard and poor Grace.

And what of Grace? What happened to her? Well I’m still investigating that.

Remembrance Day – Flight Lieutenant Charles Grisdale RAF – Apocalypse, Stalag 1 and the Russians

‘Es war ein Ereignis geradezu apokalyptische‘n Ausmaßes, das Kassel im Zweiten Weltkrieg heimsuchte: das Flächenbombardement vom 22. Oktober 1943.’

‘It was an event of almost apocalyptic proportion that visited Kasssel in the Second World War: the carpet bombing of 22 October 1943.’

Remembrance Day is nearly upon us. I was wondering what I should write. I’ve written many stories about Grisdales who fought, and often died, in the many meaningless wars over the centuries – with, I hope, much respect. My own father served and fought with the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Other close relatives lost their lives serving with the RAF. But at least WW2 had some meaning. Finally I decided to write a story about RAF pilot Flight Lieutenant Charles Leslie Grisdale, but not really. I won’t try to reconstruct Charles’s war or his life after the war when he settled down with his family on the Wirral in Cheshire. You will see what I mean.

Charles Leslie Grisdale was born n 1911 in Birkenhead, Liverpool. He was the second son of clerk William Walter Grisdale and Sarah Corless. I won’t tell the family history here, though there is much to tell.

Without getting Charles’s RAF records, I don’t know exactly when he joined the RAF or what he did in his first few years of service. So let me jump to 1943, by when Charles was a Flight Lieutenant flying Lancaster bombers with 103 Squadron out of RAF Elsham Wolds in Lincolnshire.

This was a time when the RAF was undertaking the mass carpet bombing of German cities instigated by Air Marshal ‘Bomber’ Harris. As you can see from the squadron crew list below for August to October 1943, Charles’s crew bombed Mannheim, Nurnberg, Milan, Peenemunde, Berlin, Hannover, Bochum, Hagen and Munich. The attack on Peenemunde was to try to disrupt the production of Wernher von Braun’s V2 rocket. Von Braun of course would later surrender to the Americans, and he and his team of German scientists would go on to put the Americans on the moon.

Then on 22 October at 17.58 Charles and his crew, with included a Squadron Leader called Clifford Wood, took off from RAF Elsham Wolds in Lancaster JB276, code PM-F, to join hundreds of other bombers. They never made it back. The target this time was the beautiful medieval city of Kassel.

A force of 569 heavy bombers dropped 1,800 tons on the Kassel. This included nearly 0.5 million magnesium incendiary fire sticks designed to ignite fires. Hitting specific targets at night was virtually impossible so the RAF set out to destroy the city and largely succeeded. Damage to the city’s water system made it difficult to fight the fires. Among the civilian casualties were large numbers of wounded soldiers recovering in several hospitals. About 10,000 people were killed. Estimates suggest that about half the city’s population were made homeless.

The city of Kassel, in the region of Hesse, in west-central Germany, was subjected to an ongoing bombing campaign that began in early 1942 and went on almost until the end of WWII in 1945. During the heaviest and most intense bombing raid, on the night of 22-23 October 1943, the British Royal Air Force deployed 569 bombers over Kassel’s city centre. The concentrated explosion of 1,800 tons of bombs – incendiaries among them – resulted in a lethal firestorm. At least 10,000 people died in the explosions and ensuing fires, and the flames were still burning seven days later. The city was targeted so vehemently largely because of its important military-industrial sites: the Fieseler aircraft plant, Henschel tank-making facilities, railway works and engine works were all based there. When the Americans liberated Kassel in April 1945, there were only 50,000 inhabitants; in 1939 there had been 236,000.

As this report says the ostensible aim of the raid was to attack two important armament factories, but really the aim was to destroy the city by fire.

Kassel after the fire bombing

In the rather restrained words of Kassel’s own website (my translation):

It was an event of almost apocalyptic proportion that visited Kasssel in the Second World War: the carpet bombing of 22 October 1943.

Fire-storm in Kassel

At 20.17 the sirens warned the 225,000 people of the town, only a few minutes later the allied air forces attacked. Within one and a half hours the bombers dropped more than 400,000 fire bombs – that amounted to two bombs per square metre in some areas of the old town. The massive firestorm during the night could be seen from 50 kilometres away. It would burn for several days to come.

After this attack Kassel was no longer the same town: 85 percent of the houses and 65 percent of the industrial areas were destroyed. In the medieval Old Town a fire storm broke out that annihilated 97 percent of the houses. The victims were estimated to have been 10,000 dead plus numberless injured. The extent of the bodily and spiritual suffering in that single night of bombing is unimaginable from the perspective of today… Almost everyone who survived the bombardment had lost relatives or friends. For the greater part of the population the bombs had left them with nothing. ‘The town was a pile of debris and most of what the people loved about Kassel was no longer there.’

When I lived and worked in Germany I visited Kassel. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, but everything you see is new, even if it looks old! The whole city had to be rebuilt from the ground up after this terrible night. So on Remembrance Day when I fall silent for a minute to remember the victims of two world wars, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, I will remember too the dead citizens of Kassel consumed by fire unleashed from above.

For the RAF this raid was one of its most costly. Out of 569 aircraft taking part 48 failed to return, including three Lancasters from 103 Squadron, one of which was Charles Grisdale’s.

I don’t know the circumstances surrounding the loss of the Lancaster Charles was flying, it was pretty obviously hit by flak or shot down by a German nigh- fighter; although during this raid the RAF began ‘Operation Corona’ to jam German night-fighter communications.

Lancaster crew 103 Squadron, RAF Elsham Wolds 1943

Five members of the crew of Lancaster JB276 were killed: Sqn-Ldr C. S. F. Wood MiD, F/Sgt W. R. Brown, F/Sgt J. F. Craig DFM, Sgt C. Kershaw and Sgt H. R. Wilson. They are buried in the Hanover War Cemetery. Having no doubt bailed out, two members of the crew survived the crash, Flight Lieutenants W. H. Hopkins and Charles Grisdale. They were taken prisoner and soon sent to the POW Camp called Stalag Luft 1.

POWs marched through Barth to Stalag Luft 1

Stalag Luft I consisted of a strip of barren land jutting into the Baltic Sea about 105 miles northwest of Berlin.  Two miles south of the main gate a massive Lutheran church marked the northern outskirts of the village of Barth.  A large pine forest bordered the west side of the camp and, to the east and north, the waters of Barth Harbour slashed against the shore less than a mile from the barbed wire fence.

Enclosing the camp there stretched miles of barbed wire, in two rows four feet apart, attached to 10-foot posts.  Every hundred yards, a Guard Tower mounting a machine gun and a pair of spotlights provided constant vigilance and permitted an unobstructed view of all within the confines of the enclosure.

The Stalag was divided into five separate areas, called compounds.  There were four for prison compounds: South or West, North 1, North 2 and North 3.  The fifth area consisted of the German buildings, in the centre, well constructed buildings, green grass, and attractive shrubbery, “The Oasis” as the prisoners called this area, was in sharp contrast to the prison compounds.

Charles lived in the South compound, in Barrack 5, Room 20. He was, it seems, the Choirmaster of the camp, or at least of the compound. While Stalag Luft 1 was a pretty grim place there were distractions such as theatre groups, choral events, sports and a lot of writing of poetry – in between escape attempts. One anonymous poem I like written when Charles was there reads:

 KRIEGIE THOUGHTS

Barbed Wire! Barbed Wire! Barbed Wire!
To the North, South, West and East
Will it always hold me captive
Without hope or joy or peace

Must I ever curve this eager flame
That burns within my chest
Or know once more the joy of home
With pleasant hours of rest

Such questions to my mind do crowd
When deep in thought I sit
But ever with it comes the cry
It won’t be long, don’t quit

And so it goes from day to day
A never changing scene
But someday soon I will leave it all
As though it were a dream.

I won’t attempt to describe the POWs’ life in Stalag Luft 1, there are many fine works that do that on the internet. But as the war was nearing its end the Red Army was closing in on the camp from the east. Here is what happened:

In late April, 1945 as the war in Europe was nearing its end, the Russians were approaching from the east and the British and Americans from the West in a race to get to Hitler’s headquarters in Berlin.  Stalag Luft I was north of Berlin, so it was unsure at first which of the Allied fronts would reach them first.  As the reports came in and the fighting got closer and closer to Barth, they soon realized that the Russians would be the ones liberating them.  They soon began to hear the heavy cannon fire sounds of the Russian artillery getting closer and closer to them.

At night the POWs would lay in their darkened barracks and there would be shouts of “Come On Joe” (for Joseph Stalin – the Russian leader) coming from all over the camp.   At this time it became apparent to the German Commandant and the guards at Stalag Luft I that the Russians were at their doorstep and they must make a move. So they approached the Senior Allied POW Officer of the camp, Col. Hub Zemke, and told him to prepare his fellow prisoners to march in an effort to escape the approaching Russians.  Col. Zemke refused to do so.

He informed the Commandant that even though there were over 200 of them with guns, that there were 9,000 POWs and they were prepared to fight rather than march.  He told the commandant that he realized this may cause high losses among the POWs but ultimately they would overcome the Germans and with the Russian allies so close he knew this was an acceptable risk.

The German command evidently realized that the end of Germany was near and so he accepted this decision by Col. Zemke.  The German command then informed Col. Zemke that he and the guards would be leaving the camp at midnight that night (April 30, 1945).  Col. Zemke had made plans in case such a scenario arose to take over the camp, as it was evident to him that as Senior Allied Officer he would be responsible for of the safe return of the POWs to Allied control.  He had already organized a group of hand selected men which he called the “Field Force” to help him keep the camp in order until they were all safely back in Allied hands.

Russians at Stalag Luft 1

So when the POWs at Stalag Luft I awoke on May 1, 1945 they looked around and noticed that all the Germans were gone and now there were POWs with armbands that said “FF” manning the guard towers.  Col. Zemke explained that the POWs could not just start leaving the camp on their own, as there was a war going on all around them and they could be shot.  He felt it best to keep the camp secure in an effort to protect the POWs.  (You can imagine not many of the POWs liked this idea, they were tired of being imprisoned behind barbed wire!)

Col. Zemke sent a scouting party out to meet the approaching Russians to inform them that there was a POW camp of Allies located in the area, so the Russians would not be shelling them!  Later in the day the Russian commander entered Stalag Luft I and meet with Col. Zemke and the British Senior Officer.  The Russian commander did not like the idea of the Allied POWs still being behind barbed wire, so he ordered that Col. Zemke have the fences torn down.  Zemke refused at first, but was later convinced (some say by force, with a gun) to tear down the fences.  The POWs enthusiastically tore them down.   Many POWs then left camp and went into Barth and the surrounding areas.  Some of them (approximately 700) took off on their own to make their way to the approaching British lines (my Dad being one of those!).  In the ensuing confusion of a war still in progress all around them some of the POWs were accidentally killed.

It was the 2nd White Russian Front of the Red Army that entered Barth on May 1, 1945 and liberated the prisoners of war at Stalag Luft I.   After the fences were down the Russians then learning of the meagre food supply the POWs had been existing on soon rounded up several hundred cows and herded them into the camp for the hungry POWs to slaughter and eat.  This they did immediately.   At night they entertained the POWs with their “USO” type variety show that travelled with them.   There was much joy and celebration among the newly freed POWs and the Russian soldiers.

The Russian Army stayed in Barth for only a couple of weeks.  After the POWs were evacuated from Barth, the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) took over the empty barracks at Stalag Luft I and used them for a repatriation camp for their countrymen that had been used as slave labour by the Germans.  Those slave workers that were in the territory occupied by the Western Allies were transferred to the territory occupied by the Soviets.  They came into repatriation camps where they were interrogated by the Soviet Secret Service (GPU) and this organization decided whether the former slave workers were sent home to their families or into stalinistic camps (Gulags) to do slave work in coal mines in Siberia or somewhere else.  Even some of the newly freed concentration camp survivors which were Soviet citizens were transferred into Gulags because they had been forced to work in the German warfare industry, like in Barth where they were forced to work in the Heinkel plane factory and were imprisoned in the small concentration camp at the territory of the Barth airfield.

Also what the Russians did

Actually one British officer described the Soviets as “drunken barbarians”. When we think of what the Russian soldiers inflicted on the women of Germany we can well imagine – and shudder. We should remember these women too. But the Russians were of course better disposed to the English-speaking airmen in the POW camps.

One Soviet officer who was there for the liberation of the camp, Vasily Bezugly, recently wrote:

Yes, I’m a live witness of the events of those days. As I remember today, it was May of 1945 on the coast of the Baltic Sea in Barth. We had a great fraternization with the English and American POWs there. At first time in my life I saw a chocolate bar. It was a big box of chocolate with the sign of the Red Cross and Half-moon.  I think that was English or American POWs (I don’t no actually but it was nearly 9000 of POWs in Stalag Luft 1). We exchanged our addresses. One of the POWs (his name was Tobby or Bobby but I don’t remember now) gave me his one, but I lost it – I was very young (at least 19 years old boy).   After that all of us – Soviet, American and English – three great nations – sang famous Russian song “Katyusha”. At the end I remember big airliner which took all POWs on its board.

It all sounds very amicable, but “the Russians wanted the prisoners transported by land to Odessa, a port on the Black Sea, then by ship to the United Kingdom and then on to the United States, but the idea was rejected and further negotiations followed. Much to the disappointment of almost 9,000 liberated POWs, it took almost two weeks to repatriate the prisoners by air”. And so May 12,13 & 14, 1945 approximately ‘9,000 prisoners of war at Stalag Luft I were flown out of Barth, Germany and back into Allied control.  Royal Air Force POWs were flown back to England and the American POWs were flown to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Harve, France, where they were processed and waited for a liberty ship to return to the states’, including Flight Lieutenant Charles Grisdale. Amazingly there is even some film footage of the POWs departing for home, one part of which is below.

After Charles arrived back in England he returned to his wife and young children in Wallasey. He had been in some ways lucky. His brother and father were less so. His brother Donald was an RAF Flight Lieutenant and bomber pilot as well, with 254 Squadron. But in February 1945, just weeks before Charles was liberated by the Russians, Donald was killed in action aged just 26. He is buried in Runnymede Memorial Part VII. Charles father’s was a clerk in Wallasey, but during the war he was a Fire Warden and was killed in a bombing raid on Liverpool in 1941. Charles other brother, William Herbert Grisdale, was to die in 1948 in interesting circumstances in Sierra Leone in Africa. But these are other stories for another time.

Charles Grisdale died on the Wirral in 1972 aged 61.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam

The Boys Done Good – Three Bolton Weavers Go America

When two young Bolton cotton weaver brothers came ashore in New York from the steamer Melbourne on the 15th of June 1863, perhaps they thought that they had stepped out of the frying pan into the fire. The American Civil War was still raging – Gettysburg was only a couple of weeks away – and New York was a toxic cauldron of racial and social violence and discontent. Irish and other gangs roamed the streets, illegal slave trafficking still flourished and large swathes of the population would, within the month, literally be up in arms against the war draft. Whether young John and Jonathan Grisdale were still in New York on July 13 when the New York City Draft Riots broke out we don’t know. Perhaps they were and had witnessed what New York historian Edward Robb Ellis called “the most brutal, tragic, and shameful episode in the entire history of New York City”. Or perhaps they had by then already reached their destination in the cotton mill towns of Pennsylvania, where they would undoubtedly meet up with their weaver uncle Doctor Grisdale, who had emigrated from Bolton, Lancashire, thirteen years earlier.

New York Draft Riots, 1863

Whatever the case, the two brothers soon headed south to start a new life. Both were married and had young children back in Bolton – who were to join them shortly – but for now they were on their own. Perhaps first staying for a time with uncle Doctor and his family in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, they would soon have gone to look for work in the rapidly expanding cotton mills of Pennsylvania. Like their father and grandfather before them, both young men had already spent years in the hell-holes that were the Lancashire cotton and woollen mills.

Anybody who would like to get a flavour of the unimaginable squalor and poverty experienced at this time in the Lancashire mill towns would be well advised to read Frederick Engels’ “The Condition of the Working Class in England” published in 1845. Engels had visited Bolton on more than one occasion and made this comment:

Among the worst of these towns after Preston and Oldham is Bolton, eleven miles north-west of Manchester. It has, so far as I have been able to observe in my repeated visits, but one main street, a very dirty one, Deansgate, which serves as a market, and is even in the finest weather a dark, unattractive hole in spite of the fact that, except for the factories, its sides are formed by low one and two-storied houses. Here, as everywhere, the older part of the town is especially ruinous and miserable. A dark-coloured body of water, which leaves the beholder in doubt whether it is a brook or a long string of stagnant puddles, flows through the town and contributes its share to the total pollution of the air, by no means pure without it.

Child Labour in Bolton Cotton Mill

Such was the place in which these brothers had lived and worked. They would find that the conditions in Pennsylvania’s mills really weren’t much better. Indeed many of the mills had been founded or were run by their Lancastrian compatriots.

For those of you more interested in genealogy rather than social history, I will briefly outline the brothers’ family line. Jonathan Grisdale (1832) and John Grisdale (1836) were the fourth and fifth children of Bolton cotton weaver John Grisdale senior (born 1799) and his wife Mary Wellsby. John Grisdale senior’s and Doctor’s father was Thomas Grisdale, who was born in Matterdale in 1772, the eighth and penultimate child of Joseph Grisdale and Ann Temple. Sometime in the 1790s, Thomas moved to Bolton in Lancashire (then called Bolton Le Moors); he married an Elizabeth Crossley there in September 1796. Between 1799 and 1817 they had nine children in Bolton, including in 1799 John, the emigrant brothers’ father.

The family’s earlier history is relatively easy to trace back to the first half of the seventeenth century – in Matterdale of course. Back to another Thomas Grisdale, a farmer, born in 1654 in Ulcatrow in Matterdale. This early Thomas was one of 54 tenant farmers who fought the local lord Andrew Huddleston all the way to the House of Lords in 1690 (see: Walking to London for Justice). I will leave aside the question of who was this Thomas Grisdale’s father for the time being. Those of you who are interested in such minutiae are invited to contact me.

Despite their youth both men had already had years of work in the Bolton mills behind them. This was a period when a type of child factory slavery was still the order of the day. In the 1861 census John is found living in Queen Street in Farnworth, Bolton, with his new wife and daughter. He was already a “Cotton Power Loom Manager”, quite an achievement at the age of 25. John was obviously quite proud of this fact because in A History of Delaware County Pennsylvania and its People, edited by John W. Jordan and published in 1914, when John was possibly still alive, we read:

The Grisdale family of Clifton Heights, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, are of English origin, England having been the home of the family for many generations….  (John) was educated in the common schools of his native country, and obtained his first employment in a cotton mill. His rise in the business was rapid, and when only twenty-two years of age he was promoted to the position of manager.

John Grisdale junior had married local girl Catherine Taylor in 1860, and a daughter, Sarah Jane, followed a few months later. His elder brother Jonathan was also working in the Bolton mills in 1861, as a cotton power loom “overlooker”. He had married Sophia Bamber in 1854 and before he emigrated to America with his brother the couple had had three children: Mary (1856), Richard (1860) and James (1862).

Many Lancastrian cotton mill workers were to emigrate to America, and particularly to Pennsylvania, during this period. But perhaps it is not too far-fetched to imagine that it was the brothers’ uncle Doctor Grisdale who had encouraged them to take the plunge and join him in America?

With their experience and skills they soon found work. In the 1870 US census we find Jonathan, perhaps as we might have expected, living in Middletown Delaware and working as a “loom boss”.  John his younger brother, however, although not far away in Philadelphia, was by now working as a “grocer”! In the History of Delaware County Pennsylvania and its People, we read:

In 1863 he (John) immigrated to the United States and worked for two years at the machinist’s trade, later serving an apprenticeship and learning the trade of a mason and bricklayer. In 1883 he retired from active labor and has since lived a quiet life of ease.

Yet in 1880 he was certainly back in a cotton mill in Clifton Heights, Delaware County as a “loom boss” and is listed in the same place in the US censuses of both 1900 and 1910 as a real-estate agent! So perhaps he could turn his hand to anything?

John and his wife Catherine were to have three daughters: Sarah Jane, Mary Ann and Elizabeth. The report of John’s life continues:

The old school house of Clifton Heights was erected upon land sold by him to the borough. He has held several prominent political positions in the borough, having been a member of the council for eight years and for two years was treasurer. When the local fire department was organized he was one of the charter members and contributed his most earnest efforts to raising it to its present high plane of efficiency. He is at present inspector for the borough. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

His wife Catherine, we are told, was “a trained nurse” and “she is president of the Women’s Club and a strong advocate of woman’s political equality; she is the present efficient treasurer of the borough poor fund and active in promoting all good causes”.

John died in sometime after 1914 but before 1920.  As it seems that John only had daughters – which is no bad thing – his Grisdale name died with him.

Views of Norristown in 1881

With his brother Jonathan it was quite different. As I said earlier, he and his wife Sophia had had three children in England: Mary Ann (1856), Richard (1860) and James (1862). They arrived in America with Sophia aboard the steam-ship City of London on the 5th October 1863. Five more American-born children were to follow: Jonathan (1866), William Henry (1868), Thomas (1871), George (1874) and Sofia (1878).

As I have mentioned, by 1870 Jonathan and his family were living in Middletown, Delaware, where he was working as a “loom boss” in a cotton mill. By 1880 they had moved to nearby Norristown, Pennsylvania and Jonathan was still working in a cotton mill.

Norristown was incorporated in 1812 on the east bank of the Schuylkill River and expanded in 1853. It was named after early mill owner Charles Norris. When the Pennsylvania canal system connected Morristown with Philadelphia in 1826, the town prospered as a trade center. Mills began to emerge along the waterways.

Many of Jonathan’s sons, and indeed grandsons, were to follow him into the cotton and woollen mills of Norristown, where an untold number of his descendants still live to this day.

Jamison Mills, Norristown, 1883

In which Norristown cotton mill did Jonathan Grisdale work? It’s of course possible he worked in more than one. Let’s first ask where he lived in the town. In 1880 he was living around Main Street. Various city directories and (after his death in 1888) the 1900 census show that the family house was at 320 Hamilton Street “below West Main Street”, so right in the heart of the original town and very close to many of the town’s largest cotton mills straggling along the Schuylkill river. The nearest mills was probably Washington Woollen Mills near the Montgomery Cemetery, but Jonathan could easily have walked along the river to Bullock’s Mills, Simpson’s Mills, De Kalb Street Mills/Jamison’s Mills or even to the Ford Street Cotton and Woollen Mills.

While not perhaps quite on the scale of some of the Bolton cotton mills in which the Grisdale brothers might have previously worked, a couple of these Norristown factories were pretty large operations, as the drawing of the Jamison Mills factory clearly shows.

Jonathan’s brother John had just perhaps fared slightly better. He was after all deemed worthy of an entry in the Montgomery County history, which said that “in 1883 he retired from active labor and has since lived a quiet life of ease”. I am sure that with a bit of local research more can be discovered about both Jonathan and John Grisdale’s lives. Perhaps their descendants can add more? I hope so.

Jonathan Grisdale died in 1888 in Norristown at the age of just 56.

I will leave Norristown and Pennsylvania now and very briefly tell the tale of one other member of the same cotton weaver family who also came to America and founded his own little Grisdale tribe in and around Gaston County in North Carolina.

SS City of New York

Jonathan and John Grisdale had an older brother called Thomas, born in 1821 in Bolton. He had married Maria Howarth in Bolton in 1841. Two sons followed: James in 1845 and John in 1846. It seems that shortly thereafter Thomas died. At first the two young boys lived with their mother Maria, but maybe it was too much for her, because by 1861 James was living with his uncle John (the American immigrant) and Catherine his wife. He is clearly listed as John’s nephew in the census. What became of James’s mother and brother is unknown but what we do know is that James also decided to make the voyage to Pennsylvania. He arrived in New York from Liverpool on the 21st December 1866 on the ship City of New York. Like his relatives before him he made his way to the Pennsylvania mills, because he too was of course a cotton weaver. James soon married Dealware-born Annie Cannon and by 1870 with their new son, also called John, they were living with James’ uncle John in Philadelphia, and James was back in a cotton mill. I hope you’re keeping up! (see here)

But, for whatever reason, sometime between 1871 and 1879 James and his growing family moved on; to live and work in and around Gaston, North Carolina.  I will probably have to return to explain James’ family in more detail at another time. But for now why did James move to North Carolina? Well, as we might expect, it had to do with cotton mills.

In addition to its rail connections, Gaston County was a prime location for water-powered cotton manufacturing on account of its many fast-flowing rivers and streams, its location in the midst of a cotton growing region, and the availability of cheap labor. By 1897 Gaston County had the largest number of cotton mills of any county in the state, twenty-two total, representing 10.6 percent of the state total of 207 cotton mills.

Mountain Island Cotton Mill

In 1880, James was living in Mountain Island Village, Gaston, North Carolina, and working as a “Superintendent in a Cotton Mill”.

A cotton mill, said by some authorities to be the first in Gaston County, was established on Mountain Island in 1848 by Thomas R. Tate and Henry Humphreys, owners of the Mount Hecla steam-powered mill near…. They hoped to take advantage of the less expensive water power from the Catawba River. The site at river’s edge featured a partially completed canal around the shoals that could be used for a mill race, and a steep island whose top now rises from the lake. Machinery was moved from the Mount Hecla mill by mule-drawn wagon and operations began in 1849. A village of brick houses grew around the mill. The mill and village were destroyed on July 15, 1916 in a flood caused by a hurricane.

Long Island Cotton Mill

By 1882, James had moved to the Long Island Cotton Mill in Catawba (which is now under Lake Norman). A letter to The Landmark newspaper dated 1882, tells us that the mill had been recently acquired by the Turner Brothers and that ‘James Grisdale, an Englishman of vast experience,’ had ‘the general supervision of the factory’.

By 1900, James and his family were in McAdenville, Gaston, North Carolina, still working in a cotton mill, almost certainly in the huge McAden Mills. McAden Mills claimed to be the first textile mill in the South to install electric lights. According to historian Billy Miller:

In 1884 Thomas Alva Edison came to McAdenville to oversee and help install the first electrical generator in the South…The lights hung from the ceiling of the mills and were spaced about thirty feet apart. People came from everywhere to gawk at the miraculous new lighting technology.

McAden’s Mill, McAdenville, North Carolina

The couple had at least seven children, either born in Pennsylvania or, later, in North Carolina: five boys and two girls. Many of their descendants still live around there to this day.

So this is my brief history of three Bolton cotton weavers who “went America”. As we (sometimes) say in England, “The boys done good”.

I guess that next I’ll have to write a bit about another Thomas, the brother of Doctor and John Grisdale, who went to India with the British army, married there, and then moved on to Australia – where he arrived in Melbourne from Bombay on the Strathfieldsaye  in November 1853. Maybe I might even write about the members of the family who stayed in Bolton. Or perhaps I should come more up-to-date and tell my own Grisdale family story? Let’s see.

McAden Mill

Flying Grisdales – Flight Sergeant Philip T Grisdale RAF

After Sergeant Major Levi Grisdale left the army in 1825, having completed twenty-two years of service that had seen him capture Napoleon’s favourite general, fight in thirty-two battles and lead the Prussians onto the field of Waterloo, he eventually settled down back in his home town of Penrith. There he had five children with his second wife Mary Western. Thomas was the fourth of these. He was born in 1841 in Penrith and was to become a clerk in the Postal Service, a decision that would take his family far to the south – to the London suburb of Barnes in Surrey. It was in the nearby suburb of Wandsworth that Thomas’s grandson, Philip Thomas Grisdale, was born in 1917.

Spitfire of 72 Squadron Biggin Hill

Philip’s father, Charles Philip Grisdale, had also joined the post office, passed exams, and done well for himself and his family before becoming a successful ‘commercial traveller’. The family lived at 21 Quarry Road in Wandsworth in a solidly middle-class house. It was here that Philip grew up with his twin brother Thomas Grover Grisdale. In 1938, when he was twenty-one, Philip married Averil Bush in Wandsworth. The couple had  one son: Carroll P Grisdale.

Without consulting the RAF records I don’t yet know when exactly Philip joined the RAF, what squadron he was initially posted to and whether or not he fought as a pilot in the Battle of Britain. However I do know he arrived at 72 Squadron on July 26th 1941 from 234 Squadron at RAF Warmwell – flying Spitfires. He had the rank of Flight Sergeant in 72 Squadron, which had just returned to the famous Biggin Hill airbase in Kent. The squadron had been reformed in 1937 and in 1939 Spitfires replaced its aging Gloster Gladiators. It had assisted in the evacuation of Dunkirk and fought in the Battle of Britain.

Spitfire in colours of 234 Squadron

72 Squadron at Biggin Hill in July 1941

By the autumn of 1941 the RAF had shifted from defending Britain towards ‘offensive sweeps’ over mainland Europe. On the 29 August 1941, 72 Squadron’s Spitfires escorted a formation of Blenheim bombers on a raid to the important railway yards at Hazebrouck, a small town near Dunkirk in the Flemish region of France.

The raid, or ‘Circus’ met stiff resistance from German anti-aircraft fire and engaged a large body of German fighters. And so, it would appear, it was near here at half past eight in the morning that Philip Grisdale had the misfortune to encounter one of the Luftwaffe’s veritable fighter-aces, Oberleutnant Hermann Seegatz, flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109. Hermann was the same age as Philip; he was born on 24 June 1917 in Fuerstengrube in German Silesia (now in Poland). His first air ‘kill’ was during the Battle of Britain when he shot down a Spitfire ‘south west of Dover’ on 7 July 1940. By August 1941 he was with no 4 Squadron of the second group of the 26th Fighter Wing (4.11/JG26) based at Abbeville airfield in northern France. JG26 was commanded by the famous ace Adolf Galland. They were known as either “The Abbeville Boys” or “The Abbeville Kids” by both the British and Americans who flew against them.

Due to the quality of leadership, attention giving to training replacement pilots, and the professionalism shown by these Luftwaffe pilots the Allied pilots came to respect the “Abbeville Boys”. Any yellow nosed Messerschmitt or Focke-Wulf 190… ever seen was reported as being flown by JG26. Bomber crews especially were respectful of them due to their ability to penetrate the fighter screen and shoot them down. JG26 is regarded as having some of the best pilots in the Luftwaffe throughout the War.

Douglas Bader with Adolf Galland

Only three weeks before on the 9th of August, RAF ace Captain Douglas Bader had bailed out over St Omer in France. ‘Bader was well known to the Luftwaffe and at the time of his capture had been credited with 22 aerial victories. Galland himself claimed two Spitfires on that date. Galland and JG 26 entertained Bader over the next few days. Owing to the significant stature of the prisoner, Galland permitted Bader, under escort, to sit in the cockpit of a Bf 109. Apparently, despite losing one of his tin legs in the aircraft, Bader, in a semi-serious way, asked if they wouldn’t mind if he took it on a test flight around the airfield. Galland replied that he feared Douglas would attempt to escape and they would have to give chase and shoot at each other again, and declined the request.’

Seegatz already had 14 confirmed victories to his name the day he fought Grisdale in his Spitfire; a total that would eventually reach forty.

Seegatz’s ME-109 ‘Beware Novices!’

Hermann was the ‘Squadron clown’. At one early stage he had the words ‘Beware Novice(s)!’ (‘Achtung Anfaenger!’) emblazoned on his ME-109, either as a warning to his adversaries or more probably as a tongue-in-check reference to himself. (See picture). His personal emblem was a Tyrolean Eagle, which can just be seen in the second picture of him with his Messerschmitt . Maybe Philip Grisdale caught a glimpse of this Eagle of the yellow-nosed ME-109 on that day in 1941, or maybe he never saw Hermann coming. We will never know. But in any case Philip was shot down and died while attempting a forced-landing (see below). The place was Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast. When his squadron returned to Biggin Hill Philip was reported missing in action. Seegatz claimed his 15th air victory, reporting that he had shot down a Spitfire near Nieuwpoort and had seen it crash.

Was this Spitfire definitely Philip’s? We can never be 100% sure, but all the evidence points in that direction and all the ‘experts’ who investigate such things concur that it was. The authoritative JG 26 Luftwaffe Fighter Wing War Diary, Volume 1; Volumes 1939-1942, by  Donald Caldwell, clearly shows that the Spitfire shot down by Seegatz belonged to 72 Squadron, while 72 Squadron’s records indicate that only one of their planes failed to return that day: that of Sergeant P. T. Grisdale.

Tom Docherty in his definitive Swift to Battle: No 72 Fighter Squadron RAF in Action, 1937 – 1942 writes:

On the 29th (August) it was back to Hazebrook marshalling yards as escort to the bombers of Circus No 88. Twelve Spitfires, led by Sqn Ldr Sheen, took part, and as they crossed the coast near Hardelot a large number of Bf109s were sighted. Sqn Ldr Sheen decided that they were a distinct threat to the squadron, and led the Spitfires into a running battle, which stretched into the middle of the Channel. During the fight Sqn Ldr Sheen (W3380) damaged a Bf109, Plt Off Rosser (W3441) destroyed one, Flt Lt Kosinski (W3511) destroyed one Bf109 and possibly destroyed another. On the debit side of the battle Sgt Grisdale (P8713) called up on the R/T informing his squadron mates that he was force-landing in France. Grisdale was killed. Sheen recorded. ‘Circus!? 1 Me109 damaged. Attack on N. France. Sqn versus 250 + 109s. 30 miles inland.’

Philip Thomas Grisdale is buried in Zandwoorde British Cemetery near Ypres in Belgium.

Like many allies airmen shot down during the war maybe Philip had first been buried locally and only later reinterred at Zandwoorde.

Hermann Seegatz with his Tyrolean Eagle ME-109 in Abbeville

What became of fighter-ace Hermann Seegatz? He claimed his next victory only two days later – another Spitfire. Later he was posted to Russia where his victories continued, before returning to Germany to help in the defence of the Fatherland. He became a Captain, then an Adjutant and finally, in 1944, a ‘Group Commander’. On 8 March 1944, Hermann scored his 40th, and last, victory. He shot down an American B-17 Flying Fortress at ‘Luben north of Luchnau’ before being shot down himself, probably by an American fighter. The German records tell us that Hauptmann Seegatz of the First Fighter Wing crashed in his Focke Wulf 190 after an ‘air battle’ with a fighter (‘Absturz nach Luftkampf mit Jaeger’). His aircraft was totally destroyed and he was ‘tot’ – dead.

Hermann Seegatz, Luftwaffe fighter-ace, is buried in Bernburg/Saale Cemetery.

The Grisdale family had gone from Waterloo to WW2, fighting for ‘King and Country’. ‘Hero’ Levi Grisdale had survived to tell his tales, his great grandson Philip had not.

Philip Grisdale, third from left, with 72 Squadron at Biggin Hill shortly before his death.

I’d like to end with a poem much beloved of pilots everywhere. It’s called High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, and adorns the wall of my own flying club:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I hope both Philip and Hermann did manage to ‘touch the face of God’.

The Abbeville Boys

From the Lancashire Cotton Mills to Oregon – The Long Trek of a Grisdale Family

At the end of the eighteenth century the pressures forcing rural people off the land were reaching a peak. One of the few options besides emigration and joining the army was to move to work in the dark satanic mills. In the north of England this often meant the cotton mills of Lancashire. Several Grisdale families from Matterdale followed this route. This is the story of just one of them. It is also a story of how part of the family then emigrated to Pennsylvania and from there, via Montana and the coal mines of Iowa, to Oregon in the Pacific Northwest. A story of pioneers maybe and a little example of “How the West was Won”.

The story is best started with Thomas Grisdale, who was born in Matterdale in 1772, the eighth and penultimate child of Joseph Grisdale and Ann Temple. Sometime in the 1790s Thomas  moved to Bolton in Lancashire (then called Bolton Le Moors); he married an Elizabeth Crossley there in September 1796. Between 1799 and 1817 they had nine children in Bolton. The fifth of these, born in 1809, was called Doctor Grisdale – for reasons that are not known. It is he who we will follow to America.

The industrial revolution was getting under way and Lancashire villages were being transformed from small rural settlements into huge cotton producing centres. They quickly became massive sinks of misery, squalor and exploitation for the rural poor – who were to become a new urban proletariat. They were to remain so throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century.

An early Power Loom

Thomas became a cotton weaver. Whether at first he was a hand-loom weaver or whether he started work immediately on one of the new power looms that had recently been invented and patented by Edmund Cartwright we don’t know. Hand loom weavers were a type of urban working class elite and they could earn good wages for their skills. But once mechanised power looms were introduced demand for hand weavers fell and their numbers dwindled. It was precisely against the brutal and inequitable effects of this process that the original Luddites were to fight and this certainly in and around Bolton. One of the most infamous repressions of the Luddite protests took place in nearby West Houghton in 1812. Garth Ratcliffe in the ‘The Burning of Westhoughton Mill by Luddites in 1812’ writes:

On Friday afternoon April 24th 1812 a mob of Luddites from Chowbent/Atherton attacked Westhoughton Mill, a cotton weaving mill situated opposite the White Lion Inn. This Mill was one of the first steam driven in the locality. The Mill was broken into and set fire to and burned down. The Scots Greys stationed in the area, rounded up the suspects who were identified by various witnesses from Hag Fold and other areas of Chowbent which is only about 2 miles from Westhoughton.

The suspects, who were mainly disaffected weavers, were “examined” by Ralph Fletcher and other magistrates and subsequently taken to Lancaster Castle prison to await trial for the charge of burning looms and a factory.
In addition, there were other Luddites mainly from Bolton town centre, who were charged with various aspects of “illegal oath taking/attending illegal meetings”.

Both sets of Luddites were tried on 23rd May 1812 and the results of the trail sentenced four men to be hanged and nine others transported to Australia for seven years.

The executions were at Lancaster Castle. The transported prisoners were taken to Portsmouth to await the next ship to Australia which took about 8 months.

These prisoners had to work for seven years on govt projects or for a landowner. After this period they could apply for ownership of land.

Luddites in Bolton in 1812

Maybe Thomas Grisdale witnessed this? If not he certainly will have heard about it because it was his fellow weavers who were killed, executed and transported to Australia.

But with the Luddite protests crushed by the army and militia, the grim life of the power loom weavers in Lancashire went on. In 1841the family are still working in the cotton mills: Thomas, now aged “65”, living with two of his sons, and Doctor Grisdale with his young family. They were all “cotton weavers”.

Doctor Grisdale had married Mary Greene and their son Thomas was born in 1839. Another son called Joseph was to follow in 1842.

Anybody who would like to get a flavour of the unimaginable squalor and poverty experienced at this time in the Lancashire mill towns would be well advised to read Frederick Engels’ “The Condition of the Working Class in England” published in 1845. Engels had visited Bolton on more than one occasion and made this comment:

Among the worst of these towns after Preston and Oldham is Bolton, eleven miles north-west of Manchester. It has, so far as I have been able to observe in my repeated visits, but one main street, a very dirty one, Deansgate, which serves as a market, and is even in the finest weather a dark, unattractive hole in spite of the fact that, except for the factories, its sides are formed by low one and two-storied houses. Here, as everywhere, the older part of the town is especially ruinous and miserable. A dark-coloured body of water, which leaves the beholder in doubt whether it is a brook or a long string of stagnant puddles, flows through the town and contributes its share to the total pollution of the air, by no means pure without it.

Such was the place in which this Grisdale family lived and worked.

A Delaware Woolen Mill

Some were destined to suffer this cruel fate for decades to come, but some tried to get out. Doctor Grisdale was one of these. Some Lancashire weavers had already emigrated to the United States, there to help in the development of America’s cotton and woollen mills. One place where they had ended up was in Pennsylvania and it was to there that Doctor and his young family headed. They boarded the ship Plymouth Rock in Liverpool and arrived in Boston on 16 January 1850. Just months later the family were established in Upper Darby. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Doctor was working as a weaver in the mills. Local historian Thomas J. DiFilippo tells us this about Upper Darby:

The growth rate of the township changed about 1830 when textile making moved from the homes into mills. Before 1830, the spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth was mostly performed at home by the women and primarily to satisfy the family’s needs. About 1830, some old grist mills were converted to spin yarn that was sold to individuals who wove their own crude cloth. About 1840, the mills became “integrated,” meaning they spun the yarn from raw material, then wove, finished and dyed the cloth. This was the beginning of a prosperous large textile industry in Upper Darby that lasted into the mid-1900s.

What became this country’s massive textile industry began in New England then spread to the Delaware Valley. Philadelphia became a major textile center with many mills in Germantown, Manayunk, Kensington, and Blockley. Realizing the potential market for textiles, descendants of the Garretts, Sellers, and Levis, followed by the Burnleys. Kellys, Kents, and Wolfendens, built or converted to textile mills. This expansion occurred after the flood of 1843 because that event destroyed nearly everything along the creeks.

Most of the mills employed Immigrants from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and later Irish Catholics. Although the managers and skilled workers were male, the laborious jobs were performed mostly by women and children. The mills owned the nearby “mill houses” and rented them to their employees. Workers were expected to follow the politics of the mill owners. Very few owners had compassion for the workers and thus the working conditions were poor, the salaries meagre and the working hours long. These conditions bred frequent labor disputes and were the cause of the early child labor laws and unionization.

By 1860 the family had moved to the mills in nearby Upper Merion, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where Doctor was still employed as a weaver in a woollen mill. What happened to Doctor Grisdale and his wife in the few years after 1860 is unclear, I’ll mention his death later. But the family’s long trek from Bolton to the west coast of America was only just beginning.

A Coal Mine in Oskaloosa. Iowa

What is clear is that Doctor’s son Thomas set off west, probably accompanied with his American born sister, Mary Ann. Perhaps Doctor’s son Joseph had already died? In 1862, Thomas married a very young Elmira Jane Clements, who came originally from Porter, Indiana. Their first child, Dora Mae Grisdale, was born in Montana Territory in 1868. But in 1870 the family was living in Oskaloosa in Mahaska County, Iowa. Thomas was now a “Miner” living with his family and his sister.

Mahaska County was rich in bituminous coal and in the 1870s coal mining became part of the local economy. In 1883, the area had 38 mines and an annual output of over a million tons. In the prime days of mining, Mahaska County surpassed all other Iowa counties in tonnage and number of mines. The advent of transcontinental railroads was also a boon to Mahaska County. The locomotives moved coal out of the area year round as demand for coal increased.

The earliest settlers mined coal among the hills of south central Iowa. They used coal to heat their homes and cook their food in areas were timber was not available.

Not until 1870 did the industry of coal mining begin to rapidly grow in Iowa. By that time the major Iowa railroads reached from the Mississippi River in the east to the Missouri River in the west. The railroads leased land in coal producing areas and operated mines which produced coal for the use of the railroads. These were the largest and most productive mines in the state.

We are also told the following about the Iowa mines of the time:

Usually a coal camp had several hundred small homes, a company store, a tavern or pool hall, and a school. Most coal companies required that miners shop only at the company store which sold everything from “cradles to coffins.”  Most mining families didn’t like this restriction. Because the average coal mine lasted only ten years, little care was given to the appearance of these camps

The history of one of these mines tells us:

One of the best remembered and most unusual coal camps was located in Monroe County in southern Iowa. Buxton, as it was called, was a thriving coal community during the early 1900s.

At first the camp was located at what was called Muchakinock about five miles south of Oskaloosa in, Mahaska County. For at least two years mining was good in this area. But then in 1875 labor troubles began. The workers went on strike. In 1881 black workers recruited from the south were hired as strike breakers.  In a few years the mines of Muchakinock were nearly exhausted. The Chicago and Northwestern railroad, which owned the Consolidation Coal Company, bought more land south in Monroe County. The community moved south where they began to build the town of Buxton.  It was named after J.E. Buxton, the superintendent of the Consolidation Coal Company.

Buxton was a thriving community for at least twenty years. By 1920 the mines began to run out of coal. By 1927 the last mine was closed. Buxton soon became a ghost town like the many other mining camps dotting central Iowa.

We don’t know how long Thomas and Elmira were in this Iowa mining community, their second daughter, Mary Lucinda, was born in Montana in 1870 and by 1873 their third child Thomas Edward was born in Oregon, so maybe they were just passing through? However I think it likely that they remained until at least 1878 because on 25 April in that year Thomas’s father Doctor died and was buried in Oskaloosa. Perhaps he and his wife had come to join them. In any case Oregon was the family’s next stop in the great move west. In 1880 we find them in Roseburg, Douglas County, Oregon with several more children. Thomas’s sister Mary Ann was also there, having by this time married Timothy Ford. But also Doctor Grisdale’s widow Mary had moved with them to Oregon. Thomas was working as a “Brick Maker”. He then moved to Bridgeport, Baker County, Oregon with more of his children and was listed there in the 1900 US Census as a “farmer”. So maybe after more than a century it was back to the land!

The grave of Doctor Grisdale’s widow Mary In Oregon

Thomas Grisdale was still living in 1903 because he paid a substantial council tax in Baker, Oregon, in 1903; but his mother Mary died on 26 June 1901 and was buried in Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, Portland, Oregon, as was his sister Mary Ann Ford. Something of the immediate history of Thomas’s family can be found on my (evolving) tree on Ancestry; although I have yet to find Thomas’s own death or that of his father Doctor. Thomas’s wife Elmira had married Amos Carson following Thomas’s death and died in 1940 In Baker County, Oregon.

I know this little history is somewhat lacking in detail and is rather skeletal, but it is, I think, another interesting example of the spirit of endurance and survival of so many English people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families – wherever in the world they had to go to do this. The Grisdales in this respect were no different to thousands or millions of others. But I don’t apologize for this. This family is after all the subject of this site. Sometimes I think that while this is family history it is perhaps something more. It can illustrate important social, economic and political realities about English history and the history of the English-speaking world.

Finally, although many members of this Grisdale family were to stay in Bolton (and their stories are interesting too) one other son of the Thomas Grisdale who came from Matterdale, a brother of Doctor, and also called Thomas (1804-1879), also led a very adventurous life. He found his way to Madras in India (possibly with the British Army) and from there, with wife and children, to Melbourne in Australia.

Grisdale 1332

The tiny Cumbrian hamlet of Grisdale (now called Mungrisdale) lies just north of the old Roman road from Penrith to Keswick. It is without any doubt the place from which the Grisdales of Matterdale took their name. I have previously discussed when and how the family name probably came into existence in an article called When did the Grisdales become Grisdales?, as well as in other articles on this blog. As I mentioned there it is conceivable, though by no means capable of being proved, that a certain Simon de Grisdale, who we find in Halton in Lancashire in 1332, was the first person from Grisdale who had moved away and took the name of his home place with him when he did. What I’d like to do here is to focus on the years around 1332 and try to say something of what life was like in Grisdale at this time.

Grisdale/Mungrisdale today

Why 1332? I have chosen this date because in that year there was taken a tax assessment in Cumberland and elsewhere which survives. These assessments are known as Lay Subsidy Rolls (Lay meaning that the tax concerned was being levied on lay people not clerics). Here we find a list of the inhabitants of all the settlements in Cumberland who were due to pay the tax, based on the value of their ‘goods’. Grisedale (spelt here with an E) appears, as indeed does Matterdale. The list of Grisdale inhabitants runs as follows:

William Skraghird, Peter son of Hugh, William Slegh, William Riotis,  Robert son of John, Robert son of Gilbert, William son of Robert, Adam son of Peter…

Then there seven other people whose names have been ripped out but whose goods and tax assessment are given. The subsidy was ‘one-fifteenth’ and in total the value of the goods of the people of Grisdale was £ 36 33s 6d, giving a total tax due of £2 8s 11d. The sum due from the residents of Matterdale was similar: £2 11s 9d.

Grisdale in 1576

So there were fifteen men in Grisdale who were taxed. To get an idea of the total population we might multiple this by say four or five to take account of wives, children and other dependents and then add in a few un-free serfs and very poor cottagers. So maybe there were somewhere in the region of 70 to 85 people living in Grisdale in 1332. This number might have been reduced after the Black Death struck England in 1348, a plague that did affect Cumberland but not as severely as it did the south and midlands of the country.

You will have noticed that of the eight people named only three had surnames, William Skraghird, William Slegh and William Riotis, the others were still referred to by naming their father, for example Robert son of John. Note too that all the Christian names are basically French: William, Robert, John, Richard etc.

Was one of these fifteen named or unnamed people the early fourteenth-century progenitor of the Grisdales? One can’t say more than it’s quite possible.

Whatever the case, who were these people of Grisdale? What language did they speak? What was their origin? Who were their rulers?

Let’s start with the question of language. Originally Cumbria had been a Brythonic (i.e. British) speaking area before the Northumbrian English started to make inroads in the seventh century. The ‘English’ hadn’t made much of an impression in the more rugged and barren hilly areas, which would include Grisdale, and the British themselves remained in place for hundreds of years although they too preferred the more fertile valley or coastal areas to the inhospitable mountains.

Norse Fleet

The ethnic and linguistic mix changed radically in the early tenth century when Hiberno-Norse (i.e. Scandinavians from Ireland) started to settle in numbers in north-western England and particularly in Cumbria. They spoke an Old Norse language which had acquired some Irish words from their years in Dublin and other Irish ‘longphorts’. If you have a glance of a Lakeland map today you will immediately see the importance of this settlement, there are Norse place names everywhere. If you were to include field names and topographical names it would take a large volume just to list them (there are several such volumes).

Grisdale was and is one of these Norse place names. It means valley of the pigs (or perhaps valley of the wild boars). There are several Grisdales or Grisedales in Cumberland and even one just across the modern county border in Yorkshire.

It is clear that some of these tenth-century Norse settlers came to Grisdale (i.e. Mungrisdale) and named the place as such, either because they kept their pigs there or because there were wild pigs there when they arrived. I tend to the former explanation. When the first Scandinavians walked into the valley they were to call Grisdale they might have found one or two Cumbric-speaking British living in rude hovels or, equally as likely, they might have found the place completely empty. There were certainly British living in nearby Threlkeld when the Vikings arrived.

St Kentigern/Mungo

The valley would certainly have been much more wooded than it was to become.

The dedication of the later Chapel in Grisdsale is to St. Kentigern a sixth-century British monk (and incidentally the first Bishop of Glasgow), who was often called St. Mungo – hence the more recent name of the hamlet and valley: Mungrisdale. Whether Kentigern/Mungo had ever actually preached in ‘Grisdale’ in the sixth century is not known. His cult became popular in the twelfth century and it is quite possible, even likely, that the dedication of the chapel happened then – though this doesn’t exclude an oral memory of Kentigern in the area.

Whatever the case, it was these Scandinavian settlers from Ireland who gave the place its name, as they did to most of the other places in the locality. As I have said, the settlers spoke Old Norse sprinkled with a few borrowings from Irish Gaelic. They were to keep their language for quite a long time. As the years and even centuries went by they adopted just a few British words, such as the famous method of counting sheep, bowdlerized in more recent times to eeny, meeny, miny, moe, and, more importantly, through their contact with their English-speaking neighbours their language started to morph into the Cumbrian dialect.

There is very little evidence regarding exactly how and when Norse merged with a variety of northern English in Cumbria. What evidence there is suggests that by the early fourteenth century the ‘merger’ of the languages had gone some way, but it was still as much Scandinavian as it was English. The arrival of the Norman-speaking French in Cumbria in 1091 would have had no direct effect on this process. Indirectly of course, as Old English (Anglo-Saxon) morphed into Middle English under the influence of the conquerors’ French, the people of Grisdale would have French words in their vocabulary too, although whether any French-speaking lord would have understood a word they said is highly doubtful. But for sure by the fourteenth century most Cumbrians, whether they were of Norse, British or English descent, would have understood each other, although the dialect could change radically over distances of only a few miles and someone from the south would have been lost, as some still are.

I would like to stress that this mutual comprehensibility didn’t extend the predominantly French-speaking nobility (or not for a long time anyway). As mentioned, the Norman French first arrived in Cumbria in 1091, twenty-five years after the Conquest. See The Normans come to Cumbria. When they did the rugged independence the Norse Cumbrians of Grisdale and elsewhere had enjoyed for nearly two hundred years came to an abrupt end. As elsewhere in England pretty much all of northwest England was divvied up and given to Norman-French henchmen, the majority of local leaders and landowners were stripped of their position and wealth. We might mention names such as Ranulf de Briquessart (le Meschin), Ivo de Taillebois and many more.

Interestingly though the ‘barony of Greystoke’ (to use the French title), which included Grisdale and Matterdale, seems to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule. Here a powerful local family with Norse roots and Norse names was able to reach an accommodation with the Norman colonizers. This was the family of Forne Sigulfson, who became the first Norman-sanctioned lord of Greystoke. (See my article about Forne here). It was Forne’s son Ivo who started to built the pele tower at Greystoke in about 1129. Note Forne’s totally Norse name and his son’s French name – Forne probably named his son Ivo to honour and ingratiate himself with the powerful local Norman enforcer Ivo Taillebois. This family with Norse ancestry continued to be the lords of Greystoke (and therefore the lords of the people of Grisdale) until 1306 when the title and lands passed to a slightly related family called Grimethorpe, who took Greystoke as their family name.

It would be nice to think that in the two hundred or so years following 1091 the fact that the lords of Greystoke were originally Norse meant that the simple farmers and shepherds of Grisdale escaped some of the horrors inflicted on the people of England by the hated Norman colonizers – but I think this is most likely wishful thinking.

Arnside, a Cumberland Pele Tower

Let’s say something about these local lords. They were pretty rough and ruthless types and despite the fact that they exploited the people of their ‘manors’ and stole any surplus, their lives, diets and dress were still very basic. In Cumbria, as I have said, they were mostly but not exclusively French-speaking Normans or sometimes Flemish. Initially they threw up wooden stockades to keep them safe from attacks by the conquered English. In Cumbria these were soon replaced by stone pele towers which served the same purpose and also provided some protection against later Scottish cattle raiders (reivers) and the occasional marauding Scottish army.

They were small stone buildings with walls from 3 to 10 feet thick, square or oblong in shape. Most were on the outskirts of the Lake District, but a few were within its boundaries. Designed to withstand short sieges, they usually consisted of three storeys – a tunnel-vaulted ground floor which had no windows which was used as a storage area, and which could accommodate animals.

The first floor contained a hall and kitchen, and the top floor was space for living and sleeping. The battlemented roof was normally flat for look-out purposes, and to allow arrows to be fired at raiders, and missiles hurled down on unwanted visitors….

Apart from their primary purpose as a warning system, these towers were also the homes of the lairds and landlords of the area, who dwelt in them with their families and retainers, while their followers lived in simple huts outside the walls. The towers also provide a refuge so that, when cross-border raiding parties arrived, the whole population of a village could take to the tower and wait for the marauders to depart.

As noted, Ivo FitzForne built the first stone fortification at Greystoke in about 1129, the building grew to become a large pele tower and in the 14th century after William de Greystoke obtained a royal licence to castellate it, the castle was further enlarged.

Greystoke Castle in 1780 – the original pele tower can still be seen

So in 1332 Greystoke did not yet have a castle, the lords still lived in a large pele tower surrounded by their family, armed knights and servants. In that year William de Greystoke, the 2nd ‘Baron Greystoke’, was still a minor and the barony of Greystoke was in the custody of Sir Hugh d’Audley (whose daughter Alice was William’s mother). What do we know about this William de Greystoke, who on reaching his majority in 1342 was the feudal lord of the people of Grisdale? Besides the normal feudal extractions how else did William’s actions impact the people of Grisdale and other parts of his barony?

The main impact was of course war. An idea of the mentality of people like William de Greystoke can perhaps be gained from the words of another Cumberland medieval lord, Lancelot de Threlkeld:

The principal residence of the Threlkeld family was at Threlkeld in Cumberland; but they had large possessions at Crosby long previous to this time, for in 1304 and 1320 Henry Threlkeld had a grant of free warren in Yanwath, Crosby, Tibbay, &c., and in 1404 occurs the name of William Threlkeld, Knight, of Crosby. Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, Knight, was the son of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, by Margaret, daughter and heiress of Henry Bromflatt, Lord Vescy, and widow of John de Clifford. He was wont to say he had three noble houses; one at Crosby Ravensworth for pleasure, where he had a park full of deer; one at Yanwath for comfort and warmth, wherein to reside in winter; and one at Threlkeld, well stocked with tenants, to go with him to the wars.

Lancelot’s Threlkeld tenants were his ‘stock… to go with him to the wars’. William de Greystoke also used his ‘stock’ of tenants to go with him to his wars, including without much doubt some from Grisdale and probably therefore some of the family that would become the Grisdales of Matterdale. I’ll have more to say about William de Greystoke at a later date, for now where did he go to fight his wars? After his majority in 1342 he:

Soon became embroiled in English campaigning on the continent: he was probably in Gascony in 1345–6, at the siege of Calais in 1347, and, perhaps, on the expedition of Henry, duke of Lancaster, to Prussia in 1351–2. In 1353 and again in 1354 he participated in unsuccessful Anglo-Scottish negotiations concerning the release of David II, king of Scots (an English prisoner since his capture at Neville’s Cross in 1346). In September 1354 Greystoke was appointed captain of the border town of Berwick: while he was absent campaigning once more in France it fell into Scottish hands in August 1355. As his second wife he had married Joan, the daughter of Sir Henry fitz Henry (Fitzhugh). He died on 10 July 1359 and was buried in Greystoke church.

So William and his knights plus his ‘stock’ of bowman tenants, no doubt including some from Grisdale, was most probably with sixteen year old Edward the Black Prince (the son of King Edward III) when the English army destroyed the French at the Battle of Crecy in 1346. He was also at the Siege of Calais during which the inhabitants suffered greatly and were reduced to eating dogs and rats. He also went to Prussia to help the Teutonic Knights fight the pagan Lithuanians, and was back again in France in 1355/56 where he and his men quite possibly fought in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 when the Black Prince’s English army destroyed the French chivalry yet again.

The Siege of Calais

 

Edward III and the Black Prince at Crecy, 1346

 

It was for all this war service to the French-speaking English king, Edward III, which led to William being granted the right to crenellate his pele tower in Greystock in 1353 – to transform it into a proper castle.

Often these battles at the start of the Hundred Years War are presented as ‘English’ victories over the French. In the sense that it was the simple English soldiers and bowman who won the victories over the massed flower of French chivalry then this is true. But really it was about one group of French noble thugs fighting another group of the same for control of large parts of France. From the English king on down to more humble nobles such as William de Greystoke, while many of them now had started to understand and even speak English, their primary language was still French. A few years before Robert of Gloucester wrote:

And the Normans could not then speak any speech but their own; and they spoke French as they did at home, and had their children taught the same. So that the high men of this land, that came of their blood, all retain the same speech which they brought from their home. For unless a man know French, people regard him little; but the low men hold to English, and to their own speech still. I ween there be no countries in all the world that do not hold to their own speech, except England only. But undoubtedly it is well to know both; for the more a man knows, the more worth he is.

In 1362, Edward III became the first king to address Parliament in English and the Statute of Pleading was adopted, which made English the language of the courts, though this statute was still written in French! French was still the mother tongue of Henry IV (1399-1413), but he was the first to take the oath in English. That most “English” of Kings Henry V (1413–1422) was the first to write in English but he still preferred to use French. It is interesting to note that it was not until the days of Henry VII in the late fifteenth century that an English king married a woman born in England (Elizabeth of York), as well as the fact that Law French was not banished from the common law courts until as late as 1731.

Winter in Mungrisdale

I haven’t said much about the ordinary everyday life of the people of Grisdale in the fourteenth century. When they weren’t suffering at the hands of Scottish reivers and armies, being dragged to France to fight in the Greystokes’ wars or dying of the plague, they farmed a few small strips of land in the valley, tended the sheep on the moors, cut turf to keep them warm, kept a few pigs, worked on their lord’s home farm and tried to get enough money together to pay periodic taxes and regular rents. It was a hard life that wouldn’t change for centuries.

And so dear members of the extended Grisdale family, I hope this gives just a small inkling of where and from whom you come. If you have the name Grisdale/Grisedale your family name line will take you back to Grisdale in Cumbria in the early fourteenth century and, most likely, to the Scandinavians who arrived in Cumbria in the tenth century. Of course you’ll have dozens, even hundreds, of other genealogical and genetic ancestral lines as well, and in that sense you’re a mongrel like everyone else. But unlike other family names (such as mine) the great thing about Grisdale genealogy is that I have yet to find any proven case of someone bearing the name where it can be demonstrated that their family originates anywhere other than Matterdale and thus without much doubt ultimately from Grisdale (Mungrisdale).

Forget our thousand years of brutal kings and queens, our French lords, even (if you wish) the Scandinavian origins of your name. The Grisdale family is, with many others, about as English as you’ll get. That you most likely descend from a few tenth-century Vikings who became farmers and shepherds in remote Cumbrian Grisdale and your ancestors somehow survived centuries-long exploitation and repression to produce you (and even me) is, I think, something to rejoice in.

Rainbow over Mungrisdale

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

One day in late August 1900 at Geluk’s Farm near Belfast in South Africa two companies of the 1st Battalion the King’s Liverpool Regiment were cornered and being attacked by the Afrikaner farmers – the Boers. Many of the company involved were killed, others escaped and one won a Victoria Cross. One of those who died was Liverpudlian Thomas Grisdale.

In 1895 a nineteen year old Thomas Grisdale was living in a pretty squalid area of Toxteth in Liverpool. His boss was foreman Mr Berrick in Dolling Street, Toxteth, and Thomas worked with him ‘carting’ goods on and off trains.

The King’s Liverpool Regiment Memorial

Whether for reasons of adventure or simply trying to better his position, Thomas decided to join the army. He signed up for the Liverpool militia in October 1895 aged, he said, ‘19 years 4 months’. Two months later he enlisted in the regular army with the King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was first attached to the 2nd Battalion but then transferred to the 1st. Having recently returned from Nova Scotia, the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, or ‘Liverpools’ as they were generally known, was first posted to garrison duty in the West Indies, but in 1897 they were sent to Cape Colony (Cape Town) in South Africa, where relations between the British and the Boers were once again deteriorating. From the Cape the first battalion, including Thomas, was moved to the town of Ladysmith in Natal, where the ‘1st King’s formed a company of mounted infantry and underwent intensive training’. They were still there two years later when war was declared on 11 October 1899 (the Second Boer War) and Natal was invaded by a Boer force under General Piet Joubert.

Boer Fighters

Under General George White 16,000 British soldiers set out from Ladysmith and elsewhere to confront the Boers, but British tactics were out-of-date and they suffered heavy losses in the first major engagements. Regarding Thomas and the 1st Battalion of the Liverpools:

The 1st Battalion was in Ladysmith when war was declared. They were not present at either Glencoe (20th October 1899) or Elandslaagte (21st October). On the 24th Sir George White, being anxious to engage the attention of the Boers and so prevent them falling on General Yule’s column, then retreating from Dundee to Ladysmith, moved out of the latter town and fought the action of Rietfontein. The force which he took out was—5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, Imperial Light Horse, Natal Mounted Volunteers, 42nd and 53rd Batteries RFA, No 10 Mountain Battery, 1st Liverpools, 1st Devons, 1st Gloucesters, and 2nd King’s Royal Rifles.

Sir George threw out the Lancers and Hussars to seize some ridges and protect his right. The Gloucesters advanced on the left and the Liverpools on their right, the Devons being in support afterwards in the firing line and the King’s Royal Rifles at the baggage. The general’s intention was not to come to close fighting. The two field batteries did admirable work, silencing the Boer guns and keeping down the enemy’s rifle-fire, and what was a tactical success might have been accomplished at very slight loss, but the Gloucesters pushed rather too far forward and suffered severely. Before 2 pm firing had ceased, the Boers had withdrawn westwards, and the danger of that part of their army attacking General Yule was over.

On 26th October General Yule’s force entered Ladysmith, wearied and mud-bedraggled, after a march entailing very great bodily hardship to all and very great anxiety to those in command.

The Boer’s ‘Long Tom’

Over the next few days, as the Boers were gathering north of Ladysmith, the British army, including Thomas’s 1st Liverpools, attacked again. But a lot of ‘bungling’ followed; bungling for which many of those in charge were soon to be castigated back home in Britain. I won’t tell the whole tale; the main engagement is usually known as the battle of Nicholson’s Neck. The upshot was that the British retreated to Ladysmith where they were to be besieged by the Boers for the next four months. The Boers literally brought up their big gun; the so-called Long Tom. They bombarded the town but try as they might, and they made several attacks, they couldn’t take Ladysmith.

The Boer bombardments were conducted at no particular time, particularly by their two 6 inch guns. On 24th November 1899 Long Tom caught a company of the King’s Liverpools massed in the open, inflicting 9 casualties, five of them dead.

British soldiers defending Ladysmith

‘During the siege of Ladysmith the Liverpools were located on the north side of the town, and were not in the terrible fighting when the attack was made upon the southern defences on 6th January. Of course a feint was made on the north of the town, but the attack was not pressed as it was at Caesar’s Camp and Waggon Hill…. On the night of the 7th December Colonel Mellor and three companies of the Liverpools seized Limit Hill, “and through the gap thus created” a squadron of the 19th Hussars penetrated some four miles to the north, destroying the enemy’s telegraph line and burning various shelters, etc.’

As the weeks passed conditions in the town got worse and worse for both its inhabitants and for the British soldiers. By the end of February a relief force under General Redvers Buller had, despite several humiliating defeats, managed to fight its way up from the Cape to Ladysmith and the siege was relieved. The Boer besiegers trekked away across the veldt. One of the defeats the British relieving force had suffered was called the Battle of Spion’s Kop, after which Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield ‘Kop’ is named. Winston Churchill, who was there after his daring escape from a Boer concentration camp, wrote, ‘Corpses lay here and there. Many of the wounds were of a horrible nature. The shallow trenches were choked with dead and wounded.’

On 1st March 1900 … the 1st Liverpools and other troops, now emaciated and worn to absolute weakness, crawled some five miles north of Ladysmith to harass the enemy in their retreat, and did effect some good work in that way.

Relief of Ladysmith. 1900

All this Thomas Grisdale had experienced. But his military career was not yet over. General Buller soon decided to go on the offensive and the British moved into the Boer heartlands of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The Liverpools were often in action, for example at Amarsfoori on 7 August and at Van Dykes Vlei on 21 August. But then:

On the following day Buller’s army advanced to Geluk, some five or six miles, the (Liverpool) battalion with the Gordons and mounted troops of Dundonald’s Brigade, acting as rear-guard. A very difficult spur, with steep sides, was crossed, and the high hills on the further side occupied. These had been held by the Boers in strength, but they had retired on Buller’s approach. As soon as the infantry of the rear-guard had arrived in camp, the mounted troops of the rear-guard were attacked rather sharply, but they managed to hold their own and to beat off the Boers. Two companies (‘C’ and ‘E’) of the Liverpool Regiment, who formed part of the advance guard, fell into an ambush and lost considerably, leaving, it was reported, some eighty men either killed, wounded, or prisoners in the hands of the Boers. Shortly after arrival in camp, five companies of the Regiment were sent out on outpost duty, taking up a short line and entrenching—two companies were entrenched in front and furnished sentries, with three companies entrenched in rear in support.

William Heaton VC – A soldier with Thomas Grisdale at Geluk

One member of the two Liverpool companies that were ambushed was Private William Edward Heaton:

On the 23rd August, 1900, the Company to which Private Heaton belonged, advancing in front of the general line held by the troops, became surrounded by the enemy and was suffering severely. At the request of the Officer Commanding, Private Heaton volunteered to take a message back to explain the position of the Company. He was successful, though at the imminent risk of his own life. Had it not been for Private Heaton’s courage there can be little doubt that the remainder of the Company, which suffered very severely, would have had to surrender.

Private Heaton was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry. Twenty-four year old Private Thomas Grisdale was also one of the soldiers at Geluk’s Farm. He unfortunately did not survive, at least not for more than a few hours. The official ‘Natal Field Force’ casualty roll tells us that Private T. Grisdale, number 5080, of the 1st Battalion The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) was ‘killed on 24 Aug 1900 at Geluk’.

Like countless young British men over the centuries Thomas was never to return home. As the poet A E Housman once put it:

We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.

“God save the Queen” we living sing,
From height to height ’tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you’ve been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.

Thomas’s grandfather Wilfred Grisdale in Penrith

So who was the father of Thomas Grisdale who might or might not have been proud that his son had died to ‘Save the Queen’? His parents were William Grisdale and Margaret Robinson. They had arrived in Liverpool from Penrith, Cumberland in the early 1860s with their three young Cumberland-born children. Seven more children were to be born in Liverpool. Thomas was the couple’s seventh child and was born in the first half of 1876. William was born in Penrith in 1838, the first son of carpenter Wilfred Grisdale (1815-1893) by his first wife Hannah Robinson. William also became a carpenter but probably finding it difficult to make a living moved to Liverpool. He worked first as a labourer but later found work as a joiner. The family lived at 10 Leslie Street in Toxteth Park. The street was later erased from the map when large swathes of Liverpool’s slums were cleared in the second half of the twentieth century.

Although from Penrith the family had, as you might expect, originally come from Matterdale. Thomas’s great grandfather William (1785- 1866) was born there but had moved to Penrith where he was a ‘Dancing Master’. He was the son of Matterdale blacksmith Wilfred Grisdale (1711- 1795) and his young wife Ruth Slee. (I’m sorry there are so many Wilfreds and Williams!) Another son of Wilfred the blacksmith, also called Wilfred, emigrated with his family to Canada in 1816 and founded a veritable Grisdale dynasty in Ontario and Michigan. William, the brother of Penrith Dancing Master Wilfred, emigrated to Victoria, Australia in 1853, joined the gold rush, and later found a decapitated man. Another member of the family became a ballet dancer at Drury Lane, married well, went to Boston but died hawking fish in Falmouth.

Our Private Grisdale’s parents must have been devastated when they heard of his death. Father William died in Liverpool in 1906 in Dolling Street, Toxteth. After his death his wife Margaret was admitted to Toxteth Park Workhouse and died there in 1907.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

 

Iron miner and rapist – Christopher Grisdale

‘The details are unfit for publication.’ Lancaster Gazette, 1858.

The Furness peninsula on the west side of Morecambe Bay is now a mostly quiet rural spot to the south of the Cumbrian Lakes. But throughout much of its history, when it was in Lancashire, it was full of industry; principally iron ore mining and iron furnaces (called ‘bloomeries’). This story concerns one nineteenth-century iron miner called Christopher Grisdale and how what he did affected a family who worked in one of the furnaces.

The area we are concerned with encompasses Dalton-in-Furness and Ulverston. It is flat country with views of the higher Lakelands to the north and northeast and across the bay to the Cartmel peninsula to the east. Iron mining started here in the early middle ages, but the mines were small, the iron extracted by hand with little machinery and the ore carted away by pack horses.

A horse gin working a mine shaft

Things started to change in the later 1700s when demand for iron soared to supply the Royal Navy and the nascent industrial towns. New mines were opened and older mines were enlarged, particularly in the Lindal and Marton area between Dalton and Ulverston.

A number of mining techniques were employed in the Lindal and Marton area. Mostly a system of shafts and levels was used. A vertical shaft would be sunk, and the ore would be removed from a horizontal level to its outer limits. Material would be lifted out by a horse gin or steam engine. Sometimes the ground above would be allowed to collapse into the excavated level. The shaft would be extended downwards, and the process would be repeated at a lower level, and so on. This process was known as top slicing, and resulted in large surface depressions above the mine workings, many of which can still be seen.

Cornish miners were brought in and the mines soon moved from using ‘horse gins’ to bring up the ore to using steam-powered winding engines called whimseys. New furnaces were built, two of which were at Newland just east of Ulverston and, in 1747, at Orgrave Mill near Holmes Green between Dalton and Ulverston. The Newland furnace was one of eight charcoal furnaces in Cumbria, ‘it became the home of the Harrison Ainslie company, an important entrepreneurial business which eventually owned all of the iron furnaces in what became known as the Furness area. Newland was the industrial heart of the region’.

‘It produced 28 tonnes of iron per week, and to do that it required 56 tonnes of charcoal each week, which meant a huge volume of timber. Seven or eight men worked there, tough, unrelenting hard graft until the last production run finished in 1893.’

Newland Furnace and Foundry, Ulverston

Iron miners generally worked as small companies; gangs of men managed by a mine captain, paid monthly as a unit, and the money shared amongst themselves as they saw fit. Miners were easily identifiable by their greasy red appearance, with face, hands and clothes stained red by the iron oxide. Mining was dangerous, and miners were often injured or killed by rockfalls, railway accidents, falling off wet ladders, etc. Nevertheless, or possibly as a result, they tended to be strongly religious, and the area had several Methodist and Baptist chapels, as well as the church.

Ulverston Iron Ore Miners

But not all the ore was smelted locally. Most had to be transported elsewhere. A port was lacking (Barrow-in-Furness hadn’t yet been developed as such), so in 1794-5 a canal was cut, one and a quarter miles in length, connecting Ulverston with Morecambe Bay. It was ‘said to be the shortest, straightest, and deepest in England, and is navigable for vessels of 300 tons burthen, which can be moored in safety in the capacious basin constructed for the purpose’.

After the completion of the canal Ulverston had a considerable coasting trade, exporting iron and copper ore and coppice wood, hoops, slates and gunpowder; but since the opening of the docks at Barrow the port is quite deserted and its shipyards silent. “In 1774,” Mr. West tells us, “there were seventy ships belonging to this place. Coals were then imported, and sold at £1 5s. 6d. per caldron.”

The streets of Ulverston ‘were often ankle deep in red mud, as iron-ore carts passed through regularly en route to the Canal and the iron furnace at Newland – ladies complained they could not get to Church without getting their petticoats filthy’.

Christopher Grisdale was born in Dalton in 1828, the illegitimate and only son of Elizabeth (‘Betty’) Grisdale. Betty too had been born in Dalton in 1807, one of two children of Dalton-born Christopher Grisdale and his Yorkshire wife Ruth Hatterton. To link in with a known Grisdale family, Christopher Senior, who was born in 1776, was one of several illegitimate children of an Agnes Grisdale, and it’s nigh on certain that this Agnes was born in 1730 in Heversham, Westmorland to John Grisdale and his first wife Elizabeth Holme. John was later to move to Cartmel (in about 1739) and was thus the first Grisdale to inhabit this coastal area. I wrote about this family in a story called ‘Grisdale Cockle Fishermen of the Cartmel Peninsula’.

The Christopher Grisdale we are concerned with (the one born in 1828) was working on a farm near Dalton owned by Thomas Huddleston in 1851. I can find no mention of him before this so I don’t know where and how he was raised or what became of his mother Betty. Thomas Huddleston was related to George Huddleston, one of the principal shareholders in the Ulverston Mining Company and, as we shall see, a powerful local JP and magistrate.

Sometime after 1851 Christopher stopped working on a farm and started working as a miner in one of the local iron mines – most likely in the Lindal/Marton area between Ulverston and Dalton. In 1n 1856 he married Charlotte Jolley in St Mary’s church in Ulverston; a child soon followed though I have yet to determine her/his name.

Let’s here make mention of another local family – the Fells. Christopher Fell had worked in the Orgrave Mill iron foundry near Dalton, but by 1858 he worked in a foundry in Ulverston, probably at Newland. One of his many children was Margaret who was aged just seven on the 13th of June 1858 when she had the misfortune to meet iron miner Christopher Grisdale in Ulverston. Here are the facts of what happened. On 19 June 1858 the Westmorland Gazette reported:

Villainous Assault – At the Magistrates’ Office, Ulverston, on Wednesday, before G Huddleston, Esq., Christopher Grisdale, of Ulverston, labourer, was charged with assaulting Margaret Fell, daughter of Christopher Fell, a child of seven years of age, with intent, on Sunday last. The offense being clearly proved, he was committed to take his trial at the ensuing sessions.

The Lancaster Gazette reported on the same day that Grisdale had ‘carnally to know’ Margaret, i.e. attempted to rape her. On 3 July the same paper reported the trial:

Criminal Assault – Christopher Grisdale, 30, miner, was indicted for attempting at Ulverston, on the 13th June, 1858, carnally to know Margaret Fell, a child under 10 years of age, the second count charged him with assault, occasioning bodily harm; and the third count charged him with indecent assault.

Mr. M’Oubrey appeared to prosecute, and Mr. Higgin for the defence.

On an objection made by Mr. Higgin to an omission on the wording of the first count, the count was withdrawn, and the case was taken upon the second and third counts.

Town Bank School, Ulverston

This was one of the discreditable cases of which we fortunately have but few in this part of the county. The evidence for the prosecution showed that the little girl, Margaret Fell, who was only seven years of age, was playing near the Town Bank school, Ulverston, on the afternoon of Sunday the 13th June, when the prisoner, whom she had not known before, but who is a married man, with a wife and child, came up, and under the promise of giving her a half-penny or a penny she went with him, and partly having hold of his hand, and partly carried by him, was taken into a field near to the house of Mr. Gregson Fell, and there committed the gross assault with which he was charged; and then set her on the road home by another road. On arriving home she complained to her mother of injury. Supt. Cooper was informed of the circumstance, and under his directions the little girl was examined by Mr. Seatle, surgeon, who found her injured by violence. The details are unfit for publication.

Mr. Higgin addressed the jury in defence of the prisoner. The chairman summed up, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the first count, and the court sentenced the prisoner to be imprisoned in the House of Correction, with hard labour, for 15 months.

Prisoners arriving at Lancaster Castle Prison

So Christopher Grisdale had violently tried to rape little Margaret Fell – “The details are unfit for publication”. What I find rather amazing is that Grisdale received a sentence of only 15 months in prison for his crime – the ‘House of Correction’ probably being Lancaster Castle. This is only a few years since people were hanged or transported to Australia for petty theft or poaching; crimes against property, however small, were nearly always punished more severally than crimes against other common people.

We might normally expect to find Christopher Grisdale somewhere in the records again after his release, but I can find him nowhere, or his wife and child. Had he died in jail? If so we might expect to find his death recorded. Had he died or emigrated? Lots of questions, no answers.

Perhaps there was a sort of justice because although she had no doubt been traumatized, Margaret Fell survived, and went on to marry William Wilkinson in 1875; she had three children and died in Bradford in Yorkshire in 1938 aged 87.

 

 

 

 

The sad death of ‘lunatic’ Deborah Grisdale

‘A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.’ Proverbs 26:3

In the spring of 1838 a twenty-eight year old girl called Deborah Grisdale died in the Lancaster Lunatic Asylum. Without consulting the asylum’s records I can’t say why she was there or how she died, but I can say something about such asylums and, at the end, I’ll tell where she came from.

Inside Bedlam

‘For as long as the Church controlled the insane, they endured dreadful torments. They were imprisoned, chained to a wall (or if they were lucky to a bed), flogged, starved, insulted, tortured, immersed in iced water and otherwise brutalised. It also seems safe to assume that sexual abuse would have been commonplace in view of twentieth century disclosures about monasteries, seminaries, church schools, orphanages and state mental asylums. Throughout Christendom the insane were kept in insanitary conditions in mad-houses and exposed to public ridicule. The most famous place in England for such people was the hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem (“Bedlam”), where visitors were charged a fee to see the inmates, and were allowed to provoke them and laugh at them. A few inmates came to their senses, some died of old age, some died of neglect, starvation, exposure or torture, and many died of “putrid fever” or other infectious diseases that flourished in such conditions.’

Bedlam

The state of these asylums was memorably described by local magistrate Godfrey Higgins, who investigated York asylum in 1814. He found ‘evidence of wrongdoing on a massive scale: maltreatment of the patients extending to rape and murder; forging of records to hide deaths among the inmates; an extraordinarily widespread use of chains and other forms of mechanical restraint; massive embezzlement of funds; and conditions of utter filth and neglect.’ On one visit he forced his way through a hidden door to expose a tiny room crammed with thirteen elderly ladies, practically naked and covered in their own excrement. Higgins ‘became very sick and could no longer remain in the room.  I vomited.’

 

In a Victorian lunatic asylum

In Lancashire prior to the 1800s the ‘mentally ill’ were imprisoned in Lancaster Castle. In the early 19th Century, pressure from various quarters (particularly from the Quakers) was growing to build county asylums that would provide suitable accommodation and more humane treatment for those suffering from mental disorder. In 1809, one year after the County Asylums Act of 1808, a decision was made to build a new asylum in Lancaster. Designed by architect Thomas Standen, it opened in 1816 as the ‘County Lunatic Asylum for the County Palatine of Lancaster’ – it was here that Deborah Grisdale was sent.

‘The mentally ill inmates, who were classed as ‘lunatics’, were transferred from Lancaster Castle to the Asylum in the outskirts of Lancaster. Despite an attempt to move away from previous mistreatment, inadequate treatment still occurred in the first few years of the Asylum’s existence… During the renovation of the original section of the asylums into housing in the early twenty-first century, there were reports of shackles and padded rooms being found in the cellars of the remains. It is clear that chaining was still seen as a form of treatment of the mentally ill for years after the creation of Asylums.’

The 1816 Lancaster Asylum

The important thing to keep in mind is that both in the old ‘madhouses’ and the later ‘asylums’, such as in Lancaster, one didn’t have to be mad to be sent there. They were long used as dumping grounds for any people who magistrates found in any way problematic. The list below from a later nineteenth-century asylum shows the lunacy of many of the reasons for which people were sent to a lunatic asylum. It will make you laugh and weep.

Women in particular could find themselves labelled insane and locked up in madhouses for a range of conditions – from postnatal depression to alcoholism or senile dementia, and even for social transgressions such as infidelity (‘moral insanity’).

Emma Riches

In the 1850s, Emma Riches, a 27-year-old mother of four, was admitted to the Bethlem asylum (the original Bedlam). ‘Her newest baby was four weeks old when Emma was admitted… with ‘puerperal insanity’, or what we would now call postnatal depression… She had suffered from the illness after the births of each of the children, and been admitted to the same hospital before.’

Emma’s notes record: ‘She never speaks nor appears to notice anything… She cares for nothing, will not eat unless she is forced to do so, nor dress nor undress herself.’

‘There is no clear indication of how Emma was treated by doctors, beyond a remark that the drugs they tried were ineffectual. Nurses are likely to have attempted to persuade her to sew or help out in the kitchens. Uneducated, Emma could not have read books to pass the time or provide an escape from the tedium of her asylum – where she would have been without all of her four children. A second photograph shows her restored to health, wearing her own smart clothes again and about to be discharged back to her family. After almost a year in hospital, her postnatal depression had passed.’

Without going to Preston to look at the asylum’s records, I don’t know why Deborah Grisdale was sent there. In 1835, when she was twenty-four, she had given birth to an illegitimate baby boy in her home village of Allithwaite on the Cartmel peninsula, she called him Jehoshaphat after the fourth king of Judah.

Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

Should we read anything into this choice of name?

Was Deborah committed for postnatal depression of even ‘moral insanity’? Or was she truly mad? As I said I don’t yet know. All I know is she died in the asylum aged ’28’ in 1838.

Deborah Grisdale was born in 1811 in Allithwaite on the Cartmel peninsula in Lancashire (now in Cumbria). She was the second child and only daughter of cockle fishernan Thomas Grisdale and his wife Mary Armistead, She was named after Thomas’s own mother Deborah Grisdale (nee Grisdale). I wrote about the family in a story called ‘Grisdale Cockle Fishermen of the Cartmel Peninsula’. Of Deborah’s three siblings only one lived long enough to have a family and leave descendants: the first Isaac Armistead Grisdale.

Morecambe Bay Cocklers

And what of Deborah’s illegitimate son Jehoshaphat? After his birth in 1835 we next find him in 1841 living with his grandparennts in Allithwaite and then in 1851 working as a farm servant in nearby Seathwaite in Egton cum Newland.. Then he seems to disappear. Did he change his name? Did he join the army? Who knows.

The extended Asylum

The Cumbrian Antigones

‘I will bury him myself. And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory… I have longer to please the dead than please the living here.’ Antigone, Sophocles.

Thomas Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, unfurled the Royal Banner in Carlisle in February 1537. He was declaring martial law in the North of England. Martial law wasn’t really law at all; it was simply a suspension of the accepted process and procedures of English law. It meant that anyone taking part in or supporting a rebellion, or defying the crown in any way, could be summarily dealt with as a traitor. They could be executed without the bother or uncertainties of a jury trial.

Royal Banner of Henry the Eighth

Howard had taken it upon himself to ‘unfurl the banner’ in the name of King Henry VIII, whose authority had been challenged by the recent uprising in Lincoln, by the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ in Yorkshire, Northumberland and Durham and by a serious rebellion in Westmorland and Cumberland. Henry had broken with Rome and, advised by the unpopular Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, was setting about dissolving and robbing catholic England’s monasteries and abbeys. He was also increasing the tax burden of the people and encouraging the theft of common land via private enclosure. All of these measures were deeply unpopular over great swathes of the country. They were obviously resented and resisted by monks, friars and other clergymen, but also by gentry and commoners as well – though for different reasons.

The uprising in Lincoln in late 1536 had managed to muster thousands of people to the cause but had ended after just two weeks. Just as the King’s representatives were about to wreak their revenge on the Lincoln rebels, a more serious challenge arose: the people of Yorkshire and surrounding parts of Northumberland, Durham and Lancashire had also rebelled. Under the leadership of lawyer Robert Aske, this was essentially a conservative protest and one that the rebels wanted, if at all possible, to keep non-violent. Aske himself christened it the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, a name that perhaps unfortunately has stuck. The rebels didn’t want to challenge the King’s right to rule, rather they wanted to pressure him to stop the dissolution of the monasteries, restore the link with Rome and suppress the spread of Lutheran versions of Protestantism. They also hoped that some of Henry’s hated advisers would be removed, particularly Chancellor Thomas Cromwell, who they blamed for both the religious policies and, as importantly, their own worsening economic plight.

The Holy Wounds Banner of the Pilgrimage of Grace

In this sense the Pilgrimage of Grace was both a social and a religious revolt. The impetus came from below, from the ‘commoners’, but some of the local gentry joined in willingly, while others needed to be coerced.

Under Aske’s leadership, the leaders of the rebellion called themselves ‘Captains of Poverty’ or sometimes, in the case of monks and priests, ‘Chaplains of Poverty’. These captains started to call out the northern ‘host’, usually a thing done by the king or the local barons. Their numbers swelled, to reach around 28.000 – 35,000 by October 1536. They were disciplined and organized and more than enough to face down, and defeat if necessary, the 4,000 mercenary troops, under the Duke of Norfolk, who Henry had sent to put them down. The rebels had captured Pontefract castle without much trouble.

Robert Aske – Leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace

This isn’t the place to retell the events and causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace. There are many fine histories of what happened. In brief, Norfolk knew he couldn’t defeat the rebels by force of arms, so he prevaricated and seemed to play along with, even sympathize with, their demands. A truce was called on 27 October at Doncaster Bridge and on 6 December Norfolk promised a royal pardon in the name of the King. He also promised that many of the rebels’ demands would be met. Eventually, and not without great deliberation, the northern rebel host dispersed and the Pilgrimage was effectively over. It is only in retrospect that we can judge them naive.

All this was not to Henry’s liking. Henry’s instinctive and invariable reaction was always to crush any opposition, not to make concessions or compromises. He soon reneged on the pardon and had many of the leaders or sympathizers of the revolt executed. He never took England back to Rome and he redoubled his drive to dissolve the monasteries and expropriate and appropriate their considerable wealth.

Let us return to events in Westmorland or Cumberland (which together I rather anachronistically will call Cumbria). This was a region that the Duke of Norfolk himself was to call the ‘poorest shire in the realm’. During the Pilgrimage appeals had been made to the people of these counties to join in and to take the Pilgrims’ Oath. Local ‘Captains’ were appointed and some of them were to go to Yorkshire on at least two occasions to consult with Robert Aske and the other leaders. Two of the most prominent Cumbrian captains were Nicholas Musgrave and Robert Pullen, but several others went as well.

The Cumbrian captains started to gather support. To try to remain anonymous they usually called themselves ‘Captain Poverty’ – like their Yorkshire colleagues. Eventually a force of 15,000 was gathered and was planning to march on Carlisle, the administrative and military centre of the ‘West Marches’. But before they could progress any further, news came that the Pilgrimage was over and, despite the fact that Sir Francis Bigod and John Hallam tried to resurrect it, unsuccessfully as it turned out, the Cumbrian rebel host disbanded and returned home.

Over Christmas 1536, and into the early New Year, the commoners started to fear that their local gentry had abandoned them and that they had slipped off to London to declare their allegiance to King Henry. They were right. Madeleine Hope Dodds and Ruth Dodds wrote in 1915, in their still seminal two volume study The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy:

The chief reason for the agitation was the departure of so many gentlemen to court. The commons distrusted the King, who might have the gentlemen beheaded, and they distrusted the gentle men, who might betray them to the King. When the gentlemen were away, the bailiffs and other officers found it impossible to keep order.

And that might have been that were it not for Henry’s reprisals. He wanted all the leaders of the Pilgrimage hunted down and executed as traitors. In early January 1537, it became known that ‘Captains’ Nicholas Musgrave and Thomas Tibbey were in the Westmorland town of Kirkby Stephen. On 6 January, Thomas Clifford, the ‘bastard son’ of Henry Clifford, the first earl of Cumberland, was sent to the town to capture them. ‘Musgrave was warned and with Thomas Tibbey he took refuge in the church steeple, so defensible a position that Clifford was obliged to withdraw without his prisoners’. This, we are told, ‘stirred the country greatly’. A watch was to be kept for them in every town. ‘The men of Kirkby Stephen plucked down all the enclosures in their parish and sent orders to the surrounding parishes to follow their example.’

Things started to get tense. In Cumberland, one of the King’s men, Sir Thomas Curwen, wrote that ‘The west parts, from Plumland to Muncaster, is all a flutter’. He told how ‘on Saturday 13 January a servant of Dr Legh came to Muncaster. The whole country rose and made him prisoner. He was carried to Egremont and thence to Cockermouth. A great crowd filled the market-place, crying, “Strike off his head!” and “Stick him!”

Kirkby Stephen Church

The region was in ferment and it only needed a spark to set it alight. This spark was provided on 14 February when ‘bastard’ Thomas Clifford returned to Kirkby Stephen, once again trying to capture Musgrave and Tibbey. This time he came with a group of ‘mosstroopers from the waters of Esk and Line ’. These were rough border reivers, ‘strong thieves of the westlands’, with a penchant for violence.

Musgrave and Tibbey fled to their old fastness in the steeple, and there defied their pursuers. The townsfolk took no part either for or against the rebels, but while Clifford and some of his men were debating how to take their quarry, the rest of the riders, following their inbred vocation, fell to plundering. This was more than flesh and blood could bear. The burgesses caught up their weapons and fell upon the spoilers, causing a timely diversion in favour of the men in the steeple. Scattered about the narrow streets of the town, the horsemen were at a disadvantage and soon showed that their prowess was not equal to their thievishness. Two of the townsmen were killed in the skirmish, but their enraged fellows drove the borderers from the town and followed up their retreat until they were forced to take refuge in Brougham Castle.

Moss Troopers

Musgrave and Tibbey had escaped again. But having witnessed the brutality of the King’s forces, the local people realized that they would get no quarter or justice either from the King or the local nobility. They could expect no fair hearing of their economic or other grievances. ‘The commons saw that they were committed to a new rebellion, although they had risen in defence of their property ; indeed, a panic seems to have spread through the countryside that they would all be treated like the people of Kirkby Stephen. The two captains raised all the surrounding country and sent the following summons to the bailiff of Kendal, whom they knew to be on their side’:

To the Constable of Mellynge. ‘Be yt knowen unto you Welbelovyd bretheren in god this same xii day of februarii at morn was unbelapped on every syde with our enimys the Captayne of Carlylle and gentylmen of our Cuntrie of Westrnerlonde and haithe destrowed and slayn many our bretheren and neghtbers. Wherfore we desyre you for ayde and helpe accordyng to your othes and as ye wyll have helpe of us if your cause requyre, as god forbede. this tuysday, We comande you every one to be at Kendall afore Eight of the clok or els we ar lykly to be destrowed. Ever more gentyll brether unto your helpyng honds. Captayn of Povertie. ‘

None of the local gentry joined them and very few priests. They were more afraid of losing their aristocratic privileges and the wrath of the King than they were concerned about Henry’s religious reforms. The ‘commoners’ were on their own. Their plans were simple. ‘They had long before decided that the first step in case of a new rebellion was to seize Carlisle.’

Thomas Howard 3rd Duke of Norfolk

The Duke of Norfolk was still in Yorkshire continuing his clean-up and reprisals after the Pilgrimage of Grace. Carlisle was commanded by Sir John Lowther, Thomas Clifford and John Barnsfeld. They were out-numbered and they were worried. They knew that they needed the help of Sir Christopher Dacre, who, in the absence of his nephew Lord William Dacre, welded the most power in the area. Christopher Dacre’s loyalty to the crown was still much in doubt and the Clifford and Dacre families were old adversaries – enemies even. On 15 February the three Carlisle commanders wrote to Sir Christopher Dacre:

In the King our sovereign lord’s name we command you that ye with as many as ye trust to be of the King’s part and yours, come unto this the King’s castle in all goodly haste possible, for as we are informed the commons will be this day upon the broad field … further that ye leave the landserjeant with the prickers of Gillisland so that he and they may resist the King’s rebels if the said prickers of Gillesland will take his part, or else to bring him … and that ye come yourself in goodly haste. (Castle, of Carlisle, 15 February at 10 hours.)

When the Duke of Norfolk, who was in Richmond, heard about the danger in Cumbria, he too wrote to Dacre on the same day:

Cousin Dacres, I know not whether you received the letter I sent you yesterday. I hear those commons now assembled draw towards Carlisle, and doubt not you will gather such company as you may trust and, after your accustomed manner, use those rebels in a way to deserve the King’s thanks and to aid your nephew, my very friend, whom I look for every hour. I will not instruct you what ye shall do, for ye know better than I. Spare for no reasonable wages, for I will pay all. And spare not frankly to slay plenty of these false rebels; and make true mine old sayings, that ‘Sir Christopher Dacre is a true knight to his sovereign lord, an hardy knight, and a man of war’. Pinch now no courtesy to shed blood of false traitors; and be ye busy on the one side, and ye may be sure the duke of Norfolk will come on the other. Finally, now, Sir Christopher, or never. (Richmond, 15 Feb.) Your loving cousin if ye do well now, or else enemy for ever.

Norfolk had written to the king the previous day informing Henry that ‘when Cumberland’s bastard son, deputy captain of Carlisle, came to take two traitors at Kirkby Stephen, they keeping the steeple, his horsemen, in great part strong thieves of the Westlands, began to spoil the town, and the inhabitants rose to defend both their goods and the traitors. A skirmish ensued, in which one or two rebels were slain, and Thomas my lord’s bastard son, was forced to retire to Browham (Brougham) castle. The country has since risen, some say 4,000 or 5,000 together, and are sending for others to aid them.’

Norfolk thought that ‘no such thing would have occurred if this enterprise had been handled as it was promised’.

By 16 February about 6,000 local Cumbrians were camped on Broadfield Moor, a few miles south of Carlisle. They were ‘more or less effectively armed and mounted’. They knew Carlisle was, as it has always been, the key to controlling the region. They didn’t have gentry leadership, but in no way were they a rabble, as too many histories have disparagingly called them. They were in fact the very same people, the same ‘host’, which the local barons would usually call out when they needed military support. Clifford and the other commanders of the town had been busy rallying the local ‘artisans’ to the defence of the town. The Cumbrian host didn’t really know how to go about attacking or besieging a fortified town.

Carlisle Castle

On Saturday 17 February, the host prepared for the assault on Carlisle. ‘The rebels carried a cross as their banner principal… It does not seem to have been such a vigorous attack as the word now implies. They approached within bow-shot, and showered arrows on the defenders who appeared on the city walls. This went on until they exhausted their supply of arrows, when they retired a little way to consider what to do next.’

After the failure of their attempt to take the town, the rebels were considering how best to attack again when, suddenly, Sir Christopher Dacre arrived on the scene with ‘five hundred border spearmen’ – called ‘prickers’. The commons broke and turned to flee. This emboldened the defenders and they sallied forth from Carlisle. Together with Dacre’s men they set about the now fleeing commoners. The mosstroopers were ‘in no mood to spare the countryfolk who had beaten them so ignominiously on Monday’.

The rejoicings in London were great. Sir Christopher Dacre was the hero of the hour. It was said that he had slain 700 rebels or more and taken the rest prisoners, hanging them up on every bush.

Exactly how many of the commoners were massacred is not known. Perhaps not the 700 reported. But compare this with the fact that in the whole of the more famous Pilgrimage of Grace (I exclude the later reprisals) there had only been one death – and that was accidental. Hundreds of prisoners were taken back to Carlisle, including it seems Thomas Tibbey, but not Nicholas Musgrave. The rest of the host fled back to their homes or went into hiding. Christopher Dacre had proved his loyalty and was later rewarded for his decisive intervention.

On the day of the attack and subsequent massacre, the Duke of Norfolk was still at Barnard’s Castle in Yorkshire and had raised 4,000 men – ‘everyone they could trust.’ But news soon reached him that this ‘splendid little army’ would not be needed. Norfolk was delighted. He wrote to King Henry that Christopher Dacre had ‘shown himself a noble knight’ and that ‘seven or eight hundred prisoners were taken.’ He was, he wrote, ‘about to travel in all haste to Carlisle to see execution done.’

Norfolk arrived at Carlisle on Monday 19 February. This is when he ‘unfurled the banner’ and imposed martial law, not just on Cumbria but on the whole of the North of England. He used the pretext of the Carlisle events to be better able to punish those involved in draconian fashion, as well to be able to more easily and brutally punish those involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace itself. Norfolk reported that: ‘There were so many prisoners in the town that he found great difficulty in providing for their safe-keeping.’ ‘He wrote that night to the Council to promise that if he might go his own way for a month he would order things to the King s satisfaction. It would take some time, because he must himself be present at all the convictions and proceed by martial law, and there were many places to punish.’ He added, significantly, that ‘not a lord or gentleman in Cumberland and Westmorland could claim that his servants and tenants had not joined in the insurrection.’

Proclamations were issued which ‘commanded all who had been in rebellion to come to Carlisle and submit themselves humbly to the King’s mercy.’  ‘The country people began to straggle into the city in scattered, dejected bands. They had lost their horses, harness, and weapons in the chase; they were in instant fear of a traitor’s death for themselves, and of fire, plunder, and outrage for their homes and families.’ Norfolk wrote that ‘they were contrite enough to satisfy any tyrant’ and ‘if sufficient number of ropes might have been found (they) would have come with the same about their necks’

Taking advice from the local lords, Norfolk chose seventy-four of the ‘chief misdoers’. ‘That is of the braver and more determined of them, and turned the rest away without even a promise of pardon’.

On 21 February, Norfolk wrote to Thomas Cromwell: ‘The poor caitiffs who have returned home have departed without any promise of pardon but upon their good a bearing. God knows they may well be called poor caitiffs; for at their fleeing they lost horse, harness, and all they had upon them and what with the spoiling of them now and the gressing (taxing) of them so marvellously sore in time past and with increasing of lords’ rents by inclosings, and for lack of the persons of such as shall suffer, this border is sore weaked and specially Westmoreland; the more pity they should so deserve, and also that they have been so sore handled in times past, which, as I and all other here think, was the only cause of this rebellion.’

Norfolk knew that if he left justice to the mercy of local juries he probably wouldn’t be able to execute as many as both he and, importantly, the King and Thomas Cromwell wanted. ‘Many a great offender’, he said, would be acquitted if juries were called. He was quite honest about this. He later wrote to the King:

All the prisoners were condemned to die by law martial, the King’s banner being displayed. Not the fifth part would have been convicted by a jury. Some protested that they had been dragged into rebellion against their will. The most part had only one plea, saying, ‘I came out for fear of my life, and I came forth for fear of loss of all my goods, and I came forth for fear of burning of my house and destroying of my wife and children… A small excuse will be well believed here, where much affection and pity of neighbours doth reign. And, sir, though the number be nothing so great as their deserts did require to have suffered, yet I think the like number hath not been heard of put to execution at one time.

As the Dodds wrote: ‘They had not, in fact, turned against the law, they had risen to defend all that the law should have defended for them from Clifford’s police, the thieves of the Black Lands.’

Henry the Eighth

Henry was pleased with what Norfolk and the defenders of Carlisle had done. His reply to Norfolk on the 22nd was blunt and brutal. He started with his thanks: ‘We have received your letters of the 16th, about the new assembly in Westmoreland, and your others of the 17th by Sir Ralph Evers, touching the valiant and faithful courage of Sir Chr. Dacres in the overthrow of the traitors who made assault upon Carlisle, reporting also the good service done by Thomas Clifford, and the perfect readiness of all the nobles and gentlemen in Yorkshire and those parts to have served in your company against them. We shall not forget your services, and are glad to hear also from sundry of our servants how you advance the truth, declaring the usurpation of the bishop of Rome, and how discreetly you paint those persons that call themselves religious in the colours of their hypocrisy, and we doubt not but the further you shall wade in the investigation of their behaviours the more you shall detest the great number of them and the less esteem the punishment of those culpable…  We desire you to thank those that were ready to have served us. We have thanked Sir Chr. Dacres in the letters which you shall receive herewith, and will shortly recompense him in a way to encourage others.’

Referring to Norfolk’s decision to declare martial law, Henry continued:

We approve of your proceedings in the displaying of our banner, which being now spread, till it is closed again, the course of our laws must give place to martial law… Our pleasure is, that before you shall close up our said banner again, you shall, in any wise, cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village, and hamlet, that have offended in this rebellion, as well by the hanging them up in trees, as by the quartering of them and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and small, and in all such other places, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all other hereafter, that would practise any like mater.

Finally, as these troubles have been promoted by the monks and canons of those parts… you shall without pity or circumstance, now that our banner is displayed, cause the monks to be tied up without further delay or ceremony.

Anyone who had participated in the uprising and escaped was still pursued. On February 28 the earls of Sussex and Derby and Sir Herbert Fitzherbert wrote to the King from Warrington in Lancashire: ‘There came lately to Manchester one William Barret, a tanner dwelling in Steton in Craven, who declared to the people that my lord of Norfolk at this his being in Yorkshire would, as he heard, either have of every plough 6s. 8d. or take an ox of every one that would not pay, and that every christening and burying should pay 6s. 8d. Being apprehended and brought before us, he confessed he was one of those who made the late assault at Carlisle and shot arrows at those in the town, and that the constables of the townships, after divers bills set upon church doors, warned him and his company so to rise, alleging that one of the Percies would shortly join them. We think he deserves the most cruel punishment; but Mr. Fitzherbert says the words are no ground for putting him to death, and that he cannot be indicted in one shire for an offence committed in another; we therefore forbear to proceed till we know your pleasure.’ (Warrington, 28 Feb.)

This brings us to the main point of this short article. What was to be the fate of the 74 rebels that Norfolk and the local lords had picked for summary execution? Henry had ordered Norfolk to hang ‘them on trees, quartering them, and setting their heads and quarters in every town’. We don’t know how many of them, if any, were actually hung, drawn and quartered as Henry had clearly wanted, and as was often the case for traitors under martial law. The punishment itself was described by Chronicler William Harrison as follows:

The greatest and most grievous punishment used in England for such as offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the same purpose.

Gibbet Irons

It’s most likely that none of the rebels were hung, drawn and quartered. Even Robert Aske was finally spared this fate. They were in all probability all ‘hung in chains’. When Norfolk later wrote to Thomas Cromwell, he said, ‘All in this shire were hung in chains.’  What was hanging in chains? It was a form of punishment and deterrence used for centuries in England until it was abolished in 1834. An eighteenth century French visitor to England, Cesar de Saussure,  described what happened:

There is no other form of execution but hanging; it is thought that the taking of life is sufficient punishment for any crime without worse torture. After hanging murderers are, however, punished in a particular fashion. They are first hung on the common gibbet, their bodies are then covered with tallow and fat substances, over this is placed a tarred shirt fastened down with iron bands, and the bodies are hung with chains to the gibbet, which is erected on the spot, or as near as possible to the place, where the crime was committed, and there it hangs till it falls to dust. This is what is called in this country to ‘hang in chains’.

But in Tudor times the punishment was often even more barbaric. People were frequently hung alive in chains and they first starved in agony before putrefying on the gibbet. How many of the rebels were ‘gibbeted’ alive and how many dead is not known. The point of these executions was of course not simply to kill people, it was also to make them and their relatives suffer and to be so terrifying that it would act as a deterrent to any future challenges to royal authority. The cadavers were not allowed to be removed and buried. They should remain rotting, sometimes for years, in full sight of their communities. For the condemned and their relatives this was not just a question of suffering and grief, it was also a matter concerning their eternal souls: Many still believed that the resurrection of the dead on judgement day ‘required that the body be buried whole facing east so that the body could rise facing God’

Hanging in Chains

The rebels were hanged (in chains) in their own villages, ‘in trees in their gardens to record for memorial’ the end of the rebellion.

Twelve were hanged in chains in Carlisle for the assault on the city, eleven at Appleby, eight at Penrith, five at Cockermouth and Kirkby Stephen, and so on; scarcely a moorland parish but could show one or two such memorials. Some were hanged in ropes, for iron was ‘marvellous scarce’ and the chain-makers of Carlisle were unable to meet the demand. The victims were all poor men, farm hands from the fields and artisans of the little towns; probably the bailiff of Embleton was the highest man among them. Only one priest suffered with them, a chaplain of Penrith.

Once the executions of these poor men had been carried out, in village after village throughout Cumberland and Westmorland, their women wanted to bury their husbands, sons and fathers. Like latter-day Antigones, they thought this to be their natural right and duty. But Henry’s law, like that of Creon, forbade it. At great risk to their own safety and lives, the women crept out at night and cut down their men and secretly buried them.

In May, when Norfolk heard that ‘all’ the rebels’ bodies had been cut down and buried, he ordered the Cumberland magistrates to seek out the ‘ill-doers’. They sent him nine or ten confessions in reply, but he did not consider these nearly enough: ‘It is a small number concerning seventy-four that hath been taken down, wherein I think your Majesty hath not been well served.’

The Dodds write: ‘Of all the records these brief confessions are the most heart-breaking and can least bear description. The widows and their neighbours helped each other. Seven or eight women together would wind the corpse and bury it in the nearest churchyard, secretly, at nightfall or day break. Sometimes they were turned from their purpose by the frightened priest, and then the husband’s body must be buried by a dyke-side out of sanctified ground, or else brought again more secretly than ever and laid in the churchyard under cover of night. All was done by women, save in two cases when the brother and cousin of two of the dead men were said to have died from the “corruption” of the bodies they had cut down.’

Norfolk asked the King what he should do with these offenders. They were all, he said, women: ‘the widows, mothers and daughters of the dead men’. Thomas Cromwell was displeased, suspecting that Norfolk had ordered or countenanced this. Norfolk tried to placate him and shift any blame to the Earl of Cumberland. He wrote to Cromwell:

I do perceive by your letter that ye would know whether such persons as were put to execution in Westmorland and Cumberland were taken down and buried by my commandment or not: undoubtedly, my good lord, if I had consented thereunto, I would I had hanged by them; but on my troth, it is 8 or 9 days past since I heard first thereof, and then was here with me a servant of my lord of Cumberland called Swalowfield, dwelling about Penrith, by whom I sent such a quick message to my said lord, because he hath the rule in Cumberland as warden, and is sheriff of Westmorland and hath neither advertised me thereof, nor hath not made search who hath so highly offended his Majesty, and also commanding him to search for the same with all diligence, that I doubt not it shall evidently appear it was done against my will.

We don’t know what the subsequent inquiries about these women’s actions disclosed and what, if any, were the consequences.

Henry’s Field of the Cloth of Gold

This brutal episode in English history is usually given scant mention in histories of the period, particularly in histories of Henry VIII  – concerned as they depressingly are with political machinations, battles and the deeds of ‘great men’. Yet surely such events tell us more about the real history of England, or better said the real history of the English people, than do Henry’s dealings with the Holy Roman Emperor, the Papacy, his opulent and ostentatious ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’ or his tedious litany of marriages?

Of course the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Cumbrian rebellion had failed – although taken together they were the most significant challenge Henry would ever face at home. But in the case of the Cumbrian rebellion, its significance does not lie in its success or failure. It lies in the fact that it is just another much neglected example of what happens when ordinary English people try to protest against the repression of their rulers, their economic pauperization or the suppression of their religious or other rights. As Leveller leader Colonel Thomas Rainborough was to write in the seventeenth century:

For really, I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first, by his own consent, to put himself under that government.

Antigone buries her brother

What I find a pity is that Antigone’s poignant and courageous act of burying her brother, whether it really happened or not, has been studied and dissected for at least two thousand years. German Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel even saw it as a clash of right against right: familial natural right against the right of the state; others interpret it differently. Yet ‘only’ five hundred years ago, dozens of poor Cumbrian women did the same thing and ran the same risk as Antigone, but they are hardly remembered at all. Who would dare today to present their bravery and humanity as a clash of two equally valid rights?

Sources:

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 12; Madeleine Hope Dodds & Ruth Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy, (1915); M. L. Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October 1536, (1996); Michael Bush & David Bownes, The Defeat of the Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Postpardon Revolts of December 1536 to March 1537 and Their Effect, (1999).

Balloons and parachutes – what Thomas Grisdale saw

In the 1830s Vauxhall Gardens had been one of London’s ‘pleasure gardens’ since the mid seventeenth century. It ‘drew all manner of men and supported enormous crowds, with its paths being noted for romantic assignations. Tightrope walkers, hot air balloon ascents, concerts and fireworks provided amusement.’ Our story here concerns one such balloon flight and one parachute descent and how a young Thomas Grisdale became involved.

A satirical illustration by Cruikshank entitled ‘Vauxhall Fete’ celebrating the achievements of Wellington.

In the late 1700s James Boswell wrote:

Vauxhall Gardens is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show, — gay exhibition, musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear; — for all of which only a shilling is paid; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale.

Later, in 1836, Charles Dickens wrote in Sketches by Boz:

Vauxhall Gardens

We paid our shilling at the gate, and then we saw for the first time, that the entrance, if there had been any magic about it at all, was now decidedly disenchanted, being, in fact, nothing more nor less than a combination of very roughly-painted boards and sawdust. We glanced at the orchestra and supper-room as we hurried past—we just recognised them, and that was all. We bent our steps to the firework-ground; there, at least, we should not be disappointed. We reached it, and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and astonishment. That the Moorish tower—that wooden shed with a door in the centre, and daubs of crimson and yellow all round, like a gigantic watch-case! That the place where night after night we had beheld the undaunted Mr. Blackmore make his terrific ascent, surrounded by flames of fire, and peals of artillery, and where the white garments of Madame Somebody (we forget even her name now), who nobly devoted her life to the manufacture of fireworks, had so often been seen fluttering in the wind, as she called up a red, blue, or party-coloured light to illumine her temple!

And then:

the balloons went up, and the aerial travellers stood up, and the crowd outside roared with delight, and the two gentlemen who had never ascended before tried to wave their flags as if they were not nervous, but held on very fast all the while; and the balloons were wafted gently away…

First balloon flight from Vauxhall Gardens by Charles Green in 1836

Always wanting the latest attraction and spectacle the Gardens featured the first balloon ascent from there in 1836. The proprietors asked the famous English balloonist Charles Green to build a new balloon for them; it was first called the Royal Vauxhall and then the Nassau. Green made a first successful flight from Vauxhall Gardens on 9 September 1836 ‘in company with eight persons…  remaining in the air about one hour and a half’. On the 21 September ‘he made a second ascent, accompanied by eleven persons, and descended at Beckenham in Kent’. Further flights followed, including on 7 November, when with two others he crossed the channel and ‘descended the next day, at 7 a.m., at Weilburg in Nassau, Germany, having travelled altogether about five hundred miles in eighteen hours’. A feat that was much celebrated.

Charles Green’s balloon on the way to Germany in 1836

While successful balloon flights were becoming more common, parachute descents were still rare and highly dangerous. The first parachute jump had been made in France in 1785. In England André-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute jump in 1802 which a professional watercolour artist called Robert Cocking had witnessed. He was inspired to develop a better design which wouldn’t sway from side to side during the descent as Garnerin’s umbrella-shaped parachute had done.

Cocking’s parachute

His design was based on the theory that an inverted cone-shaped parachute would be more stable. After many years perfecting his design which ‘engrossed very nearly all his attention’, he was ready and persuaded balloonist Charles Green first to let him accompany him on his first balloon flight from Vauxhall Gardens in 1836, and then, in July 1837, to stage a balloon flight with Cocking’s parachute attached underneath, from where he would release when sufficient height had been gained. The event was to be the main attraction of a Grand Day Fete at Vauxhall Gardens on 24 July 1837.

And so at 7.35 on that morning with thousands watched the sixty-one year-old Cocking ‘ascended hanging below the balloon, which was piloted by Green and Spencer’.

As the great balloon rises, his plan is to get up to at least 8000 feet before releasing himself. However, the weight of his apparatus slows the balloon’s ascent. The balloonists, Spencer and Green, jettison much of their ballast in a bid to rise higher. The balloon drifts over South London where it vanishes into a bank of clouds making it unsafe to drop any more ballast for fear of what’s below. Finally, over Greenwich and only a mile up, the balloonists advise Cocking they can get no higher. From his basket, Cocking yells, “Well, now I think I shall leave you. Good night, Spencer. Good night, Green.” With that, he severs the tether.

Mr. Green and Mr. Spencer, who were in the ‘car’ of the balloon, had… a narrow escape.

The Nassau lifts off with Cocking’s parachute in 1837

At the moment the parachute was disengaged they crouched down in the car, and Mr. Green clung to the valve-line, to permit the escape of the gas. The balloon shot upwards, plunging and rolling, and the gas pouring both the upper and lower valves, but chiefly from the latter, as the great resistance of the air checked its egress from the former. Mr. Green and Mr. Spencer applied their mouths to tubes communicating with an air bag with which they had had the foresight to provide themselves; otherwise they would certainly have been suffocated by the gas. Notwithstanding his precaution, however, the gas almost totally deprived them of sight for four or five minutes. When they came to themselves they found they were at a height of about four miles, and descending rapidly. They effected, however, a safe descent near Maidstone.

‘A large crowd had gathered to witness the event, but it was immediately obvious that Cocking was in trouble. He had neglected to include the weight of the parachute itself in his calculations and as a result the descent was far too quick. Though rapid, the descent continued evenly for a few seconds, but then the entire apparatus turned inside out and plunged downwards with increasing speed. The parachute broke up before it hit the ground and at about 200 to 300 feet (60 to 90 m) off the ground the basket detached from the remains of the canopy. Cocking was killed instantly in the crash; his body was found in a field in Lee.’

Actually Cocking wasn’t instantly killed:

The balloon, freed of the weight, shot up like a skyrocket. Sadly, Cocking goes the other direction at much the same pace. In Norwood, a man described the chute’s descent as like a stone through a vacuum. With a tremendous crash, Cocking’s basket and chute slam into the ground at a farm near Lee. A shepherd is first to reach him. Cocking has been spilled from the basket, his head badly cut, his wig tossed some distance away. A few groans are the only brief sign of life. Carried by cart to the Tiger’s Head Inn, Cocking soon died of his injuries.

Cocking’s ascent and descent

Well that’s the story of Robert Cocking’s death, the first death by parachuting. The accident was of course widely reported in the press with many witness accounts and the testimony given at the inquest at the Tiger’s Head Inn in Lee.

‘In 1815 cavalry and foot regiments passed through Lee Green on their way to the Battle of Waterloo.’ Was Levi Grisdale with them?

In the early 19th century bare knuckle boxing matches took place at the Old Tiger’s Head. Horse racing and (human) foot racing take place in the 1840s but the police put a stop to these events, probably under pressure from local citizens.

As stated earlier, the first to reach Cocking, who was still alive, was John Chamberlain, a shepherd in the employ of Mr Richard Norman. the proprietor of Burnt Ash Farm (a place that has now disappeared under the suburban sprawl of south London). Chamberlain told the inquest how he had seen the ‘machine’ part from the balloon and it made a sound ‘like thunder’ which frightened his sheep. The ‘machine’ fell to the ground and turned over and was ‘broken to pieces’. He ran to the crash and the man (Cocking) was in the basket ‘up to his chest’ with his head lying on the ground’. The sight ‘quite turned him’. Others then arrived followed by his master Mr. Norman. He then heard a groan from Cocking.

One of the others who soon joined Chamberlain was Thomas Grisdale, Mr Norman’s footman.

Thomas Grisdale, footman to Mr Norman, of Burnt Ash Park, saw the parachute part from the balloon; it appeared to turn over and over; there was a great crackling; it appeared all to come down together; it was all closed up, not expanded; witness assisted: in taking the deceased out of the basket to do which they had to unfasten some ropes which were about him; he was laid on the grass; he breathed and appeared to live for two minutes or so; no ropes were attached to the deceased, but they had to remove the ropes attached to the basket, to get him out.

Fitzalan Chapel in Arundel where Thomas Grisdale was baptized

For anybody who is interested in who Mr Norman’s footman Thomas Grisdale was, well he was the son of the Joseph Grisdale I wrote about recently in a story called Joseph Grisdale, the Duke of Norfolk and the ‘Majesty of the people’. Joseph was the long-time favourite servant of the 11th Duke of Norfolk, Charles Howard. He was also the nephew of the famous and heroic Hussar Levi Grisdale who I have written much about.

Thomas was born in Arundel in 1808 and like his father went into ‘service’, although Mr Norman of Burnt Ash Farm was nowhere near in the same league as the Duke of Norfolk. He married Ockley-born Charlotte Charman in London in January 1830. Ockley in Surrey was a place where Thomas’s father owned a house. A daughter called Eleanor was born in June, but she died the next year. And then Thomas seems to disappear. Maybe he died soon after witnessing Mr Cocking’s tragic death? I just don’t know.

In 1841 Charlotte was a servant of aristocrat Christopher Thomas Tower at the stately Weald Hall in Brentwood in Essex and she died at her parents’ home of ‘Linacre’ in Cranleigh in Surrey in 1847, aged just thirty-seven.

Weald Hall, Brentwood

 

Joseph Grisdale, the Duke of Norfolk and the ‘Majesty of the People’

I have wondered for some time what several members of one Grisdale family were doing in Arundel in Sussex in the early 1800s. How had they come to be there? The first son of the heroic Hussar Levi Grisdale, who fought in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, was born in Arundel in 1811 – he too was called Levi. Levi’s sister Jane married Arundel stonemason John Booker in Arundel and their first five children were born there between 1808 and 1814. One of these children, William Booker, was an early emigrant to New Zealand. And then there is Levi and Jane’s older brother Joseph who had three children in Arundel between 1806 and 1811. It is Joseph who provides the original connection with Arundel, through his relationship with Charles Howard, the 11th Duke of Norfolk.

In general I don’t have any time for Britain’s landed aristocrats. For centuries they were the repressors and exploiters of the people of the island. The Howard family, whose wealth went back at least to the 1300s, were and still are the premier Catholic aristocratic family in the realm. As Dukes of Norfolk they rank first (below the royal family) in the Peerage of England.  Many of the Howard dukes of Norfolk were executed for treason and some of the family even married kings, such as Henry VIII’s wife Catherine Howard.

Arundel Castle

The families main seat was and still is Arundel Castle in Sussex, but they had lands all over the country: in Holme Lacy in Herefordshire for example and, importantly for the Grisdales, the Howards had, in a roundabout way, become the barons of Greystoke in Cumberland in the late sixteenth century; and of course Matterdale is part of this barony.

Greystoke Castle,Cumberland

Charles Howard was born in 1746 and became the 11th Duke of Norfolk in 1786. He was first educated by the Catholic priests in Greystoke Castle, where he spent the early years of his life, before being sent to Douai in France for more Catholic teaching. He would later convert to Protestantism for reasons of political expediency. It was no doubt at Greystoke Castle that a young Joseph Grisdale first entered into the Howard family service. Joseph was born in Matterdale in 1769 the son of farmer Solomon Grisdale. The family then moved to Greystoke where Levi was born in 1783.

Solomon Grisdale was a tenant of Charles Howard’s father, the 10th duke of Norfolk, also called Charles. I would imagine that it was sometime in the mid 1780s that Joseph Grisdale entered into service with the Howards at Greystoke Castle, perhaps initially as a footman or something similar. Whatever the case, by 1794 Joseph had moved to London with the new duke and was in his service at the duke’s palatial London residence in St James’s Square called Norfolk House. Joseph married another servant (maybe of the duke) called Martha Broughton in St George’s church in Hanover Square on 6 June 1794 – both were said to be servants living in the parish of St James.

St James’s Square with Norfolk House on the right

As a servant of the duke Joseph would have travelled around a lot because even in old age he was continually on the move between his various estates. It is likely that buy the time of his marriage Joseph had already moved up the pecking order in the below-stairs hierarchy; maybe he was the duke’s personal valet or maybe, perhaps later, he even became butler – the top of the tree. Given what I will tell later he must have been one or the other. Certainly Joseph would have accompanied the duke during his stays at the ducal seat of Arundel Castle, also to Holme Lacy where the duke’s deranged wife was incarcerated until her death in 1820, and certainly to Greystoke Castle in Cumberland, near where Joseph’s family still lived.

Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel

By the early 1800s at the latest it seems that Joseph and Martha had their ‘home’ at Arundel. Maybe this was a cottage in the castle’s grounds or perhaps even in the castle itself. It was in Arundel that their three children were born: Mary in 1806, Thomas in 1808 and John in 1811. It’s interesting to note that at least Thomas and John were baptized in the Roman Catholic Fitzalan Chapel in the grounds of Arundel Castle. Actually the Fitzalan Chapel, the private chapel of the dukes of Norfolk, many of whom are buried there, is only a part of the Church of England Arundel parish church of St Nicholas

This charming little church (St Nicholas) beside Arundel Castle and opposite Arundel Cathedral is the local Church of England parish church and dates back to 1380…

A peculiarity of the church is that part of the building is the Fitzalan Chapel which is a Catholic chapel in Arundel Castle’s grounds where the Dukes of Norfolk and Earls of Arundel are buried. This catholic chapel is separated from the protestant parish church by just a glass screen and it is possible to peer from one to the other.

The duke, Charles Howard, had converted to Protestantism in 1780 in order to get into Parliament as an MP, but ‘remained a Catholic at heart’ as everyone knew. So had the duke’s servant Joseph Grisdale converted to Catholicism or, perhaps more likely, his wife Martha was a Catholic?

The Prince of Wales (later King George the fourth). Levi’s admirer and a drinking buddy of Charles Howard, the Duke of Norfolk

Before I tell more of Joseph and the duke let’s try to imagine what led his brother and sister, Levi and Jane, to Arundel as well. When Hussar Levi’s first son Levi was baptized in Arundel in 1811 his brother Joseph was, as we will see, a very valued servant of the duke. Levi was still in the army but at the height of his fame. After he had captured Napoleon’s favourite general Lefebvre in Spain in late 1808, his regiment’s Colonel-in- Chief the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, insisted he was promoted to Corporal saying this would be the first of many promotions – Levi ended up a Sergeant Major. In fact the Prince of Wales had offered to pay for an education for Levi but he had refused this. So maybe Levi and his wife were just visiting brother Joseph at Arundel when their son was born or, just possibly, Levi’s wife Ann was living in Arundel while Levi moved around with his regiment? Regarding sister Jane, I can see no other explanation but that Joseph had got her a job as a servant in the duke’s household at Arundel and while working there she married local mason John Booker in 1805.

It’s not just that Joseph Grisdale was a servant of the duke of Norfolk but it seems he was his favourite and most trusted servant. When the duke died in 1815 at his London residence of Norfolk House he of course left a will. As he didn’t have any children most of the will concerns to whom all his extensive properties should go to; including of course Greystoke in Cumberland. I won’t go into all the details here, but the duke willed that his servants should each receive three years wages, quite a generous gesture. But he singled out just one servant, Joseph Grisdale, to whom he bequeathed on top of three years wages the extremely large sum (for the time) of £300!

When you read below the type of life the duke led and what his servants had to do for him you might like to think as I do, that Joseph Grisdale must have been very close to the duke during his drunken and debauched life – possibly as I have suggested being his personal valet (‘minder’ even), rather than his butler (or one of his butlers).

So what sort of man was Charles Howard, the 11th duke of Norfolk? What had Joseph had to deal with? We might get an idea from the Posthumous Memoirs of My Own Time of Sir N W Wraxall, published in 1836. I’ll quote a length because it gives an idea of England’s aristocratic rulers in the glorious Georgian age. Note that Howard was Lord Surrey before he became duke.

At a time when men of every description wore hair-powder and a queue, he had the courage to cut his hair short, and to renounce powder, which he never used except when going to court. In the session of 1785, he proposed to Pitt to lay a tax on the use of hair-powder, as a substitute for one of the minister’s projected taxes on female servants. This hint, though not improved at the time, was adopted by him some years afterwards. Pitt, in reply to Lord Surrey, observed, that ‘the noble lord, from his rank, and the office which he held (deputy earl-marshal of England), might dispense, as he did, with powder; but there were many individuals whose situation compelled them to go powdered. Indeed, few gentlemen permitted their servants to appear before them unpowdered.’

Courtenay, a man who despised all aid of dress, in the course of the same debate remarked, that he was very disinterested in his opposition to the tax on maid-servants; ‘for’ added he, ‘as I have seven children, the ‘jus septem liberorum’ will exempt me from paying it; and I shall be as little affected by the tax on hair-powder, if it should take place as the noble lord who proposed it’.

“A natural crop – alias a Norfolk dumpling” showing the Duke of Norfolk. It was drawn by James Gillray and published in 1791

Strong natural sense supplied in Lord Surrey the neglect of education; and he displayed a sort of rude eloquence, whenever he rose to address the house, analogous to his formation of mind and body. In his youth, — for at the time of which I speak he had attained his thirty-eighth year, — he led a most licentious life, having frequently passed the whole night in excesses of every kind, and even lain down, when intoxicated, occasionally to sleep in the streets, or on a block of wood. At the ‘Beef-steak Club,’ where I have dined with him, he seemed to be in his proper element. But few individuals of that society could sustain a contest with such an antagonist, when the cloth was removed. In cleanliness be was negligent to so great a degree, that he rarely made use of water for purposes of bodily refreshment and comfort. He even carried the neglect of his person so far, that his servants were accustomed to avail themselves of his fits of intoxication, for the purposes of washing him. On those occasions, being wholly insensible to all that passed about him, they stripped him as they would have done a corpse, and performed on his body the necessary ablutions. Nor did he change his linen more frequently than he washed himself. Complaining one day to Dudley North that he was a martyr to the rheumatism, and had ineffectually tried every remedy for its relief, ‘Pray, my lord,’ said he, ‘did you ever try a dean shirt?’

Drunkenness was in him an hereditary vice, transmitted down, probably, by his ancestors from the Plantagenet times, and inherent in his formation. His father, the Duke of Norfolk, indulged equally in it; but he did not manifest the same capacities as the son, in resisting the effects of wine. It is a fact that Lord Surrey, after laying his father and all the guests under the table at the Thatched House tavern in St Jameses street, has left the room, repaired to another festive party in the vicinity, and there recommenced the unfinished convivial rites; realizing Thompson’s description of the parson in his ‘ Autumn,’ who, after the foxchase, survives his company in the celebration of these orgies:

‘Perhaps some doctor of tremendous paunch.

Awful and vast, a black abyss of drink.

Outlives them all; and from his buried flock.

Returning late with rumination sad.

Laments the weakness of these latter times.’

Even in the House of Commons he was not always sober; but he never attempted, like Lord Galway, to mix in the debate on those occasions. No man, when master of himself, was more communicative, accessible, and free from any shadow of pride. Intoxication rendered him quarrelsome; though, as appeared in the course of more than one transaction he did not manifest Lord Lonsdale’s troublesome superabundance of courage after he had given offence. When under the dominion of wine, he has asserted that three as good Catholics sat in Lord North’s last parliament as ever existed; namely, Lord Nugent, Sir Thomas Gascoyne and himself. There might be truth in this declaration. Doubts were, indeed, always thrown on the sincerity of his own renunciation of the errors of the Romish church; which aet was attributed more to ambition and the desire of performing a part in public life, or to irreligion, than to conviction. His very dress, which was most singular, and always the same, except when he went to St. James’s, namely, a plain blue coat of a peculiar dye, approaching to purple, was said to be imposed on him by his priest or confessor as a penance. The late Earl of Sandwich so assured me; but I always believed Lord Surrey to possess a mind superior to the terrors of superstition. Though twice married while a very young man, he left no issue by either of his wives. The second still survives, in a state of disordered intellect, residing at Holme Lacy in the county of Hereford.

John Howard, the first Howard Duke of Norfolk, fell with Richard the Third at Bosworth in 1485

As long ago as the spring of 1781, breakfasting with him at the Cocoa-tree coffee-house, Lord Surrey assured me that he had proposed to give an entertainment when the year 1783 should arrive, in order to commemorate the period when the dukedom would have remained three hundred years in their house, since its creation by Richard the Third. He added, that it was his intention to invite all the individuals of both sexes whom he could ascertain to be lineally descended from the body the Jockey of Norfolk, the first duke of that name, killed at Bosworth Field. ‘But having already,’ said he, ‘discovered nearly six thousand persons sprung from him’, a great number of whom are in very obscure or indigent circumstances, and believing, as I do, that as many more may be in existence, I have abandoned the design.’

Fox could not boast of a more devoted supporter than Lord Surrey, nor did his attachment diminish with his augmentation of honours. On the contrary, after he became Duke of Norfolk he manifested the strongest proofs of adherence; some of which, however, tended to injure him in the estimation of all moderate men. His conduct in toasting ‘The sovereign majesty of the people,’ at a meeting of the Whigs, held in February, 1798, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, was generally disapproved and censured. Assuredly it was not in the ‘Bill of Rights,’ nor in the principles on which reposes the revolution of 1688, that the duke could discover any mention of such an attribute of the people. Their liberties and franchises are there enumerated; but their majesty was neither recognised nor imagined by those persons who were foremost in expelling James the Second. The observations with which his grace accompanied the toast, relative to the two thousand persons who, under General Washington, first procured reform and liberty for the thirteen American colonies, were equally pernicious in themselves and seditious in their tendency. Such testimonies of approbation seemed, indeed, to be not very remote from treason.

The Duke of York escapes from the French in Flanders in 1794

The duke himself appeared conscious that he had advanced beyond the limits of prudence, if not beyond the duties imposed by his allegiance; for, a day or two afterwards, having heard that his behaviour had excited much indignation at St James’s, he waited on the Duke of York, in order to explain and excuse the proceeding. When, he had so done, he concluded by requesting, as a proof of his loyalty, that, in case of invasion, his regiment of militia (the West Riding of Yorkshire, which he commanded) might be assigned the post of danger. His royal highness listened to him with apparent attention; assured him that his request should be laid before the king; and then breaking off the conversation abruptly, ‘Apropos, my lord,’ said he, ‘ have you seen “Blue Beard?” This musical pantomime entertainment, which had just made its appearance at Drury-lane theatre, was at that time much admired. Only two days subsequent to the above interview, the Duke of Norfolk received his dismission both from the lord-lieutenancy and from his regiment.

Lord Liverpool – Prime Minister

As he advanced in age he increased in bulk; and the last time that I saw him, (which happened to be at the levee at Carlton House, when I had some conversation with him,) not more than a year before his decease, such was his size and breadth, that he seemed incapable of passing through a door of ordinary dimensions. Yet he had neither lost the activity of his mind nor that of his body. Regardless of seasons, or impediments of any kind, he traversed the kingdom in all directions, from Greystock in Cumberland, to Holme Lacy and Arundel Castle, with the rapidity of a young man. Indeed, though of enormous proportions, he had not a projecting belly, as Ptolemy Physcon is depictured in antiquity ; or like the late king of Wirtemberg, who resembled in his person our popular ideas of Punch and might have asserted with Falstaff, that ‘he was unable to get sight of his own knee.’ In the deliberations of the house of peers, the Duke of Norfolk maintained the manly independence of his character, and frequently spoke with ability as well as with information. His talents were neither impaired by years nor obscured by the bacchanalian festivities of Norfolk House, which continued to the latest period of his life; but he became somnolent and lethargic before his decease. On the formation of Lord Liverpool’s administration in 1812, he might unquestionably have received ‘the Garter,’ which the Regent tendered him, if he would have sanctioned and supported that ministerial arrangement. The tenacity of his political principles made him, however, superior to the temptation. His death has left a blank in the upper house of parliament.

It’s not for nothing that Charles Howard was referred to as the ‘Drunken Duke’. One can examine what Joseph Grisdale had had to deal with over the years and perhaps why the duke was so generous to Joseph in his will.

The Crown and Anchor

Yet there was more than this to the duke. Much as I approve of any vilification of England’s debauched, indolent and useless landed aristocracy, I think Charles Howard had one great redeeming quality: in his drunken state he still cared a little about the people. As Wraxall’s writings make clear, Howard had been deprived of some of his offices by King George III for his speech to mark the birthday of the Whig politician Charles James Fox held at the Crown and Anchor on Arundel Street in St. James’, London (yes, named after the seat of the dukes of Norfolk) in early 1798.

The Crown and Anchor tavern was one of the major landmarks of late-Hanoverian London. In the period of popular political discontent which stretched from the 1790s through to the Chartist movement of the 1840s, the tavern’s name became so closely associated with anti-establishmentarian politics that the term ‘Crown and Anchor’ became synonymous with radical political beliefs…

The term ‘tavern’ conjures up images of a typically snug English pub; however this would a wholly inaccurate means of describing the Crown and Anchor. Following extensive refurbishment in the late 1780s the tavern stood at four stories in height and stretched an entire city block from Arundel Street to Milford Lane.

The meeting to celebrate Fox’s birthday was attended by upwards of 2,000 people. The Duke of Norfolk was there, probably with Joseph Grisdale in attendance to look after the drunken duke.

The festivities were an annual event, and 1798 saw one of the largest assemblies ever held at the tavern. The Duke’s penchant for drinking and revelry was renowned in London society, as were his liberal political views, despite his close friendship with the Prince Regent. At the request of the chair of the occasion, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Norfolk proposed a string of toasts to the 2000-strong audience. Though convention stipulated the first toast at such a public occasion be offered as a salutation to the Monarch, the Duke raised his glass and gave instead to ‘the rights of the people’. The flagrant disregard of custom and etiquette met a mix of cheers and murmured disgruntlement. When the room quieted, the Duke continued with an altogether scandalous line-up of toasts bordering on the treasonous: ‘to constitutional redress for the wrongs of the people’; to ‘a speedy and effectual reform in the representation of the people in parliament’; to ‘the genuine principles of the British Constitution’; and to ‘the people of Ireland—may they be speedily restored to blessings of law and liberty’. When he finally offered a toast to the King, it contained a thinly disguised rebuke reminding the Monarch of his duty—to ‘Our Sovereign’s health—the majesty of the people’.

‘The establishment’s reaction to Norfolk’s speech was captured in Gillray’s The Loyal Toast – As Norfolk salutes the majesty of the people a list of his various offices and titles is being shredded behind him.  The Duke was dismissed from all his official positions, including his position on the Privy Council and the Lord Lieutenancy of the West Riding. Signalling that the Duke’s powerful friendships would not protect him, the notification of dismissal was sent during a dinner with the Prince Regent. Despite eventually satisfying the King with proclamations of loyalty, he was not reinstated to his official post until 1807.’

Gillray’s The Loyal Toast

What became of faithful Joseph Grisdale after the Duke of Norfolk’s death in 1815? It seems that Joseph used some or all of the money the duke had left him to buy two houses, one at Ockley in Surrey and one at in Rudgwick in Sussex, both on lands in the estates of the dukes of Norfolk. In 1822 Joseph is living at his house in Ockley but then rents it out until 1830.  The house in Rudgwick was rented out by Joseph in 1820, but by 1833 Joseph’s daughter Mary married George Field in Rudgwick church, so maybe Joseph was living there by then having retired from his years of service? As yet I can’t be sure when and where Joseph and Martha died. His children went on to other things – but some still with connections with the dukes of Norfolk – I’ll return to them at a later date.

Old Rudgwick

Benjamin Grisdale and his daughters

‘I wish him, however, great pleasure and success in cutting off the Frenchmen’s ears.’

Benjamin was born in 1769 at Knotts in Watermillock. He was the sixth child of another Benjamin and his Westmorland-born wife Sarah Tinkler. In 1774, when Benjamin was only five, his father fell of a ladder and was killed, he was only thirty-nine but left behind a widow and eight children. I’ll tell more about this family another time. It seems that the family stayed on in Watermillock and at least some of the children went to school there. Sarah probably died in 1788 ‘a poor widow’.

View over Ullswater from Knotts Watermillock

What we do know is that probably sometime around the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, (in that year France declared war on Britain), Benjamin joined the army and became a Dragoon. His older brother Matthew (born 1766) did the same. Thomas Rumney, a Watermillock-born man working in a London counting house, wrote to his brother Anthony in January 1797:

You seem in Cumberland to ride rusty under Mr. Pitt’s whip, but if you will not lead you must be driven. You astonish me by telling me that my old schoolfellow Matt Grisdale has entered into the King’s service in a military capacity of low rank. I wish him, however, great pleasure and success in cutting off the Frenchmen’s ears.

And yes this Thomas Rumney is of the same family as the recent US presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Matthew Grisdale is never heard of again; it’s likely he died fighting the French, but hopefully he did cut off a few Frenchmen’s ears before his own death.

British Dragoons

What Benjamin did during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars isn’t known, but as he later was a ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ he must have served for fully twenty-one years.

The next we hear of Benjamin is on 19 December 1812 when he married Morland girl Mary Mounsey, either in Lowther church or Thrimby church, Westmorland, very near where his mother had been born. The couple had three daughters: Frances 1815, Ann 1819 and Mary 1821, all baptized in Lowther/Thrimby. The family later lived near Lowther at ‘Shap Beck Gate’ in Thrimby; whether they were already there when the children were born I don’t know.

By 1841 we find Benjamin living at Shap Beck Gate with his wife and daughter Frances; he was said to be an army pensioner. The two younger daughters had already moved away. I’ll tell of them in a minute. As we will see despite Benjamin’s small pension the family was very poor. On 24 June 1846 various newspapers reported an ‘awful and terrific thunder storm’, and then:

On the moor near Shap Beck-gate, in Westmorland, the wife and daughter of Benjamin Grisdale, a labourer, were gathering tufts of wool from the fences on Knipe Scar, when the daughter, a fine young women, was struck by the electric fluid and killed on the spot by the side of her heart-broken mother, who most fortunately escaped destruction but was slightly injured.

Shap Beck and Thrimby 1839

An inquest was held, reported by the newspapers on 27 June 1846:

On Saturday last… at the house of Mary Grisdale of Shap Beck-Gate on the body of Frances Grisdale aged 31 who was killed on the previous Thursday, during an awful thunderstorm that passed over that part, by the electric fluid. Mary Grisdale the mother of the deceased deposed as follows:

About 4 o’clock in the afternoon I and my daughter were engaged in gathering wool from the fences on Mr. Powley’s farm at Thrimby Grange. A storm of thunder, accompanied by rain, set in, and we became alarmed and were hastening home. When coming through Coat Bank there was a very heavy clap of thunder, and more lightning than I think I ever saw before. The lighting struck me on the left arm, and I thought it was broken. I was then 4 or 5 yards before my daughter. I looked around and not seeing her I walked back a few yards, and found her lying on the ground on her left side. I raised her up but she was quite dead. I remained with her about a quarter of an hour when I got assistance from the Grange.

She had on a bed gown, which was open in front. Her petticoat, stays and shift were very much burnt, and also her cap and bonnet. The flesh is not torn, but she is gravely discoloured. Deceased was thirty-one years of age. Verdict – “Accidental Death”.

The Carlisle Journal added gratuitously that the ‘deceased was a person of rather weak intellect’.

Knipe Scar

Benjamin died the next year. His wife Mary was still living at Shap Beck Gate in Thrimby in 1851, still next door to William Powley’s farm at Thrimby Grange. She died sometime in the 1850s.

And what happened to the other two daughters? It seems that Mary (born 1821) went back to Watermillock and had two illegitimate children there; Benjamin in 1850 and Julia in 1860. But she was obviously very poor and was in and out of Penrith Workhouse, where we find her with Benjamin in 1851 and with Benjamin and Julia in 1861. I don’t know what happened to this young Benjamin. Julia was a servant in Yorkshire in 1871 and then I lose track of her.

‘Young’ Benjamin Grisdale’s company on the North West Frontier in 1917

Daughter Ann (born 1819) was still living ‘next door’ to her parents in Thrimby in 1841, working as a farm servant on Joseph Richardson’s farm (neighbouring William Powley at Thrimby Grange). She too had two illegitimate children: Sarah born in 1847 in Barton and William born in 1854 in Penrith. In 1861 the three are living at Netherend in Penrith; Ann is a Charwomen, thirteen year-old Sarah is already a domestic servant and William at school. Again I don’t know what became of Sarah, but William continued to live with his mother Ann in Penrith and started work first as an errand boy and then by 1881 as a railway labourer; he was still with his mother in 1891. But it seems that William had married a pauper called Mary Rowlands in 1877 and they had a child called Benjamin Grisdale in Penrith in 1883. This Benjamin joined the Border Regiment in 1914 and spent the First World War on the North West frontier between Afghanistan and present Pakistan. I intend to write about him in the future.

Lieutenant Charles Grisdale and the Battle of New Orleans

On 12 December 1814 a British fleet was anchored off Cat Island in the Mississippi Sound. It was there to prepare for an attack on New Orleans. One of the ships was the 38-gun frigate HMS Cydnus commanded by Captain Frederick Langford, a long-time colleague of Admiral Lord Nelson. Second in command was a twenty-one year-old Lieutenant Charles Grisdale.  Charles was about to take part in the final acts of the ‘War of 1812’.

In 1812 the United States had opportunistically and rather sneakily declared war on Britain, believing that with Britain fully stretched fighting Napoleon’s French they could use the distraction to grab Canada. Yet even with Britain fighting on two fronts on either side of the Atlantic the war had gone badly for the Americans until the Battle of Plattsburg in September 1814. Even then the British went on to capture Washington until driven out by an unprecedented storm. After a bombardment of Fort McHenry – which inspired the words of the Star Spangled Banner – the British left Baltimore intent on an invasion of Louisiana. And so the British fleet left Jamaica and assembled off Cat Island.

Fort McHenry 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

American gunboat Alligator

The task was to secure a safe place to land the British army on the Gulf Coast. They choose Lake Borgne just east of New Orleans. But this bay was too shallow for warships to enter and it was defended by five American gunboats and two other US ships called the Alligator and the Sea Horse. These would have to be taken before any landing could be made. And so it was that late on December 12 forty-five small boats and barges filled with 1,200 sailors and marines, including Lieutenant Grisdale, started to row from the fleet towards the entrance to Lake Borgne. Arriving on the 13th they anchored overnight and with the next dawn they started their attack. Under the command of Captain Nicholas Lockyer the British soon stormed the American ship Alligator and captured it. Lockyer then ordered the boat flotilla to anchor just beyond the range of the American long guns. His men had rowed 36 miles and now received a much needed rest and breakfast.

At 10.30 they weighed anchor and made straight at the line of American gunboats. The Americans opened fire but their targets were small and little damage was done. The British returned fire with the small canons they carried and grappled and stormed the gunships with musket and bayonets.

By the early afternoon of 14 December it was all over, all the American gunships had been taken. The Americans had lost 6 men with 35 wounded, while British casualties were higher: 17 dead and 77 wounded, many mortally. So ended the ‘Battle of Lake Borgne’, in which Charles Grisdale had taken part.

Battle of Lake Borgne

The British were now free to land, which they did at Pea Island under General John Keane. HMS Cydnus, with Charles Grisdale still second-in-command, helped with the landing.

I won’t here retell the story of the subsequent Battle of New Orleans, which culminated on the 8th January 1815. It was a victory for the Americans under General Andrew Jackson, caused both by British mistakes and the heroic defence of the city by the Americans. In fact the battle had taken place after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in December officially ending the War, but news of this had yet to reach America.

General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans

We know from reports that Charles Grisdale was with his ship during the Battle of New Orleans, but not what he did. But after the battle while again anchored off Cat Island one final event took place on board the Cydnus that Charles would have witnessed: the court-martial of Captain Henry William Percy. Captain Percy had led a force to try to capture Fort Bowyer in September but had failed. During the action his ship, HMS Hermes, had grounded and Percy had fired it to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy. For this he was being court-martialled; but was after much acrimony he was exonerated. Whether this event had something to do with what followed I don’t know.

HMS Cydnus then sailed for Jamaica where Captain Langford and his second-in-command Lieutenant Grisdale parted company. Langford died a few days later in Jamaica and Grisdale set off for home.

The Royal Cornwall Gazette reported on Saturday 18 February 1815:

During the homeward passage of the Princess Mary Packet, which arrived at Falmouth, from Jamaica, on Monday last, she experienced the most dreadful weather. We lament to state that during its continuance Lieutenant Grisdale, of the Navy, was struck by lightning which caused his death instantaneously. This Gentleman had been Second Lieutenant of the H.M.S Cyndus, 38 Capt. Langford; but in consequence of some disagreement with his Commanding Officer, he had quitted that ship and was on his return to England when he met his untimely fate. We understand that Lieut. Grisdale, was a meritorious young man, and highly respected by his brother Officers for his many estimable qualities.

Charles Grisdale was just twenty-one. I wrote about his family in an article called ‘The extinction of a line’.

A Leda-class frigate like the HMS Cydnus – HMS Pomone

A likely story – Eleanor Grisdale and the King of Mardale

It was probably a typically cold Lakeland day on the 26^th January 1842 when young Eleanor Grisdale arrived at Watermillock church for her wedding. Accompanied by her father Benjamin, who farmed at nearby Hurrock Wood, she possibly took a look over Ullswater and considered what her life as the wife of John Holme, the ‘King of Mardale’, would bring.

Horrock/Hurrock Wood Farm

The first amusing part of this tale is the wedding announcement in various local newspapers:

At Watermillock on Wednesday, the 26th inst., by the Rev Thomas Lowry, John Holme, Esq, of Chapel Hill, Mardale, Westmorland, the original residence of the ancient family of Holme, whose great ancestor, a native of Stockholm, came to England with William the Conqueror, to Eleanor, only child of Mr. Grisdale of Hurrock Wood, near Ullswater.

Of course nobody called Holme from Stockholm in Sweden ever came over with William the Bastard in 1066, in fact Stockholm didn’t even exist in 1066. Holm/Holme is indeed a Scandinavian toponym meaning ‘a low, flat tract of land beside a river or stream’ or ‘a small island, especially one in a river or lake’. When the Hiberno-Norse settled the Lake District in the tenth century they named numerous places Holm from which many local families derive their name.

It has always amazed me why some people even want to trace their family back to William the Bastard’s Norman-French – thugs who brought centuries-long death and repression to the people of England. But the Holme (sometimes Holmes) family of Mardale obviously loved telling this tale. In William Ford’s 1839 Description of Scenery in the Lake District, he writes of Chapel Hill:

Chapelhill. – Mardale Chapel of Ease, in a picturesque and fertile situation, surrounded by lofty fells, stands here; and Chapelhill is the property and residence of the Holmes’, whose ancestor came into this country with the Conqueror.

Mardale

But it gets better. Let me share with you the story of the ‘Kings of Mardale’ given on a website called Mardale Green:

Hidden away in the far North Eastern corner of Westmoreland is the secluded valley of Mardale, a rugged and remote place with mountains on every side, it once offered the perfect hiding place for a family on the run.

One such band was, Hugh Parker Holme and his family (sic), originally a native of Stockholm Sweden, and a knight of the realm who once made his living from war. He entered early Britain within the armies of William the 1st, and for his troubles he was rewarded with a large estate in Yorkshire.

The year was 1209, and Hugh was thought to be involved within the Canterbury Conspiracy, a plot of their day to oust the then King John of England, this incurred the displeasure of John, who had them driven out of their homes, now fearing for their lives, they all headed north, making for safety in Scotland, which was neutral at the time.

King John

Their march was long and weary, crossing rivers mountain and dale, avoiding all the major routes they managed to remain hidden from view, Hugh sensed they were nearing their goal, but with their last few supplies running desperately low, and night time approaching, they stopped to rest and gather their strength, for the mountains ahead would test them in the days ahead, whilst sitting in a circle with their backs towards each other, looking up they saw the last few streams of daylight breaking through gaps in the blackening skies, suddenly one of Hugh’s sons noticed a light flickering far below them in the distance.

As he spoke, the heavens opened, the light now was fading fast, so they decided to take shelter in a tiny cave they found earlier that evening, little did they know it, but this place was to serve them well in the days ahead, unknown to them they were high upon Rough Crag, in the most inaccessible part of Riggindale (The cave survives to this day and is marked upon modern maps as Hugh’s Cave), with the Scottish border a  short distance away, they closed their eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep.

As daylight broke, the rain and hail still pounded the ridge, so they waited until the worst of the weather abated, by now  what little supplies they had were gone, and leaving his family behind for the first time since they set out, Hugh went down into the valley alone, to seek new supplies and to check if any news of the plot had reached this place, Hugh would make the trip from cave to green many times and as luck would have it, they heard news of King John’s demise, with him safely in the ground changed everything, so making for neutrality and safety in Scotland was now not so important, they decided to stay a while longer.

The days turned into weeks and the months past so fast, that any fears they had, ebbed slowly away, by now they had left the safety of the cave and ventured down into the valley, where a kind old man, who was getting on in years and needing the care of others, took them in, when the old man passed away, Hugh bought his lands and set too at building his own home, high upon the Rigg, Hugh’s young family added a much needed boost toward village life, the locals were very forthcoming and welcomed them with open arms.

In the years to come, Hugh gained the peoples trust, mainly by the doing of good; they valued his thoughts and eventually involved him within their politics, so much so, that they eventually awarded him with the title, The King of Mardale.

In the centuries that followed, every 1st male of the family line, were dubbed the King, the last male passed away in 1885 with Hugh Parker Holme, his memorial can still be seen in the new church yard, just up the road from the old church in Shap village, the very last line of the family ended with one Mary Elizabeth Holme who died in 1915 at the ripe old age of 90.

It’s all tosh but a great story nonetheless.

The last King of Mardale was indeed Hugh Parker Holme; he was the son of John Holme of Chapel Hill by his second wife Mary Howe, whose mother was a Parker; but the thirteenth century Hugh fleeing from King John is pure imagination.

In 1896, J. Paul Rylands wrote an article called Monumental Inscriptions and other inscriptions in the Church of Mardale wrote:

Most of the inscriptions printed below commemorate members of the Holme family, one of those ancient Lake District yeomen stocks, locally called “statesmen,” which are fast disappearing. The head of this family, for several, if not many, generations, has been known in the neighbourhood by the soubriquet of “the King of Mardale,” and curious legends were told by the dalesmen of the great antiquity of this race. There can be very little doubt that the Holmes have been settled on a small estate in Mardale for a very long period, and that the name of their older house, ‘Chapel Hill,’ near to the church, was its designation in 1670 is clear from an entry in the Shap parish registers. The present house, called ‘Chapel Hill,’ is on a different site.

No printed account of the Holmes of Mardale is extant, their name dues not occur in the Visitation of Westmorland made by Sir Richard St. George, Norroy, in l6l5, and their true origin appears to be unknown…

There are several places called Holme in this county and in Cumberland and Yorkshire, which may have given surnames to distinct families.

But what of Eleanor Grisdale who had married John Holme, the King of Mardale, in 1842? A daughter soon followed: Ann Maria Holme, who was to later marry a wealthy local agricultural merchant called James Cooper Bowstead. But Eleanor sadly died a few months after giving birth. The Carlisle Journal reported her death on 29 July 1843:

At Chapel Hill, Mardale, Westmorland, on the 22nd inst., Eleanor, the youthful wife of John Holme, Esq, in the 22nd year of her age, – universally esteemed and deeply lamented.

The village of Mardale and the original Chapel Hill now no longer exist because in the 1930s a large reservoir, Haweswater, was built to supply Manchester with water and the valley was flooded.

In 1835 the last service was held in Mardale Church.

Last service at Mardale 1935

The last farewell service at Holy Trinity will long be remembered, years hence old men and women, now but larle en’s will tell their children and grandchildren, how on the 18th of August 1935 they were part of the congregation that sad day.

The church held around 75 people, the lord mayor, Alderman Woolam, and the Lady Mayoress with a few others including  Mrs Cormack who played the harmonium, secured the remaining seats.

The 61st Bishop of Carlisle, the right rev Herbert Williams pronounced the final blessing within its walls, it is said that over a thousand people gathered upon the hillside beside listening to the service via loud hailers fastened to the church tower, by a local radio expert from Penrith, many there having Mardalian connections or just a love of old places, the general atmosphere was reverential, for there was something very moving about the service, all be it a simple one.

Some of the throng seemed to think that the locals were unduly hasty at holding the farewell service now, for the rising waters would not flow over the site next week or next month, for the final position for the dam footing had not yet been thought upon.

The psalms sung, were, I will lift up mine eyes into the hills and hymns included, O God Our Help in Ages Past, the Church’s One Foundation and Bright Vision That Delighted, a line which summed up the marvellous beauty of  the valley.

The saddest man amongst the crowd that day was former and last vicar or the parish, Rev Frederick H. J. Barham, who never actually received an official invitation to the service, came out of retirement and travelled north to be present, he donned his clerical garb, he did not go into the church, for the memories of the underhand treatment he received from the hands of the MCWW was too painful a memory to bare, instead he wandered amongst the crowd in his clerical garb talking to them, many of which had been in his old flock for more than twenty five years.

The voices of the great congregation rose high into the hills that day, if only those voices had been heard afar, then this most beautiful place might still be there for all to enjoy.

At the close of the service, the Bishop of Carlisle offered prayers for all the living descendants of the Holme family who had always known and loved this larle church.

King of Mardale

There was a King Across the Water,

And a King down by the sea,

And a King upon an island,

Who King shall always be,

But the King of the fells

Lives only in memory,

 

Now Mardale valley is a lake

An Avalon with no Hand Above the Water,

No sword, no Lady Fairies Daughter,

Reaching from the reservoir

Just a lonely old church tower,

Monument to the last King’s power

William Grisdale is enveloped by fire

I often write about people who have done interesting things or perhaps emigrated or fought in various wars. Some of these people might even have left numerous descendants and be the ancestors of some of us today. I have to say that it is these stories that understandably provoke the most interest and comment. But in any family the vast majority of people led simple and very often unrecorded lives. Some also left no descendants to carry their name or even their memory. Yet they are nonetheless part of ‘our’ extended family and their lives are perhaps more representative than those who were perhaps more heroic. This is the sad story of the tragic but heroic end of a young Manchester warehouseman called William Grisdale.

Bobbins

William was born in 1816 in Over Staveley in Westmorland, the fourth of nine children of bobbin turner John Grisdale and his wife Jennet Stainton. At this time Over Staveley was pretty much totally dedicated to making bobbins to supply the mills in Lancashire and elsewhere. Staveley had first had cotton mills but’ it was the growth of the bobbin mills that caused the most rapid period of change in the village in the years 1820-1850’, by 1851 ‘there were 187 bobbin workers in the Staveley area and well over 100 in the village itself where there were bobbin mills in what had been Rawes Mill, in the old fulling mill at Newgate (Gatefoot today) and in part of the Barley Bridge Mill and at Chadwicks… ‘

Bobbin Mill

William grew up in Over Staveley with his siblings while his father went off to turn bobbins in one of these Staveley bobbin mills. Perhaps William couldn’t find work in the bobbin mills or didn’t like the work; in any case he moved to Liverpool and became a ‘labourer’ living in Crosshall Street, where in 1842 he married a girl from the same  street called Ann Thexton. After their marriage couple moved to Lower Grafton Street in Toxteth, where the next year a son John was born. Sometime over the course of the next few years the family moved from Liverpool to Salford where William found work as a ‘warehouse porter’. In 1851 the family were living in Yearsley Street in Salford, but the next year, sadly, eight year-old John died. Perhaps the family’s grief was assuaged a little when a daughter was born in the spring of 1853, named Jennet after William’s mother.

Street next to Crosshall Street in Liverpool in mid 1800s

William was obviously a good worker because by 1853 he had become the chief warehoseman at the Manchester Bonded Warehouses in Salford. Bonded warehouses were regulated by the government customs and excise and allowed merchants to delay payment of tax on imported goods until they were sold and delivered to customers from the warehouse. One of the main things stored in these warehouses was spirits.

On Tuesday 21st June, just weeks after the birth of daughter Jennet, William went to his job in the warehouse as usual, it was not however to be a usual day. A few days later several newspapers told what happened:

Reginald’s Newspaper 26 June 1853.

Narrow Escape of the Manchester Bonded Warehouses –

On Tuesday, a man named William Grisdale, was trimming some spirit casks from an open vat containing 1,700 gallons of brandy, in Manchester Bonded Warehouses, when the light in his lamp by some accident set on fire the spirits in one of the casks he was filling, at the bunghole. The flames spread over the outside of the cask, wherever the brandy had run, burning with great ferocity and there was a danger of that in the open vat taking fire.

Grisdale with great presence of mind and intrepidly, rolled the barrel out of doors, and this probably saved the buildings and property from destruction. As it was, a track of flame was left along the floor from the brandy which escaped through the bunghole as he rolled out the cask, and the door through which the cask was rolled also took fire; but, with the assistance of the other warehousemen, the danger was speedily overcome by extinguishing the flames on the floor and door. Grisdale was much burnt about the face, hands, and other parts of the body, and had to be removed for surgical aid, but is likely to recover.

A former Manchester Bonded Warehouse

The previous day the Manchester Courier had reported similarly but with other details under ‘Fires in Manchester’:

… About one o’clock on Monday, as William Grisdale, a person in the employ of the Bonded Warehouse Company, was engaged under Mr Vivian, the landing waiter, in what is termed ‘vatting’, whilst pouring some brandy into a cask, a drop splashed up from the bunghole to the top of the lamp, and caused a blaze. The flame was augmented by some drops of spirit on the cask, and in another instant the brandy in the cask caught fire, sending forth a large flame from the bung-hole. With great presence of mind, and although enveloped in flames, Grisdale succeeded in rolling the cask to the door. At the time of the accident Mr. Vivian stood a few yards from Grisdale; and seeing him on fire, while he courageously rolled the cask out of the door he pulled of his coat and dashed it against the flame, with which Grisdale’s clothes were enveloped.

Assistance being speedily got, while some of the men succeeded in extinguishing the fire upon Grisdale’s clothes, others put out the flame, which still blazed along the ten yards over which the cask had been rolled. Grisdale, who was badly burned, especially about the legs, was taken at once to the Infirmary surgeon and his own medical man. We are glad to say that he is in a fair way of recovery, and it is to his courage and self-possession that the preservation of the warehouses and their contents are to be attributed.

But the Manchester Courier had just got news that William Grisdale had died at his home two days previously, and on a later page to the above story reported that ‘Grisdale died at his own home on Thursday, leaving a wife and child’. Other reports said he had spent three days in excruciating agony before he died.

Spirit barrels afire

William’s courage had saved a lot of people a lot of money and a fund was established to help his wife and infant children. In September the Manchester Courier was asking for subscriptions to ‘aid the widow and infant daughter of the late William Grisdale who was burned to death in extinguishing a fire… which he accomplished at the cost of his own life’. Many companies (mostly insurance) and local merchants had already given and their individual contributions were all listed, totalling so far nearly £300.

At least the money would help William’s widow Ann to feed and clothe baby Jennet Grisdale. But it was not to be, because just four months after William had died of his burns one-year old Jennet died too. Widow Ann would soon remarry and have two more daughters but as I said at the beginning who was there to remember William and his two children? His courage and heroism was at least as great as others I have written about on this blog and at least I commemorate him here.

The attempted rape of little Mary Grisdale

Mary Grisdale was the eighth of ten children of Australian immigrant and ex-soldier Thomas Grisdale and his half-Indian wife Mary Cartwright (see here). She was born in Sandridge, Melbourne in 1863. We know little about her life, just this:

On 6 October 1871 the Melbourne Argus reported:

A man named James Amos was charged at the police court, Drysdale, yesterday, with an attempt to commit a capital offence upon the person of a girl about 10 years of age, named Mary Grisdale. The prisoner, who reserved his defense, was committed to take his trial at the next sittings of the Circuit Court.

The Geelong Advertiser gave more details on the same day:

Swan Bay on the left

Circuit Court in Geelong.

OUTRAGE AT SWAN BAY.

The man James Amos, already in charge for larceny, was, on Thursday, further charged, with an attempt to commit rape. The case was heard at Drysdale, before Mr Curlewis, J.P. The court was cleared.

Mary Grisdale sworn, stated she lived with her father, at Swan Bay. Her mother was dead. She remembered going to Mrs Walsh’s about three weeks ago. The prisoner was there. She went in and sat on the sofa. The prisoner was on the other side of the room. Her brother Isaac was there. Prisoner came over and sat on the sofa.

The witness then described what took place, which tended to show that an attempt to commit rape had been made. The witness continued — I called to the prisoner to let me go, as Mr Walshe was coming. He then let me go. When he did so he told me to run and get his pipe, which was against a white stump. I went to Mrs Walshe’s every day. My brother is very young; I do not know his age.

Susannah Walshe deposed she was the wife a farmer at Swan Bay. She knew the prisoner, who; was called “Jimmy, the tinker.” She remembered the 14th of September. On that day she went with her husband to cut firewood. She left Jimmy in charge of the house. He was to mend a teapot. She did not know if the children were there when she left the house. She believed not. She came back about half-past 2. When she came near she heard the prosecutrix screaming. The little boy Isaac was near the door. She heard him call out “I will tell my daddy.” As she passed the window she saw the prisoner holding the girl to him. He appeared to be leaning against the sofa. She hurried round to the door, where she met the prosecutrix, who was crying. Witness asked what was the matter. She did not answer, but ran to her own house. When witness went in she saw the prisoner, who turned his back to her. She did not notice what he was doing. She asked him what he was doing to the children. He said they had been troubling him. I said “It seemed to me that you were behaving indecently.” He answered “I was going to put her out”. Prisoner left at dusk. The girl did not complain to me. I do not know her age, but think she is between nine and ten.

Cross-examined by prisoner — You were not boiling the kettle when I came home. I did not throw the tea on the ground.

Thomas Grisdale—I am a labourer, living at Swan. Bay, and a pensioner of her Majesty’s army. The prosecutrix is my daughter. I know the prisoner, and remember his being at Walshe’s, about three weeks ago. In consequence of what I heard from my son, Isaac, I communicated with the police. My daughter was born at Sandridge. She was either 8 or 9 on the 1st of April last.

C. L. Cunningham, medical practitioner of Drysdale, deposed he had examined the child, but detected no proof of the crime. |The prisoner reserved his defence and was fully committed on a second charge of larceny in stealing articles of clothing from Mrs Walsh. The same prisoner was also committed to take his trial at the next Circuit Court in Geelong.

And then on the 12 October 1871 we hear:

James Amos, an elderly man, was charged with having, on the 14th ult, indecently assaulted a little girl, under 10 years of age, named Mary Grisdale, at Swan Bay. He pleaded “Not guilty,” and was undefended. The jury returned a verdict of “Guilty.”

What the sentence of James Amos was we don’t know.

This is the last we hear of Mary Grisdale until her marriage to Melbourne fishmonger James Broderick in 1882. The couple had no children and Mary died in 1912, but was, it seems, loved by her relatives:

The Australasian (Melbourne) reported Mary’s death on saturday 5 October 1912:

BRODERICK.-On the 30th September, at her residence, “Maryville,” 58 Brunswick-road, W. Brunswick, Mary, the dearly beloved wife of James Broderick, and beloved sister of Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Hargraves, and beloved aunt of Janey Davison, May Barnes, Mary Wall, Alfie O’Neil, aged 49 years

‘Half-caste’ William Grisdale – Australian crime and bullocks

It’s a peculiarity of genetics that siblings often inherit quite different genes. William Grisdale had a Bolton-born father and a half-Indian mother. He obviously got his mother’s family’s colour because his is repeatedly called, rather endearingly, a ‘coloured’ or a ‘half-caste’ in the many records of his criminal activity in Australia. I wrote of William’s father, ex-soldier Thomas, in two previous articles: A Hussar in India – Thomas Grisdale and Thomas Grisdale in Melbourne – digging for gold and lugging coal. Here I’ll try to say something about his son William; what became of him? He was a bit of a wayward lad and I’m sure I wouldn’t like him if I met him, but he was after all an Australian!

William was born in 1852 in Bangalore, India. He was the third child of Private Thomas Grisdale of the 15th Hussars and his half-Indian wife Mary Cartwright. He arrived in Melbourne with his family aboard the ship Strathfieldsaye in 1853. About his early years we know little, except that he was without doubt with his family during the years spent in the gold diggings in and around Heathcote, Victoria. He would also later have lived with his parents and siblings when the family moved back to Melbourne.

At some time during his youth William became a ‘ward’ of court. In his case this probably means he was put in a Reformatory School for offences committed while still a minor. But the first time we find him in newspaper records is in 1873 in the Geelong Advertiser:

Monday 28 July 1873

Pugilism.—Three men, named Grisdale, Reilly, and McFarlane, were summoned for fighting in the streets. They had been turned out of the Buck’s Head. They pleaded guilty, and Keilly, who bad been previously convicted, was fined 20s and costs, the others 5s and costs.

Then in 1874 he appeared in Drysdale court to testify in a case involving his father. The Melbourne Argus reported on Friday 23 January 1874:

DRYSDALE POLICE COURT.

Drunkenness and Obscene Language. Police v Collins.—Superintendent Furnell appeared to prosecute, and Mr McCormick for the defence. Defendant was summoned for allowing’drunkenness in his house, and for using obscene language. Thos. Grisdale said he was at defendant’s house on the night of the 24th December, there were a lot of people there; some drunk and some sober. Defendant said to me, “Your son got me fined £5 on one occasion”, and also called him some names. “He offered to fight me for £5, John Davis said-I was at the hotel on the night of the 24th ult. Butlerand Davis were there; they were prettywell on. I remember the constable coming there, but I do not recollect what he said. I heard the words complained of,”

William Grisdale—I am son of the first witness. I went to Collins on the 25th and asked him what be had said about me the night before. Collins said he was drunk, and did not know what he said, and wished to let the matter drop. The case as far as permitting drunkenness was not pressed farther, nor was evidence called as to the use of obscene language. Constable Muloahy—I was on duty on the night of the 24th. I heard Collins tell Grisdade that his son had caused him be fined £5, and offered to fight either him or his son for £5, at the same time calling him disgraceful names. Cross examined — I am not bringing these cases merely for the purpose of taking away his license. Collins told me he had been to Melbourne to try and get me removed, but did not succeed, and would go to Geelong. I asked him to give me time to bring these cases against him. Mr McCormick objected to tho wording of the summons, but this objection was overruled. Tho charge of allowing dancing was proceeded with. MrMcCormick contended that the bonch, as a Court of Petty Sessions, had no jurisdiction, it must be brought before the Licensing Magistrates. Objection allowed. Pined 40s and 30s costs.

In 1878 William married Elizabeth Corfield in Melbourne. Their son, christened William James, was born the next year but died. Elizabeth herself was also soon to die; in 1881 aged just 22 in the Benevolent Asylum in in Hotham, North Melbourne. The Argus reported on Friday 26 August 1881 :

THE BENEVOLENT ASYLUM

Eliza Grisdale, native of Hotham, aged 22 years on the 23rd, from phthisis, a patient for six months.

Phthisis was Tuberculosis, often called Consumption.

 

Benevolent Asylum, Hotham, North Melbourne

William then starts to appear quite regularly in the Melbourne newspapers, and not for good reasons. On 24 September 1881, just after his wife had died, the Argus reported :

A considerable portion of last Thursday’s sitting of the Sandridge Court was taken up by the investigation of an impudent case of hotel robbery. The prisoner, who gave the name of William Grisdale, entered the Southern Cross Hotel, in Inglis street, on the 15th inst, accompanied by a man named Mullinger. They called for drinks, which were supplied to them by the barmaid, and for which they paid. The prisoner then asked for biscuits and matches, and while the girl temporarily quitted the bar to procure them, he leaned over the counter, and was in the act of abstracting the till, containing £1.12s. 6d, when she returned. He at once ran out of the hotel, but after running some distance was stopped by two young men whose attention was attracted by the cry of ‘Stop thief.’ After a violent struggle the prisoner got away from the young men, but was eventually arrested on a warrant by Constable Good. These facts were proved by the evidence of the barmaid, Mullinger, and the arresting constable, and the prisoner, who had frequently been before the court, and had only just completed a term of imprisonment for an assault, was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.

So William wasn’t new to the courts; he ‘had frequently been before the court, and had only just completed a term of imprisonment for an assault’.

The Argus , Thursday 27 January 1881:

A most disgraceful case of assault came under the notice of the Emerald Hill Bench on Wednesday, when a coloured man named William Grisdale was charged with unlawfully assaulting a woman named Elizabeth Noon on the 11th inst. The prosecutrix stated that on the above date she was sitting in her house in Boundary street when the prisoner deliberately burst open the door and after trying to commit a criminal offence he assaulted her in a moat cowardly manner. The medical evidence showed that the prosecutrix had been subjected to very severe ill usage. Constable Stewart stated that since the assault took place the prisoner was arrested on two other similar charges – one for assaulting a young woman at Tootscray, for which he was bound over to keep the peace for six months, and the other for an assault on his wife, for which he received two months imprisonment. On the present charge the prisoner received six months, cumulative on the former sentences.

So William battered his wife as well as assaulted other women.

Then on 11 May 1882 we read:

At the City Court on Wednesday, before Mr Call, P M, and a bench of magistrates, two wharf loafers, named James Sullivan and William Grisdale, were charged on remand with feloniously stealing two silk dresses and other articles, valued at £50, the property of John William Parkin, from Cole’s Bond, on the 28th of February last. The evidence for the prosecution was to the effect that on the date in question Mr. Parkin arrived from Adelaide, and placed eight cases containing wearing apparel and household linen and pictures, in Cole’s Bond for security. One case was placed in the open shed in the yard, and the others in the locked bond. About a week afterwards the case in the shed was found to have been broken open and the contents stolen. On the 8th of March last the two prisoners brought some of the stolen goods ma bundle to the restaurant of John Williams, in King street, where they occasionally took their meals, and offered them for sale.

The prisoner Grisdale stated that the apparel belonged to his wife, and Williams bought a lavender silk dress, a black silk polonaise and skirt, a black satin skirt, a black silk body, two black cloth jackets, a black cloth dolman jacket, a print costume and Indian worked muslin skirts, for £2 15s. On the 21st March the prisoner Grisdale pawned two velvet polonaises, a part of the stolen property, at the shop of Elizabeth Davenport at Sandridge for 5s. Detectives Wilson and Brown arrested the prisoner Sullivan on the 27th ult, when he stated that he found the stolen property in Flinders street one night and Detective Mahony arrested Grisdale the same evening, and he said the things had been given to him by a man whom he did not know, and he subsequently identified Sullivan as the man. The Bench committed the prisoners for trial at the Central Criminal Court on the 15th next.

Port Melbourne Docks

And on the 15th May:

James Sullivan and William Grisdale were charged with stealing wearing apparel. The second count was feloniously receiving. On the 28th February some cases of luggage, the property of John William Parkin, a passenger from Adelaide, were placed in Cole’s bond. A day or two afterwards one of the cases was found broken open, and most of the contents, which were valued at £30, stolen. Subsequently Sullivan sold a portion of the goods to a Mrs Williams, wife of coloured restaurant keeper, in West Melbourne, for £2 15s. He told her that the clothing belonged to his wife, who had been dead seven years. The story being doubted he called Grisdale, who confirmed it. Some other articles in the list were found at a pawn office. Detectives Mahoney and Wilson arrested the prisoners, who had given various accounts of how they came possessed of the goods.

The prisoners in their defence alleged that Sullivan found the apparel in a bag in Flinders street, and not finding it advertised, sold it. The jury found the prisoners guilty of feloniously receiving. Grisdale was recommended to mercy on the ground that he had been the tool of Sullivan

Five previous convictions (for assault and larceny)) were proved against Grisdale, and one for larceny against Sullivan. Sullivan was sentenced to 14 months’ and Grisdale to l8 months’ imprisonment. His Honour stated that had the prisoners been before him for the first time he should have sentenced each of them to a year’s imprisonment, but he added two and six months’ imprisonment respectively to the term on account of the former convictions

Two years later, probably not long after getting out of prison, William was back in the Melbourne Court. In January 1884:

At the South Melbourne Court yesterday, before Messrs Stead, Foote, and Dr Barker, J P s, two young men named William Whitten and William Grisdale, who had been both frequently convicted were charged by the police with being rogues and vagabonds and also with the larceny of boot Mrs Goodwill, the proprietress of a boot shop m Thistlethwaite-street, stated that three pairs of boots had been taken from her place through a hole made in the window the prisoners were seen by other witnesses close to the shop early on the morning of the robbery, and it was proved that Grisdale pawned a pair of the stolen boots with Mr J Solomon, a pawnbroker at the corner of King and Collins streets. Both prisoners pleaded for a lenient sentence on the ground that they intended to reform and leave the colony. The Bench pointed out, however, that they had already neglected their chances, and they accordingly sentenced both men to 12 months imprisonment, with hard labour.

So back to prison and hard labour. But on his release William is soon back in court. The Argus 8th September 1886:

At the City Court on Tuesday, Walter Middleton, a cook, aged 25, was charged with having stolen a small black bag containing papers, &c., from Mr. Alfred Shaw, who arrived from Adelaide on Monday. The bag in question had been left with a port-manteau and an overcoat in the pantry at Hosie’s Cafe, Flinders-street, but when Mr.  Shaw called again for it the barman could not find it. Inquiries were made concerning the bag, and the porter said he had seen the prisoner take it away. Middleton was then standing outside the hotel without the bag, and was given into the custody of Constable Davidson. He was sent to gaol for three months.

William Grisdale, a companion of the prisoner Middleton mentioned in the last case, was charged at the same court with having  broken a window, valued at 15s., the property of Mr. George Feeney, landlord of the Holyhead Hotel, Flinders-street. Mr. Moloney prosecuted. Mr. Feeney stated that the prisoner and Middleton, who had only just been discharged from gaol, went to his hotel on Monday after-noon, and Grisdale deliberately pushed Middleton through his window. Witness stood in the doorway to prevent Grisdale escaping until a constable came, but was struck by him. They struggled, and with the assistance of a man, who was in the bar, Grisdale was detained until Constable Ross arrived. The prisoner was fined 20s., with40s. costs, in default one month’s imprisonment.

Then in 1887  ‘half-caste’ William Grisdale made an appearance in the Melbourne court in 1887 charged with accosting a woman and demanding money.

But what did the ‘wharf loafer’ William Grisdale do later? He certainly disappears from the Melbourne records. At some point he headed out west to Western Australia where he was again in trouble.

The West Australian (Perth) reported on Wednesday 2 December 1896:

ESCAPE OF PRISONERS AT GERALDTON. RUNAWAYS STILL AT LIBERTY. Geraldton, December 1. Yesterday afternoon a prison gang, consisting of about thirty men, were at work at the quarries at Greenough Road, Geraldton, and shortly before it was time to return to gaol two of their number managed to escape the vigilance of the warder in charge. As soon as they were missed, the police were communicated with, but it was some little time before they received information. When they did so, Constables Conroy and Pollet were immediately despatched on horseback in full pursuit. The names of the men who have levanted are Grisdale and Sutcliffe, alias Walker. Grisdale is a powerful colored man, who gave the police much trouble when arresting him a few days ago. He was then sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for assaulting W. P.C Podesta. Sutcliffe had already served six months out of a term of fifteen months, and has always been quiet and orderly up to the present. There is but little doubt that he was induced to attempt to regain freedom by Grisdale. The warder in charge was out with the gang for the last time, as he had resigned his position, and yesterday was his last day of service.

Both men were soon recaptured near Dongarra and were ‘sentenced to l8 months’ imprisonment with hard labour, cumulative upon the sentences they are now undergoing’. The story of their recapture makes interesting reading:

The two escaped prisoners, Grisdale and Sutcliffe, who abruptly left the quarrying party on Monday evening, were arrested about three miles on this side of Dongarra by Police-constable Walsh at a late hour last night. Warning had been sent to Dongarra that the fugitives were heading in that direction. The particulars connected with the recapture are these: — Police – constable Walsh was engaged yesterday in patrolling the space between the sea and the Geraldton road near Dongarra, the distance intervening being three miles. Late in the evening the constable on coming from the beach discovered the footprints of two men on the road. He felt convinced that they were the tracks of the escaped prisoners, and he followed them. About five miles further on they came to Waldeck’s homestead. Inquiring there, he found that two men had visited the place, and got some food, and were then lying in a thicket 300 yards off. The constable thereupon tied up his horse, and, with a black tracker, made for the thicket, which he carefully and cautiously searched. He saw a fire, and on going up to it found the two absconders sitting around it. Neither offered any resistance, and they were marched to the Dongarra lock-up. Sutcliffe and Grisdale state that they escaped from the road party at 2 p.m. on Monday last. They then made for Walk away, which they duly reached next morning. They started out, as they thought, for Dongarra, but, to their astonishment, in the afternoon they found themselves back at the quarries, the very place they had absconded from on the previous day. They determined to make a safe route, and followed the beach towards Dongarra, and when 15 miles out cut across to the road, which they kept until Waldeck’s residence was reached. It was their intention to go to Esperance, and needless to say they were much disappointed at the course which events took.

Perth in 1900

In Freemantle in November 1901: ‘Wm. Robertson, alias Grisdale, was charged with having robbed John Pablitch of the sum of £4 16s. Circumstantial evidence was given, but the Magistrates decided that although the case against Robertson looked bad, there was nothing to connect him directly with the robbery. They therefore ordered his discharge.’

On Saturday 19 July 1902, William is in the Perth Court House:

Obscene language. – A powerful man named William Grisdale (50) was charged with having behaved in a disorderly manner by using obscene language in Bazaar terrace the previous night. Evidence was given that the accused was in an intoxicated state on that occasion and about midnight was using filthy language at the top of his voice. He also was announcing his intention to fight anyone. He gave annoyance to the occupants of two large residences, and was given in charge. Accused said he was a hardworking man, and had been employed on the pipe-track. His conduct on this occasion was only due to drink. He asked to be “given a show,” and said he would not so offend again. Mr. Roe said the accused had ‘used disgusting language’ in the hearing of the lady occupants of the residences, and would have to pay a fine of 30s, with 12s. costs, in default three days’ imprisonment.

Note here William’s age – 50. This fits exactly with ‘our’ William’s date of birth, which was 1852. There weren’t any Grisdales in either Perth or Victoria in 1852, so this is the same William Grisdale. William was back in court a few days later on a similar charge:

Constables Sampson and East arrested two men in different parts of the city on Saturday night for having used filthy language in public places. Both men, George Jones and William Grisdale, were charged with the offence at the City Court this morning, and in the case of the first a fine of 10s was imposed. The second man, Grisdale, accused the arresting constable with having been drinking whilst on duty, but the bench was satisfied with the statement of the policeman, and ordered Grisdale to pay 40s. (Monday 4 August 1902)

Early in 1903, William was yet again in trouble and notice that on each occasion he gave his age as 50.

Charge of Stealing, – William Grisdale (50) charged with having, on the 23rd last, stolen from the premises of John Mullins a silver watch-chain, locket, and pendant. The accused was remanded to Thursday. (Tuesday 27 January 1903)

The Perth Daily News reported the result on 28 January 1903:

A WATCH AND CHAIN. William Grisdale was charged with having stolen a watch and chain, the property of John Mullins, a resident of Victoria Park. The prosecutor desposed to having left his watch and chain in the camp and that it was missing when he arrived home. He reported the matter to Constable Murray.  W. P. Silverstom, licensee of the East Perth Hotel, said that the accused came to his hotel, and asked for a loan of 2s. 6d. on the chain produced. Witness lent the accused the money, and the accused purchased two bottles of beer. After hearing the evidence of Constable Murray, the accused was sent to gaol for one week.

And then on 10 February 1903:

A Series of Charges. – William Grisdale (50), a previous offender, was brought up on four charges. For having given a false name to the police, he was fined 20s., or three days’ imprisonment, and 20s., in default three days’ imprisonment, for having falsely represented himself us a bona-fide traveller. For having resisted arrest, Grisdale was sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment, and for having created a disturbance at the lock-up he was ordered to do a further 21 days’ imprisonment. The evidence showed that Grisdale had acted in a violent manner.

William makes other appearances in court and in one he even promises to leave the state – but he didn’t. You’ll be pleased to know that’s (almost) the last of the court reports. I quoted them at some length both for social interest and to see if they provided evidence for William Grisdale’s identity. Let’s move on.

Building the Goldfields’ Water Pipeline

William had said in July 1902 that ‘he was a hardworking man, and had been employed on the pipe-track’. What did this mean? What in fact he had been doing was helping build the important Goldfields’ Water Pipeline: ‘In 1895 the first plans were prepared for an engineering feat that would stagger the world — an attempt to pump water uphill some 500 km, from the hills near Perth to the goldfields of Coolgardie. Before construction began, the dream had become bigger. The pipeline was extended for water to be pumped even further east, to the new goldfields of Kalgoorlie. On 24 January 1903, the dream became a reality when water, which began its journey at Mundaring Weir, flowed into to Mt Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie.’

It was a remarkable achievement. In 2009 the ‘goldfields water supply scheme’ was recognised as an international historic civil engineering landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It seems that William Grisdale had been one of the labourers constructing this vast pipeline.

Water from the pipeline became available just as the production of gold in the state’s eastern goldfields was starting to decline. However regular water supplies meant agriculture could prosper. Today the Western Australian wheat fields are the most productive in Australia, accounting for 42 per cent of the nation’s wheat crop and coming mainly from the areas serviced by the goldfields pipeline and its extensions.

Is that it? Is that all we know? Not quite. In the 1916 Perth electors’ list we find a William Grisdale, who listed his occupation as a bullock driver.

Bullock drivers were typically skilled, tough men who often faced extreme difficulties during the execution of their occupation. Bullockies were also colourful characters, often noted for their strong language. Some did not swear though, relying solely on gesture, talking and whip movements as persuasion for the team’s job at hand. A typical bullocky wore a cabbage tree hat, a twill shirt of that period, moleskin trousers, blucher boots and carried a long bullock whip which in many instances he had made.

William gives his address as The Duke of York Coffee Palace in Perth. Now as a bullock driver William probably didn’t have a fixed abode and it is well known that The Duke of York Restaurant and Hotel (often called the Coffee Palace) was a place which was given as an address so people could write to them. Thousands of Australian servicemen used the address in the First World War.

James Alexander Jones (known as ‘Pa’) had taken over the running of Perth’s The Duke of York Restaurant in 1899. The Duke of York Restaurant was also referred to as The Duke of York Hotel (as they offered rooms for rent in addition to serving meals) and even as The Duke of York Coffee Palace. The latter may have been because Mr. Jones had previously run a place in Perth called The Paris Coffee Palace.

Jones offered a unique service. The Perth Sunday Times of May 25, 1925 tells us:

All who remember the old place will recall a large window abutting on the street in which were exhibited many hundreds of letters and newspapers, these having been sent to those who had either forgotten or wished to be forgotten by their friends or who had gone away in to the big spaces of the bush or had crossed the Great Divide. For years Pa Jones kept these letters in his window and now and then was rewarded by someone claiming one or two. Not until years had passed would he allow any to be opened and then only in the presence of reputable and responsible witnesses, and in many cases the letters were returned to their senders with an informative note attached.

Bullock Team

Let me end with a poem I discovered by Henry Kendall called Bill the Bullock-Driver. I think it’s apt:

The leaders of millions, the lords of the lands,
Who sway the wide world with their will
And shake the great globe with the strength of their hands,
Flash past us–unnoticed by Bill.

The elders of science who measure the spheres
And weigh the vast bulk of the sun–
Who see the grand lights beyond aeons of years,
Are less than a bullock to _one_.

The singers that sweeten all time with their song–
Pure voices that make us forget
Humanity’s drama of marvellous wrong–
To Bill are as mysteries yet.

By thunders of battle and nations uphurled,
Bill’s sympathies never were stirred:
The helmsmen who stand at the wheel of the world
By him are unknown and unheard.

What trouble has Bill for the ruin of lands,
Or the quarrels of temple and throne,
So long as the whip that he holds in his hands
And the team that he drives are his own?

As straight and as sound as a slab without crack,
Our Bill is a king in his way;
Though he camps by the side of a shingle track,
And sleeps on the bed of his dray.

A whip-lash to him is as dear as a rose
Would be to a delicate maid;
He carries his darlings wherever he goes,
In a pocket-book tattered and frayed.

The joy of a bard when he happens to write
A song like the song of his dream
Is nothing at all to our hero’s delight
In the pluck and the strength of his team.

For the kings of the earth, for the faces august
Of princes, the millions may shout;
To Bill, as he lumbers along in the dust,
A bullock’s the grandest thing out.

His four-footed friends are the friends of his choice–
No lover is Bill of your dames;
But the cattle that turn at the sound of his voice
Have the sweetest of features and names.

A father’s chief joy is a favourite son,
When he reaches some eminent goal,
But the pride of Bill’s heart is the hairy-legged one
That pulls with a will at the pole.

His dray is no living, responsible thing,
But he gives it the gender of life;
And, seeing his fancy is free in the wing,
It suits him as well as a wife.

He thrives like an Arab. Between the two wheels
Is his bedroom, where, lying up-curled,
He thinks for himself, like a sultan, and feels
That his home is the best in the world.

For, even though cattle, like subjects, will break
At times from the yoke and the band,
Bill knows how to act when his rule is at stake,
And is therefore a lord of the land.

Of course he must dream; but be sure that his dreams,
If happy, must compass, alas!
Fat bullocks at feed by improbable streams,
Knee-deep in improbable grass.

No poet is Bill, for the visions of night
To him are as visions of day;
And the pipe that in sleep he endeavours to light
Is the pipe that he smokes on the dray.

To the mighty, magnificent temples of God,
In the hearts of the dominant hills,
Bill’s eyes are as blind as the fire-blackened clod
That burns far away from the rills.

Through beautiful, bountiful forests that screen
A marvel of blossoms from heat–
Whose lights are the mellow and golden and green–
Bill walks with irreverent feet.

The manifold splendours of mountain and wood
By Bill like nonentities slip;
He loves the black myrtle because it is good
As a handle to lash to his whip.

And thus through the world, with a swing in his tread,
Our hero self-satisfied goes;
With his cabbage-tree hat on the back of his head,
And the string of it under his nose.

Poor bullocky Bill! In the circles select
Of the scholars he hasn’t a place;
But he walks like a man, with his forehead erect,
And he looks at God’s day in the face.

For, rough as he seems, he would shudder to wrong
A dog with the loss of a hair;
And the angels of shine and superlative song
See his heart and the deity there.

Few know him, indeed; but the beauty that glows
In the forest is loveliness still;
And Providence helping the life of the rose
Is a Friend and a Father to Bill.

Thomas Grisdale in Melbourne – digging for gold and lugging coal

In an earlier article called A Hussar in India – Thomas Grisdale, I left ex-hussar Thomas Grisdale and his family aboard the ship Strathfieldsaye en route from Madras to Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. We don’t know why the family chose to go to Melbourne but we can make a good guess. The Victoria gold rush had just started and there is no doubt that news of diggers becoming immensely wealthy would have reached India. So perhaps Thomas wanted to see if he too could strike it rich. The family arrived in Melbourne harbour in November 1853.

Victoria Gold Diggers

Things then go a little dark, but not completely dark. Maybe initially Thomas got work in the Melbourne docks, where he later worked, we don’t know. Yet it is certain that he pretty soon tried his luck in the rough and tumble of Victoria’s gold diggings. The family moved to Heathcote, a gold rush town 110 kms north of Melbourne. Two more children were born there: Elizabeth in 1855 and Caroline in 1857. Heathcote itself had ‘developed on the back of a series of gold rushes along McIvor Creek commencing in 1851. One of the major strikes (1852) was a Golden Gully, behind the old courthouse’.

At the peak of the gold rushes there were up to 35,000 people, largely housed in tents and shanties on the fields. 3,000 Chinese walked to the digging from Robe in South Australia where they had disembarked to avoid paying a tax levied upon Chinese disembarking in Victoria. There were at least 3 breweries; 22 hotels; 2 flour mills, reflecting the emergence of wheat growing in the district; a bacon factory, hospital, banks and several wineries.

What sort of life did the family have in Heathcote? Perhaps we can get some idea from letters sent home by other immigrants who had done the same thing at the same time. In May 1855 Alma digger P.H. Brain wrote home to a friend:

There is no friends here, everyone for his self and the biggest rogue – the best man, that is the principle that the colony is carried on, by most people rich and poor. I am happy to say I have never wanted for anything since I have been in the colony, although I have seen more in want than ever I have in England. I have many times thought of you staying in England, I would rather live in England with one meal a day, than here with all the best in the world as there is no comfort to be had here day or night, for by day you are poisoned by dust and flies and by night perhaps nearly blown out of your bed, if it may be so called. Although I have got a feather bed, I cannot sleep…

I should not advise anyone to come out here, although I do not wish to keep them away but I am sure there is nothing to be obtained here but at the risk of your life and hard work and no comfort. You would be surprised perhaps if I say I work 60 or 70 feet underground and have got to sink the hole first. I can assure you that it is the case, one sometimes would sink 10 or a dozen of these and not see gold. I have got a hundred pounds and obliged to spend it nearly all before I could get any more, so you see it’s not all profit. The hole is sunk like a well on, a chain of 24 feet square. You must not have any more than that at any one time but you can sink as many as you want. Where you have sunk one of these holes you try 3 or 4 inches of dirt at the bottom, it is put into a tub and washed so as to wash off the dirt and leave the gravel in the bottom and from thence into a tin dish and divide the gold from the gravel, if there be any. If not you must wash it so before you can tell. So you see what work it is to get gold. I have sunk 10 or 15 before I have seen it and perhaps many around me getting it. I am thinking I shall send you and your dear wife a small nugget, so as you can say you have got some, as I may never have it in my power to bring it personally. If so I have to be more pleased to do so in a larger quantity wont if not to be a pleasure to me once more to see my friends in England all well, which I hope very much is the case now.

James Douglas Ferguson wrote to his parents in 1854 from McIvor (Heathcote):

Gold Rush Camp

We all live in tension the diggings that you will know I should not think there is a man on the diggings but has a brace of pistols ready for action under his head every night. I have 3 dogs round our tent there is nothing in the shape of beast or body can get near the tent for them, any one was to lay me down £20 for the 3 I would not take it. Some time ago these two men on horseback stuck us up. My dog did his duty she got one of them to an out she made him ten thousand murders. I like a fool had not my pistol charged, perhaps just as well it was not for I should have fired as sure as I am writing this letter to you, anyone comes round your tent at night you are justifiable in shooting them, this was between 12 and 1 o’clock in the morning. I got up and opened the tent door and give my faithful old dog the word of command and got the axe for a weapon myself, I darted out from the side of the tent and got a slip at one of them with the axe, the next moment the dog made the other shout like a bull they did not know that I was up ready to receive them. The wife and children screaming, the dogs barking. People came rushing from all quarters, believe me the fellow would not forget that blow I gave him for sometime. You know I am pretty sharp mettle when set on my pins. They were both armed with pistols but had not time to make use of them. We let them go quietly as there might be a party and some of them come at another time and call on us.

Such was probably the Grisdales’ life in the gold diggings. Thomas must have found some gold; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to support his family for several years. But he clearly hadn’t struck it rich. The family moved back to Sandridge, Melbourne, where the couple’s next children were born:  Thomas (1859), Joseph (1861), Mary (1863), Isaac Arthur (1866) and Sarah (1869).

Sandridge circa 1858

It is only in Melbourne that we start to find actual reports of Thomas and some of his family. The first to appear in the Melbourne Argus on Tuesday 12 September 1865 concerned Thomas himself:

At the Sandridge Police Court yesterday; before Mr. Call, P.M., an old man named Thomas Grisdale, charged with stealing fish, the property of James Lewis, was sentenced to be locked up until the rising of the Court.

Four years later, after having borne ten children, Thomas’s wife Jane died on 24 April 1869 as a result of giving birth to her last child Sarah, who herself died three  days later. On 26 April the Argus reported:

At Sandridge yesterday, the city coroner held an inquiry respecting the death of Mary Grisdale, who had died on the day previous somewhat suddenly. She had been prematurely confined on Saturday last, and from that time until Wednesday was progressing very favourably. On that morning, however, she was seized with sudden illness. Her husband went for the purpose of procuring medical assistance, but before he returned her life had expired. From the medical testimony, the jury returned a verdict that the deceased died from fatty degeneration of the heart.

After Jane’s death it seems that some of her children had to resort to begging. On Wednesday 22 February 1871 the Argus reported:

Sandridge. – On Monday, before Messrs. Molifson (?). P.M., Curtis, and Barker, Caroline Grisdale, a girl from 14 to 15 years old, was charged with stealing a pair of drawers. The prisoner went to Mary Clyans, wife of Michael Clyans, to beg, and Mrs. Clyans took her into her service. At the end of a week the prisoner left, and several articles of clothing were missed at the same time. The prisoner next went to a Mrs. Elizabeth Foley to beg for bread. Mrs Foley gave her 3 1/2d. to buy a loaf for herself and sisters, and the prisoner in return, offered the drawers, which she said belonged to her sister. The prisoner’s father, who described himself as a “lumper” appeared in court, but had nothing to say except that his daughter did not beg, or at least had no occasion to. The Bench sentenced the girl to 24 hours’ imprisonment, and to two years’ confinement in the reformatory, with a recommendation to the police to sec that Grisdale paid for his daughter’s maintenance.

Shortly after this it seems that Thomas and his children moved from Sandridge a short distance across the water to Swan Bay.

Swan Bay, Melbourne

Later the same year, on 6 October 1871, we read:

A man named James Amos was charged at the police court, Drysdale, yesterday, with an attempt to commit a capital offence upon the person of a girl about 10 years of age, named Mary Grisdale. The prisoner, who reserved his defense, was committed to take his trial at the next sittings of the Circuit Court.

And then the 12 October 1871:

James Amos, an elderly man, was charged with having, on the 14th ult, indecently assaulted a little girl, under 10 years of age, named Mary Grisdale, at Swan Bay. He pleaded “Not guilty,” and was undefended. The jury returned a verdict of “Guilty.”

I’ll tell more of this trial for attempted rape in a future article about Thomas’s children.

The Argus reported on Friday 23 January 1874:

DRYSDALE POLICE COURT.

Drunkenness and Obscene Language. Police v Collins.—Superintendent Furnell appeared to prosecute, and Mr McCormick for the defence. Defendant was summoned for allowing’drunkenness in his house, and for using obscene language. Thos. Grisdale said he was at defendant’s house on the night of the 24th December, there were a lot of people there; some drunk and some sober. Defendant said to me, “Your son got me fined £5 on one occasion”, and also called him some names. “He offered to fight me for £5, John Davis said-I was at the hotel on the night of the 24th ult. Butlerand Davis were there; they were prettywell on. I remember the constable coming there, but I do not recollect what he said. I heard the words complained of,”

William Grisdale—I am son of the first witness. I went to Collins on the 25th and asked him what be had said about me the night before. Collins said he was drunk, and did not know what he said, and wished to let the matter drop. The case as far as permitting drunkenness was not pressed farther, nor was evidence called as to the use of obscene language. Constable Muloahy—I was on duty on the night of the 24th. I heard Collins tell Grisdade that his son had caused him be fined £5, and offered to fight either him or his son for £5, at the same time calling him disgraceful names. Cross examined — I am not bringing these cases merely for the purpose of taking away his license. Collins told me he had been to Melbourne to try and get me removed, but did not succeed, and would go to Geelong.I asked him to give me time to bring these cases against him. Mr McCormick objected to tho wording of the summons, but this objection was overruled. Tho charge of allowing dancing was proceeded with. MrMcCormick contended that the bonch, as a Court of Petty Sessions, had no jurisdiction, it must be brought before the Licensing Magistrates. Objection allowed. Pined 40s and 30s costs.

On 16 May1874 the Geelong Advertiser reported:

Thomas Grisdale, on remand, was charged with stealing seven bags from Mr Levien, M.L.A. Mr Levien said—I have missed some bags within about two month, about two or three dozen Calcutta bags—new cornsacks. I kept them in a shed; I had openeda bale and missed two bundles containingabout twenty in each. The bags produced are of a similar description to those missed.The bag produced marked L has been my property, but I cannot say it has been stolen. I never gave prisoner authority to remove bags off my premises; the prisoner has been in my employ; he left my service about a month ago. To the prisoner—You did have two or three bags last year containing produce (flour and peas). I do not think it possible that the new bag produced is the one in which you had the produce. Joseph, Molden said—I live at Mr Levien’s farm. I identify the bag produced as Mr Levien’s property. I put that patch on it, but I cannot say when. Three other witnesses were examined, but they failed to substantiate the charge against the prisoner, and he was discharged.

Soon after this I believe Thomas moved back to Emerald Hill in south Melbourne.

I mentioned already that after coming back from Heathcote the family settled in Sandridge in Melbourne. What was Melbourne like in those days? Referring to the arrival of William Free’s family in 1853, the same year as Thomas, one writer says:

They were landed not at a wharf but on a beach – Liardet’s Beach or Sandridge as the respectable classes preferred to call it – at which there were present some ramshackle buildings, but no quay, no warehouses, no merchants, and no shade in which the women and children could rest while the men looked for transport. The shore up to the high-water mark was lined with broken drift spars and oars, discarded ship-blocks, mattresses and pillows, empty bottles, ballast kegs, and sundry other items of flotsam. The township of Melbourne was out of sight, some eight miles distant by river and three across land.

Sandridge became Melbourne’s second port – taking the name Port Melbourne. ‘For many years Port Melbourne was a focus of Melbourne’s criminal underworld, which operated smuggling syndicates on the docks. The old Ships Painters and Dockers Union was notorious for being controlled by gangsters. The Waterside Workers Federation, on the other hand, was a stronghold of the Communist Party of Australia.’

We know that Thomas worked as a coal ‘lumper’ in Sandridge port. Margo Beasley, Australia’s expert on coal lumpers, writes: ‘Unlike wharf labourers, who shifted all manner of cargoes between ship and shore, coal lumpers worked exclusively on coal and most, but not all, of that work took place out ‘in the stream’ as they put it… some distance from the wharves…  coal lumpers saw themselves as akin to miners rather than wharf labourers and their main task was to move the coal from colliers or hulks that brought it…  into other vessels.’

Coal lumpers at work

There were five categories of coal lumping work. The shovellers, winchdrivers and planksmen worked on the collier or hulk that was carrying and discharging the coal, and carriers and trimmers worked on the ship that was receiving the coal or being ‘coaled’. Coal lumpers’ tools were basic: shovels, baskets, boots, ropes and their own brute strength. The ‘gear’ on the collier, which included winch, rope (called the ‘fall’) and baskets, had to be rigged so that the coal could be shifted from down below up to a suitable level on the deck for moving it into the ship that was to be coaled. The baskets were attached to a hook, which was fastened to the fall, which was run through a pulley and a winch on the deck above the hold.

Beasley describes coal lumpers’ working conditions as ‘Dantesque’. She writes:

Billy Hughs, who later became Prime Minister of Australia, was president of the Sydney Coal Lumpers’ Union in 1905, and also its advocate. He said coal lumping work ‘finds out the weak places in a man. If a man has a weak spot in his heart, lungs or back, or … say his nervous system is not all that it should be, he falls out.’ Hughes argued that only the very strong remained in the work and coal lumpers aged 45 or 50 were simply ‘the strongest who have survived’, by natural selection.

Indeed, many men tried the work for a week or two, and even an hour or two, but they couldn’t last. One coal lumper said that some men were forced to leave the work because they because they had started at too hard a pace and they were unable to keep going. Hughes judged that no other occupation called for the exercise of greater physical strength and endurance, supporting his assertion with two illustrations. Employers were unable to get sufficient men who could do coal lumping satisfactorily, or even unsatisfactorily, during strikes and lockouts; and the work necessitated certain conditions that didn’t occur in any other trade: paid two hourly breaks, because a spell was ‘absolutely essential for recuperation and food and rest.

Coal Lumpers

Such was the hard and dangerous life of Thomas Grisdale. The son of a Bolton weaver, descended from the Matterdale Grisdales. A man who had spent years serving Queen and country in India. A man who had been under the command of Captain Nolan who became famous for ‘starting’ the Charge of the Light Brigade. A man who had tried his luck in Australia only to spend the rest of his life lumping coal in the docks. Such I’m afraid was the fate of many, indeed most, of the common soldiers who served Her Majesty throughout most of British history. A fate in stark contrast to that of the wealthy officer class.

Thomas Grisdale died aged 74 on 28 February 1879, at 11 Montague Street, Emerald Hill in Melbourne.

 

A Hussar in India – Thomas Grisdale

“Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die.”

What was a Grisdale man’s connection with The Charge of the Light Brigade? How did a soldier in an elite British cavalry regiment in India? This is the first part of the story of Thomas Grisdale, a son of an extended Bolton cotton weaving family who would end his days in Melbourne in Australia.

Thomas Grisdale was born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1804. He escaped the cotton mills by joining the army. I’m not yet precisely sure exactly when, but it seems clear that as a private in the 15th King’s Own Light Dragoons (Hussars) he sailed for India with the regiment from their base in Maidstone, Kent, in September 1839 – under Lieutenant – Colonel Sir Walter Scott, the son of the famous novelist. He was to spend the next fourteen years in India, first in Madras but mostly in Bangalore. The ‘Madras Presidency’ which covered most of southern India was run by the British East India Company.

Peterloo Massacre

The 15th Hussars was an illustrious regiment. They were called both The Fighting 15th and The Tabs. They were raised in 1759 and had fought in the Peninsular War at Sahagun and Vittoria and later at Waterloo. Unfortunately they had also played a pivotal role in the notorious Peterloo Massacre in 1819:  ‘Where a 60,000 strong crowd calling for democratic reform were charged by the Yeomanry. Panic from the crowd was interpreted as an attack on the Yeomanry and the Hussars (led by Lieutenant Colonel Guy L’Estrange) were ordered in. The charge resulted in 15 fatalities and as many as 600 injured.’

Captain Lewis Nolan

After an initial spell in the regional capital, Madras, Thomas was mostly on garrison duty with the regiment in Bangalore. The regiment became one of the best trained cavalry units in the British army, thanks in no small measure to the efforts and new ideas of a certain Captain Lewis Edward Nolan – under whom Thomas served. In a list of the men of the 15th Hussars stationed in Bangalore in 1845 (although I think the list comes from slightly later), we find Private Thomas Grisdale as well as Captain Lewis Nolan.

Nolan wasn’t a typical British cavalry officer. Though British Canadian by birth, through his father’s connections he had been commissioned into the Austrian Imperial Cavalry and seen action as a Hussar in Poland and Hungary. But he was persuaded by certain ‘English gentlemen’ to resign his commission and buy a commission in the British army. This he did in 1839 and he was with Grisdale and the 15th Hussars on the trip to Madras. Nolan had strong ideas about how cavalry should be used, how horses should be trained and about the inappropriateness of the Hussars’ uniforms. He later published two treatises on the subject called: The Training of Cavalry Remount Horses: A New System (1851) and Cavalry: Its History and Tactics (1853). Given his expertise, Nolan was made the regiment’s riding master and his methods were later adopted throughout the army. Two quotes from his writings give us a flavour:

Write up in golden letters – or in letters distinguishable, and easy to read – in every riding-school, and in every stable: “HORSES ARE TAUGHT NOT BY HARSHNESS BUT BY GENTLENESS.” Where the officers are classical, the golden rule may be given in Xenophon’s Greek, as well as in English.

To me it appears we have too much frippery – too much toggery – too much weight in things worse than useless. To a cavalry soldier every ounce is of consequence! I can never believe that our hussar uniform (take which of them you please) is the proper dress in which to do hussar’s duty in war – to scramble through thickets, to clear woods, to open the way through forests, to ford or swim rivers, to bivouac, to be nearly always on outpost work, to ‘rough it’ in every possible manner. Of what use are plumes, bandoliers, sabretashes, sheep-skins, shabraques, etc?

The Charge of the Light Brigade

But besides the fact that Grisdale knew Nolan, what’s the interest in mentioning this? Well it is this: When the regiment was about to depart for home in 1853, Nolan obtained leave to precede it to Europe. After a bit of spying for Britain in Russia, he was sent to purchase horses for the army for the Crimean campaign. Nolan travelled around Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. ‘He arrived in Varna, Bulgaria… with nearly 300 animals.’ For once Britain and France were not fighting each other; they had come to the aid of the Ottoman Turks in their fight against an expansionary Imperial Russia. Nolan was made aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Richard Airey.  On 25 October 1854, at the Battle of Balaclava, it was Captain Nolan who brought the message from Lord Raglan to Lord Lucan which read:

Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Artillery may accompany. French Cavalry is on your left. Immediate.

Raglan’s idea was to have the cavalry prevent the Russians taking away the naval guns from the redoubts that they had captured on the reverse side of the Causeway Heights, the hill forming the south side of the valley. Lucan was unclear what the order meant and asked Nolan for clarification. Nolan is reputed to have replied, ‘Lord Raglan’s orders are that the cavalry should attack immediately.’ Lucan replied, ‘Attack, sir! Attack what? What guns, sir? Where and what to do?’

There, my Lord! There is your enemy! There are your guns!

Nolan is said to have indicated, by a wide sweep of his arm, not the Causeway redoubts but the mass of Russian guns in a redoubt at the end of the valley, around a mile away.

So Lucan ordered Lord Cardigan, the officer commanding the Light Brigade, to charge straight at the Russian guns. So began The Charge of the Light Brigade, when just over 600 British cavalry charged straight at the main Russian cannons, into the ‘Valley of Death’. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote:

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Captain Lewis Nolan was one of the first to die in the charge. One historian writes:

After delivering the order telling Lord Lucan, the Cavalry Division commander, to attack “the guns,” Nolan joined his friend, Captain William Morris, Acting Commander, 17th Lancers.  Although a staff officer, Nolan was determined not to be left out of this action.  As the Light Brigade advanced, Nolan was seen to ride forward on his own.  His reasons are the subject of vast controversy and much speculation.  In any event, his audacity didn’t last long.  He was struck in the chest by a piece of shrapnel, making him one of the first casualties of the charge.

Nolan, or perhaps only his body, remained upright in the saddle.  The horse veered right, then back through the advancing line of the 13th Light Dragoons, the horse’s former regiment.  After passing through the lines, Captain Nolan finally fell to the ground, but his gallant horse was not through.  Troop Sergeant Major John Linkon of the 13th had just lost his horse.  He managed to mount Nolan’s horse and rode after his regiment.  Thus, although Captain Nolan did not complete the famous charge, his horse did.

After the debacle, his superiors, probably unjustly, put the blame on Nolan. The French General Bosquet, who witnessed the charge, commented: ‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre’: c’est de la folie’. (‘It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness.’)

Such was the fate of the man under whom Thomas Grisdale had served for so many years in India. But unlike his former officer, Grisdale had avoided the Valley of Death (the 15th weren’t actually there). He left the army in 1853 and with his young family made his way to Melbourne in Australia.

Before I tell of this let us go back a little to Thomas’s roots and the facts of his family. Thomas was the third child of Lancashire cotton weaver Thomas Grisdale and his wife Elizabeth Crossley. He was born in 1804 in Bolton. In previous articles I have tried to show what became of several of his close relatives who had also left England and some who stayed. Among his close relatives was his brother, the weaver Doctor Grisdale, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1850, and his two nephews, John and Jonathan, who “went America”.  His uncle  Benjamin became the Collector of Customs in the important port of Whitehaven. His cousin John emigrated to Sydney and his more distant cousin also called John became a missionary in India and later a Canadian Bishop!  His uncle George emigrated with his family to Hudson in Quebec and one member of his family eventually ended up in the Pacific Northwest of America as “King of the Douglas Fir Loggers”. Every single one of these people was a descendant of Joseph Grisdale and Ann Temple of Dockray, Matterdale, Cumberland.

Madras 1850

When Thomas arrived in India in 1839 he was a single man of 35. But while stationed in Bangalore he married the locally born Mary Cartwright, the daughter of army farrier William Cartwright and his Indian wife Jane. The marriage took place on 5 January 1847 in Bangalore’s Holy Trinity Church. Three Indian-born children were to follow: Thomas (1848), Jane (1850) and William (1852).

Throughout his time in India the British army (or the army of the East India Company to be more precise) had been involved in many nasty little wars, for example the early Sikh and Afghan wars. But these all took place in the north of the country and because Thomas’s regiment were based in the south it seems he took no part in them. I would like to know if this was not the case.

Whatever the case, in 1853, having recently left the army, he, his wife Mary and their two children (Thomas junior had died just before they left) boarded the ship Strathfieldsaye bound for Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. We don’t know why the family chose to go to Melbourne but we can make a good guess. The Victoria gold rush had just started and there is no doubt that news of diggers becoming immensely wealthy would have reached India. So perhaps Thomas wanted to see if he too could strike it rich. The family arrived in Melbourne harbour in November 1853.

See Thomas Grisdale in Melbourne – digging for gold and lugging coal.

 

Simeon Grisdale – ‘a most systematic rogue’

In an earlier article I told of Simeon Grisdale Senior and finished with his death in Crouch End, Islington in 1825, just weeks after he had been released from debtors’ prison. Here I want to tell of his son Simeon, ‘a most systematic rogue’, of his continual movements, changes of occupation, his repeated bigamy and his spells in jail. There are still some mysteries about his life and the fate of some of his children, plus I don’t even know exactly where and when he died, but I hope it’s still an interesting tale. He was a rogue indeed but I can’t help warming to him.

Broughton, Hants

As mentioned in my earler article titled Simeon Grisdale – bankruptcy and debtors’ prison,  Simeon Grisdale Junior was born in Houghton in Hampshire in 1805. His father, Simeon Senior, was the village baker and chandler and the younger Simeon grew up in rural Hampshire with his younger sister Mary. Whether Simeon Senior’s wife Ruth and his two grown or almost grown children accompanied him to London isn’t known. Maybe they stayed in Hampshire. In any case the next we hear of young Simeon is in June 1830 when he married Ann Jearam in the next door Hampshire village of Broughton. Three children followed: Mary in 1834, William in 1836 (both born in Broughton) and then Simeon in 1839. Baby Simeon died the next year in Over Wallop, Hampshire. But the children were not christened in either of  the Church of England churches in Houghton or Broughton, where the family were living. Instead they were baptized in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in the ancient city of Salisbury, Simeon being said to be a labourer. The theme of Wesleyan Methodism will reappear later.

By 1841 the family had moved to Waight’s Terrace in Southampton and Simeon was a brewer. Perhaps the family stayed in Southampton during the 1840s, but in 1850 Simeon’s long career of bigamy starts. On 25 December 1850, while still married to Ann (she died in Clerkenwell, London in 1867), Simeon married Mary Ann Scott in Chelmsford in Essex, a long way from Hampshire. The circumstances leading to this marriage are, I’m afraid, lost forever, as indeed is Mary Ann Scott’s subsequent fate. I can find no trace of any of the family in the 1851 census, which is strange. Whatever the case, Simeon’s bigamous marriage to Mary Ann didn’t last long. Maybe she discovered he was already married? Maybe, though most unlikely, he went back to his family for a while.

But we do know what Simeon was up to in 1851. The Oxford Journal on 6 September 1851 contained the following report:

IMPOSTER –

On Monday last a man, named Simeon Grisdale, was sentenced to three months imprisonment and hard labour, as a rogue and vagabond, under the following circumstances, detailed in evidence by Mr. Parsons, a grocer, of this town, to whom great praise is due for his promptness in bringing to justice a most systematic rogue. In August last the accused called called upon Mr. Parsons and passed himself off as a local preacher attached to the Wesleyan Methodist persuasion, who was deputed to collect contributions in aid of a fund for building a chapel at a place called Stanford, to which pretended object it appeared, by a collecting book which he presented, a great number of parties in various places had subscribed. Mr. Parsons contributed a sum, but having found out subsequently such particulars as left no doubt that he had been imposed on, he procured a search warrant, and with a constable proceed to Oxford, where he heard the man was, and forthwith apprehended him, when he directly confessed his guilt. At a house where he was living portions of books were found, by which it appeared that he had visited most towns in Berks, Oxon etc, and had drawn upon the public to the tune of £40 or £50, and to such purposes he had changed the locality of the pretended chapel from place to placer as circumstances rendered it necessary. The accused had no defense to make.

Meadvale in 1955

Having most likely been released from prison in December 1851, Simeon, as we will see, arrived in Harefield in Middlesex to ‘open a school’. There he met Mary Ann Clarke, the daughter of Harefield carpenter Thomas Clarke and his wife Ann. In July of that year he married Mary Ann at the registrar’s office in Uxbridge in Middlesex. You have to say he got around.  He stayed with this Mary Ann a bit longer. They had four children together: Margaret in 1855 in Hounslow, Middlesex, Benomi (?) in 1857 in Heston (a suburb of Hounslow), Ruth in 1859 in Speldhurst (Tunbridge Wells) in Kent and Simeon in 1859 in Meadvale in Redhill in Surrey. Son Simeon died aged only six weeks. We can imply that during all these years Simeon was trying his hand at running private schools, though continually moving from place to place.

Certainly when he moved to Meadvale in Redhill in Surrey in 1858 or 1859 he and his wife did become schoolmaster and mistress! They are listed as such in the 1861 census. A far cry maybe from labouring, brewing, obtaining money under false pretenses and God knows what else.

Meadvale was known in the 19th century as Meads Hole. The name means meadowland hollow. Here not only dwellings but also pottery businesses scattered over the common land — some kilns remain. The major hamlet had two butchers, a baker, a draper, a tailor and a grocer’s shop. The first school was held in the village hall with a fee of one penny a week for each child. At the beginning of the 19th century, there was a tanner’s yard adjoining Earlswood Common which was pasture, not park, at the southern entrance to Meadvale.

Perhaps their school was ‘in the village hall’?

Things seemed to be going well for Simeon. But no, he had obviously not repented of his ways – bigamy and collecting money for fictitious Methodist chapels. In September 1862 various newspapers all over the country reported his activities,. This one is from the Kentish Chronicle on 6 September 1862:

A SCHOOLMASTER COMMITTED FOR BIGAMY –

Samuel Russell, alias Simeon Grisdale, a schoolmaster and a Wesleyan local preacher, was brought up Monday last before the Tunbridge bench of magistrates charged with marrying a female named Fanny Kingwood in April last, his former wife being then alive. Fanny Kingwood stated that in Apri, 1862, she was living at Reigate Heath, and the prisoner was living at Redhill, about three miles distant. She became acquainted with him by his coming to see her master for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions. She understood he was a single man, and went by the name of Samuel Russell. After several months’ courtship he induced her, on 5th April, to go to London with him, and the ceremony of marriage was gone through at York Street Chapel, Walworth. Ann Clarke, the wife of Thomas Clarke, carpenter of Harefield, Middlesex, said she had known the prisoner for ten years. He went to Harfield and opened a school, and shortly afterwards became acquainted with her daughter, Mary Ann Clarke, to whom he was married at the registrar’s office at Uxbridge, nearly ten years ago. He was married in the name of Simneon Grisdale. Her daughter was still alive. The prisoner, on being cautioned in the usual way, said, “All that I have to say is, I am truly sorry for it.” He was committed for trial at the ensuing assizes at Maidstone.

As we will see it’s doubtful  that Simeon was ‘truly sorry’.  In any case  on 29 November 1862 Simeon was tried at Maidstone Court in Kent for bigamy and sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Maidstone Prison

Before I continue with Simeon, what became of his (legal) wife Ann and their children? Sometime in the 1850s they had moved to London. In 1861 wife Ann Grisdale (nee Jearam) was a Seamstress living at 36 Chapel Street in Clerkenwell. So too was her recently widowed young ‘Dress Maker’ daughter Mary Midson (nee Grisdale). Son William was nearby working as a ‘Pot Man’ i.e. a glass washer at the British Queen pub off Canonbury Square in Islington.

St Laurence, Upton, Slough

Returning to bigamist Simeon Grisdale. If he completed his full four year sentence (probably in Maidstone Prison) he would have been free at the end of 1866. His first and legal wife Ann died in London in the first quarter of 1867. Did Simeon know? Did he care? We don’t know. We might also conclude that his marriage to Fanny Kingwood had been annulled on his conviction for bigamy. Whether he was still married to Mary Ann Clarke is not known.

Yet on the 9 February 1867 Simeon married again in the Buckinghamshire village of Upton near Slough, this time his wife was widow Maria Compton (nee Stevens). Given the timing it’s quite likely this marriage was bigamous too. It does seem Simeon was a bit of a charmer and ladies’ man! He settled down with Maria and several stepchildren in Upton and he now became a greengrocer (and possibly a draper too). One son was born in 1868, who Simeon again called Simeon – third time lucky. This Simeon, who will be the subject of  a subsequent article, survived, but Simeon’s marriage to Maria Compton didn’t.

By 1871 the family had moved to Acton in Middlesex (now part of London), but they weren’t living together. Simeon is listed in the 1871 census as a greengrocer living at 5 Windmill Terrace on Turnpike Road with his young son Simeon. His wife Maria was living at 4 prospect Terrace on Park Road, working as a laundress, with three of her Compton children plus son Simeon Grisdale – he was recorded twice, both with his father and mother!

But Simeon couldn’t do without a wife. Oh no, he had to marry again, and again bigamously. On 30 November 1873 he married Margaret Mary Downie in Christ Church, in the south London area of Southwark.

And here  the ‘most systematic rogue’ Simeon Grisdale simply disappears. I can find no trace of his death. In 1881 the wife Maria was still in London but said she was a widow, so I guess Simeon died sometime in the 1870s after a full life indeed: from labourer to brewer to schoolmaster, to prisoner to greengrocer; with six wives and multiple bigamies behind him!

Later I will tell of Simeon Grisdale the third, who became a soldier, went to Ireland then to the North West Frontier in India and, well into his forties, fought in the First World War.

William Grisdale – the patriarchal dancing master

In my own Grisdale family line we find the usual array of professions: yeoman farmer, blacksmith and carpenter for example. But it has always intrigued me that my third great grandfather, William Grisdale, was a Dancing Master in and around Penrith for about sixty years. Luckily William’s teaching, his Balls and his dancing school were repeatedly reported in the Cumbrian press and thus we can get just a flavour of his life and the legacy he left.

We know that William was a Dancing Master because he is listed as such in the censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861. He was by that time already quite old, having been born in Matterdale in 1785, the sixth and last child of Dockray blacksmith Wilfred Grisdale (1711-1795) and his second wife Ruth Slee (1759-1838). But even when he married Mary Charters in Penrith in 1815 when he was thirty he was already said to be a dancing master. As we will see he’d started this vocation even before that.

The English Dancing Master

What was a ‘Dancing Master’?  Well as we might expect he/she was a teacher of dance. Wikipedia tells us something of the tradition:

The Dancing Master (first edition: The English Dancing Master) is a dancing manual containing the music and instructions for English Country Dance. It was published in several editions by John Playford and his successors from 1651 until c1728. The first edition contained 105 dances with single line melodies; subsequent editions introduced new songs and dances, while dropping others, and the work eventually encompassed three volumes. Dances from The Dancing Master were re-published in arrangements by Cecil Sharp in the early 20th century, and in these reconstructed forms remain popular among dancers today.

Another recent writer says:

For those of you not familiar with Playford’s The English Dancing Master (1651), it was the first collection of popular dance tunes published in the British Isles. It was published in London and sold to the English country dancing market… It was a big hit, and it remained in print through various editions until 1728. It’s not exactly traditional music. It was popular music intended for an urban audience.

The various editions were updated with the hits of the day—songs from popular plays and special music used by professional dancers. However, quite a lot of the material can be found in traditional circulation… English country dancing is first mentioned in the Elizabethan period. Some of the tunes were probably at least 100 years old when they were published. Many of the older tunes existed as songs rather than strictly dance tunes. Nowadays there are two styles of what is called “English country dancing” One is based on Playford tunes. Apparently the tunes are usually played in a style based on late 19th century classical music….

But the type of dancing William taught was more like this:

The other kind of English country dancing is the kind of dancing they do out in the country in England. This is true folk dancing, done to folk tunes played in folk style. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Playford, which has been upper-class stuff since the 17th century. John Playford (1623-1686) was a successful London music publisher. A royalist, he kept a low profile during the Commonwealth and came into political favour with the return of Charles II. He catered to the taste of the emerging bourgeois class which preferred country dancing to the more formal galliards and other formal dances popular with the nobility before the Civil War. His business was carried on by his son Henry. The actual title of the work was: The English Dancing Master, or, Plaine and easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance.

From where had William acquired his love of dancing? How had he started to teach? To be honest I have no idea. None of his ancestors and, with one exception, none of his descendants or relatives had anything to do with dancing. William had moved from Matterdale to Penrith sometime prior to his marriage in 1815. The couple had at least nine children. Perhaps William at first followed his father’s profession as a blacksmith or maybe he worked as a carpenter as did many of his family? If he did he didn’t stay at it long before starting to teach dancing which was obviously the love of his life.

As I mentioned, there are dozens of newspaper reports telling of  William Grisdale the Dancing Master, they span several decades. Basically what William did was move from town to town teaching young people to dance. paid for by their parents, and then a Ball would be staged to show off the results. All the reports tell of the great success of these balls and how they were a great credit to Mr. Grisdale, who as he gets older is sometimes refers to as Professor Grisdale or, more often, ‘the patriarchal dancing master’. Here are just a few of my favourites:

Carlisle Journal 13 June 1851

BALL – The merry little village of Wreay was, on thursday evening week, the scene of much gaiety and pleasure. Mr. Wm. Grisdale upon whose head seventy years have shone, has been endeavouring for some time past to fashion the young limbs of  “fair maidens and buxom lads” of the village and surrounding neighbourhood to the graceful evolutions of the mazy dance, and his labours, which have been followed by most decided success, were brought to a close with a ball on the above evening. Rarely, if ever, has so gay and numerous an assemblage of plump, rosy-checked lasses and lish, hardy, light-hearted youths, been gathered together under the hospitable roof of  “old Sally” . The”kings and queens” discharged their duties with true dignity; and the “hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,” in which cross-the-buckle, the double-shuffle and the “cut,”  were all rendered in first rate primitive style, reflect much credit upon both Mr. Grisdale and his pupils. The “bow dance,” however, was the great attraction of the evening, and in finery and gracefulness would succumb to few of our more posturing dances. The young ones having finished their spree, the older folk, inspired by the fire of early days, took possession of the floor, and kept up the pleasure of the ball until the grey mists of morning warned them to depart, which they did with hearts filled with joy.

Wreay, Cumberland

Two years later on 16 December 1853 the same newspaper reported:

Dancing School Ball – Mr William Grisdale the patriarchal dancing master, held his ball at the house of Mr Thomas Furness, of Loangwathby… Mr Grisdale is upwards of 74 years of age (sic); yet, though his head is silverd o’ver by time he appears as “lish” and active as ever. He has taught dancing for upwards of half a century, and has always kept within a twenty mile circuit of Penrith, so that at the present time there are few middle aged women in the district who were not his pupils in early life . He has taught three generations. He taught the grandmothers of some of the young misses who were recently his pupils in Longwathby.

And then on 14 April 1854:

Old William Grisdale the patriarchal dancing master, has now a dancing school in Penrith Town head. He is teaching the fourth generation, having taught the great grandfathers and great grandmothers of some of his present pupils.

Naval cadets dancing a hornpipe

William was still a dancing master in 1861, aged 76, and might have continued somewhat longer. So it seems that William had brought ‘joy’ to four generations of his Cumbrian dancing pupils over a period of about sixty years. He had his fair share of tragedy too – two of his daughter died quite young – but he led a life doing what he wanted to do. Sometime in the 1860s William had to stop his teaching, possibly due too ill health, and the sad fact is that he had to enter Penrith’s workhouse where he died on 30 May 1866, his death only getting two lines in the Carlisle Journal that had followed him for decades. His wife Mary died two years later.

Just a few words on William’s family.  In the early nineteenth century his older brother Wilfred (b 1782) had moved to Carlisle and from there he emigrated with his family to Canada, just after William’s marriage, there to found a veritable Grisdale dynasty in Canada and the United States.

Another brother Gideon (b 1777) moved to London and became a jeweller; his daughter Elizabeth ‘Minnie’ Grisdale first became a ballet dancer at the Drury Lane Theatre in London before marrying a famous painter, moved to Boston and then returned as a widow to hawk fish in Falmouth! Perhaps Minnie had been influenced by her dancing uncle William?

Wilfred Grisdale, William’s son

There is much to tell of William’s children. I’ll only highlight a couple of them. Their son Wilfred (1815-1893) was a carpenter. The family story is that Wilfred loved horses. The picture I have included here might suggest that. He married twice and had eleven children, one being my great grandmother Agnes Grisdale. Another son, also called William, emigrated to Australia in 1853 with his wife and child and there had many adventures.

It’s not much of a story I know, but I just love to think of William teaching country dancing to the good youngsters of Cumberland and Westmorland in the nineteenth century. Perhaps he even knew Levi Grisdale, the landlord of the local tavern called the General Lefebvre. Levi was much more famous, but he and William were related, both being descended from Joseph Grisdale and Agnes Dockray of Dowthwaite Head in Matterdale. I guess we’ll never know.

Dr Joseph Hiram Grisdale’s shipwreck

Having left Boston four days before the cruise liner Prince David struck ‘Northeast Breaker Reef’ on the 13th of March 1932, while just twelve miles and two hours from its destination of St. George’s in Bermuda. All the eighty-seven passengers and crew on board were safely rowed in lifeboats to the nearby ship Lady Somers. Most of the vacationers were from New England but also onboard was Canadian Dr Joseph Hiram Grisdale, who had recently resigned as Canada’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture for health reasons. Travelling alone, Joseph was said to be ‘on his way to Bermuda for his health and intended staying there for some time’.

I will write more at a later date about Joseph’s life, but the shipwreck story is interesting, so I’ll start there. Edward Harris, the director of the Bermuda National Museum, writes:

Prince David in Vancouver in 1930

As the Great Depression of 1929—39 was beginning, the shipping subsidiary of the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National Steamships, ordered three identical passenger liners from the Cammell Laird works at Birkenhead, near the great maritime city of Liverpool.

The three were of a royal strain, being duly knighted Prince David, Prince Henry and Prince Robert, and were intended for luxury service on the Canadian west coast, operating out of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Alas, the Depression put paid to that concept and after brief service in those parts, two of the vessels were transferred to the Canadian Maritimes in the east, for service to Bermuda and the West Indies.

The two ships were placed on a regular cruise service to Bermuda from St John and Boston, berthing in St George’s, and it was planned the pair would operate to Bermuda for several months, with departures each Friday and Sunday.

The first departure was taken by Prince Henry, which departed Boston on 25 February, followed on 27 February by Prince David, with 122 passengers on board.

 

Prince David in Bermuda in January 1932

The cruise on which Joseph Grisdale was sailing was only the second the Prince David had made to Bermuda.

On 14 March 1932 The Ottawa Evening Journal reported:

St George Harbour, Bermuda

HAMILTON, Bermuda, March 13.

The Canadian National steamship, Prince David, struck a reef two hours out of St. George’s today, forced the evacuation of her 87 passengers, and several hours later was sinking.

The accident was blamed on poor visibility in a blinding rain, storm, and occurred just before the Prince David picked up her pilot. According to passengers, the vessel was making a speed of about 23 knots when the accident happened. The third officer was on the bridge at the time, passengers reported, and all were ordered immediately to don life preservers.

The life boats were lowered quickly while an SOS was sent to the Lady Somers. When all the’ passengers had been taken off the Prince David was listing badly. The Lady Somers, fearful of entering the channel, stood by three miles out while passengers and crew alike worked at the oars. They rowed for an hour and a half in rough sea before reaching the Lady Somers.

Chief Steward Kerr of the Prince David was praised highly by passengers for his work in the transfer of passengers. All were brought safely aboard the Lady Somers and then taken ashore.

The transfer was accomplished without any serious Injury to any of the passengers or crew. It was 11 a.m. when the 3.072-ton vessel bearing 87 vacation-minded passengers from Boston for St. Georges, was brought up sharply upon the reef. Ships officers calmly directed and assisted passengers in donning lifebelts and soon lifeboats were -swung over the side and the long pull started to the Lady Somers.

Later, it was said by passengers, that there was little commotion as the majestic liner was abandoned. True to the traditions of the sea, Captain A. & McKay was the last man leave… the listing vessel. Captain McKay and two engineers remained aboard surveying the situation…  Most of the passengers of the ill-fated Prince David were New England holiday-seekers. The only Canadians known to be aboard were Dr. J. H. Grisdale, former Dominion Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Murphy, Toronto.

There are many others reports in Canadian newspapers telling that Dr Grisdale had survived the wreck.

One passenger, Maxine Morgan, reported to the newspapers:

Lady Somers

HAMILTON. Bermuda. March 13.

The Prince David struck a reef today, and we all had to take to the lifeboats to complete a pleasure trip to Bermuda from Boston. It was about two o’clock when the ship was brought up abruptly against a reef. The third officer got into action immediately, while the rest of us were trying to figure out what happened… My mother and I adjusted belts, as did the other men and women passengers. There was no great commotion although I guess we were all very excited. While the process of adjusting our belts was going on, the crew of the Prince David was busy getting ready the lifeboats. Soon we were told to get into them. There was no chance to collect wraps or personal baggage. I went into the lifeboat with my mother, and neither of us had a chance to go to our staterooms and collect our effects. Other women and men were in the same predicament.

After we got into the lifeboats, we were lowered into a rough sea- and then the task of rowing to the steamer Lady Somers was started. As we pulled away from the Prince David, she seemed to be listing badly. We were told after we reached land that the craft was sinking slowly. The ride out to the Lady Somers, which apparently did not venture into our position for fear of meeting the same fate, was not a pleasant one but the men passengers in the boat proved good seamen and took a hand at the oars. It took about an hour and a half before we reached the Lady Somers, which made the trip down here from Boston the same day we Jeff-last Friday.

The man whom I think was the hero of the whole affair was the chief purser. Kerr is his name. He was efficient, gentle and courageous and certainly helped us women a great deal. Most of the passengers said the same thing about him: The Lady Somers brought us all safely ashore the only thing we missed, especially, the ladies, was a change of apparel. Tonight we had hopes that some of our effect might be saved before the ship sinks.

Lady Somers

The timing of the ship hitting the reef varies in the various newspaper reports. More recently marine historian Piers Plowman in A Century of Passenger Liners to Bermuda  wrote:

St George Bermuda in 1930s

On the morning of Sunday, 13 March 1932, Prince David on its second cruise was approaching Bermuda in heavy rain causing poor visibility.

Shortly before noon the Island hove into sight, and the officers on the bridge estimated their position from the radio direction finder, as they had done the first time the ship cruised to Bermuda.

Unfortunately, only days previously the Bermuda radio direction equipment had been moved from its original position near St George’s to ‘Eagles Nest’ in Devonshire, but the captain of Prince David was either unaware of this, or forgot.

The result was that, instead of following a course that would bring them safely to the entrance of the channel through the reef, the ship was several miles off course.

At 12.40pm it struck one rock, went over it and then became firmly lodged on a second rock that formed part of the reef near North Rock.

An SOS message was immediately sent, being picked up ashore, and also by Lady Somers, which was also approaching the Island from Boston.

An hour after the ship went aground, the rain stopped, but a strong wind sprang up from the south west, which soon whipped up a heavy sea, preventing Lady Somers, or the tugs that had rushed to the scene from St George’s approaching the grounded ship.

At first there seemed little danger, and passengers were served their lunch in the dining room as usual.

During the afternoon Prince David began to sink by the stern, and as the tide began to fall, also began listing to starboard.

This increased concern for the safety of the 84 passengers, resulting in them being placed in the lifeboats, along with some members of the crew, and transferred to Lady Somers.

Eventually at low tide Prince David was listing at 45 degrees, and the stern had disappeared beneath the water, only the captain and four officers remaining on board.

The five officers remained with the ship throughout the next day, but rising seas on the evening of 14 March forced them to decide to abandon the ship too.

A group of St George’s men, including some pilots, manned a small boat to rescue the officers. Battling strong squalls and heavy seas, the boat took three and a half hours to reach Prince David, at 2am on 15 March.

By then the men on the stricken ship were numb with cold, and it was a major task to rescue them, but at last all five were safely on board the small boat.

The voyage back to St George’s was as difficult as the outward trip, the small launch battling huge seas that threatened to swamp it at any moment. It was 5am before the boat finally tied up at Market Wharf.

When the weather moderated, divers were sent out to examine the hull of the ship. They found much of the bottom plating at the forward end of the ship had been torn off, and it was awash to B Deck aft.

It was thought the ship would be a total loss, but it was held firmly on the reef by the bow, and it was thought she might be saved.

Salvagers later determined that the cheapest course was to turn the Prince David back to her owners, Canadian National Steamships, who eventually got her off, refitted her and sent her back for another four years’ service. Later she served throughout the war before being broken up at Swansea in 1951.

The extinction of a line – the sons of two Grisdale clerics

The United States declared war on Britain in 1812 when all Britain’s attention was focussed on, and resources stretched, fighting Napoleon’s French, who had subjugated much of Europe. Many factors were involved but essentially it was an attempt by the Americans to grab more or all of British North America (Canada) while Britain was occupied elsewhere. So Britain had to fight a war on two fronts, on either side of the Atlantic. It’s a long and fascinating story, at one point the British captured Washington D.C. and burnt the White House; the Americans were only saved by a huge storm which forced the British to withdraw. The war dragged on the two and a half years before being formally ended by the Treaty of Ghent on 24 December 1814, although fighting continued into early 1815.

Throughout all this time the Royal Navy was actively involved, blockading the American coast, fighting American ships and landing troops on the coasts. One young Royal navy Lieutenant involved in all of this was a certain Charles Grisdale. Charles was most likely involved when a fleet of some 30 warships sailed out of Negril Bay, Jamaica on 26 November, 1814. ‘The fleet under command of Admiral Cochrane moved into the Gulf of Mexico ready to attack New Orleans. Cochrane’s fleet was transporting 14,450 British troops who had recently been fighting in the Napoleonic wars in France and Spain.’

Battle of New Orleans. January 1815

Perhaps Charles Grisdale was injured at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, whatever the case shortly thereafter Charles was back in Jamaica where he boarded the ‘postal packet’ Princess Mary bound for Falmouth in England.

But shortly after leaving Jamaica the ship ‘experienced the most dreadful weather’, in fact a ‘hurricane’, during which it ‘was struck by lightning… by which Lieutenant Charles Grisdale, of the Royal Navy, was killed, and several of the crew seriously injured’.

Princess Mary

The newspapers reported the ‘instantaneous’ death after the Princess Mary arrived in England and mentioned Charles’ father, the Reverend Benjamin Grisdale of Withington in Gloucestershire. When Benjamin and his family heard of Charles death in their Rectory in Withington they must have been devastated. Whether Charles was buried at sea or brought back to England I don’t know, I presume the former.

Charles was only twenty-two and Benjamin’s first born child. He was named after Benjamin’s close friend General Charles Cornwallis, the commander of the British forces which had surrendered to George Washington’s Americans at Yorktown in 1781. Benjamin had been a long-time chaplain in the British Army and served throughout the American War of Independence; he was with Cornwallis at Yorktown. I wrote about him in a story called Rev Benjamin Grisdale and the siege of Yorktown 1781.

But in 1815 Benjamin still had three other living sons: Edmund (1799), Henry (1800) and William (1807), another son had died in infancy. He and his wife Elizabeth Unwin also had two daughters, all born in Withington Rectory. But before his death in 1828 aged eighty-four, Benjamin would have another tragedy. His next oldest living son, Edmund, had joined the Indian Army been made an Ensign then a Lieutenant and was shipped with his regiment to Bombay in 1819. But on 4 December 1820 Edmund died at Surat. We don’t know the circumstances of his death – I suspect he died of something like malaria rather than in battle.

Bombay 1820

Before I tell of the fate of Benjamin’s other children after his death I would like to say a little about his family and particularly that of his younger brother Browne Grisdale.

Both boys were the sons of Matterdale-born Benjamin Grisdale and his wife Anne Browne. They were born in Threlkeld, the next-door parish to Matterdale – Benjamin in 1744 and Browne in 1750. I don’t yet know which Grammar School they attended; it might have been St. Bees or Barton, or possibly Carlisle where Browne was later headmaster. But no doubt with the help of their uncle, Joseph Browne, who was both the provost of Queen’s College and the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, they both went to study to be priests at Queen’s College in Oxford.

Joseph Browne was elected Fellow 1 April 1731, and became a successful tutor; took the degree of D.D. 9 July 1743, and was presented by the college with the living of Bramshot, Hampshire, in 1746. In that year, he was appointed Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy and held that office until his death. He was instituted prebendary of Hereford Cathedral on 9 June of the same year (he was later called into residence), and on 13 February 1752 was collated to the chancellorship of the cathedral.

On 3 December 1756, Browne was elected Provost of Queen’s College. From 1759 to 1765 he held the office of Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. He had a severe stroke of palsy 25 March 1765, and died on 17 June 1767.

In 1776, while his older brother Benjamin was still in America with the army, Browne by now a priest and schoolmaster in Carlisle, married Ann Dockray in St. Cuthbert’s church in Carlisle. Five children followed, one after the other: Joseph Browne 1777, named after the Rev Joseph Browne, Mary Ann 1778, Elizabeth 1779, John 1780 and Caroline 1782.

Carlisle Cathedral – where Browne Grisdale was Chancellor

Of course this family had sprung from yeoman farming stock in Matterdale, but Browne and his brother had both gone to Oxford and entered the priesthood and so other courses were expected of their children. Both of Browne’s sons, Joseph and John, were pupils at Carlisle Grammar School where their father was first a teacher and then headmaster. Browne himself later became the Chancellor of the Diocese of Carlisle and a powerful local Justice of the Peace.

Son Joseph entered the army and became a Lieutenant in the 17th Regiment of Foot, which was posted to the island of Minorca in 1800 as part of the long struggle with Napoleon. And there he died in early 1801, aged just twenty-three. In April 1801 an announcement appeared in The Monthly Magazine which, under ‘Deaths Abroad’, reported:

At Minorca, J. B. Grisdale, esq, lieutenant in the 17th regiment of foot, much lamented by his brother officers.

I wrote of Joseph in a story called Death in Minorca.

Browne’s younger son John on leaving Carlisle Grammar School (where he was a bit of a star) had gone to Christ’s College, Cambridge and won the second highest prize in mathematics. John had first entered Trinity College in 1799 but switched the following year to Christ’s. His decision to move to Christ’s was probably connected with Dr William Paley. Paley had graduated from Christ’s in 1763 as “senior wrangler”, became a tutor at Christ’s and since 1782 had been Archdeacon of Carlisle Cathedral and a colleague and friend of John’s father Browne Grisdale.

I told John’s story in an article called Alas how false our hopes! – the short life of John Grisdale.

Christ’s College, Cambridge

Not to repeat the story here, but John became at lawyer in Lincoln’s Inn in London but died suddenly ‘in his office’ there in 1812, aged just thirty-two. His father Browne, the Chancellor of Carlisle, died two years later

Withington Rectory where Benjamin Grisdale lived

Down in Gloucestershire, Browne’s brother Benjamin, the Rector of Withington, would have heard of his nephews’ deaths with sadness. But then as we have seen he was soon to experience the deaths of two of his own sons: Royal Navy officer Charles returning from Jamaica in 1815 and army officer Edmund in Bombay in 1820.

What became of Benjamin’s other sons – Henry and William?

Henry followed a career path I don’t yet know, but on 27 June 1829 the Oxford Journal reported that ’an inquest was held at Withington, Gloucestershire, by Joseph Mountain, gent. coroner, on the 10th..  (for) Mr. Henry Grisdale, who, in a fit of temporary insanity, destroyed himself with a razor’

When I get a copye of the inquest report we will know more of Henry and his suicide.

After attending Rugby School youngest son William had followed his father and uncle and studied at Queen’s College, Oxford. He became a curate at Cubberley in Gloucestershire where his brother-in-law William Hicks was Rector. (William Hicks had married Mary Grisdale in 1833.) But in August 1841 William died in Cubberley Rectory aged just thirty-four – I don’t know the circumstances.

Cubberley Church

So the upshot of all this tragedy and death is that not one of the six sons of the ‘successful’ cleric brothers, Benjamin and Browne Grisdale, had survived long enough to have families of their own! There are no descendants bearing the Grisdale name.

On another occasion I might tell something of the daughters. Brown’s daughter Mary Anne married the Reverend Walter Fletcher who became Browne Grisdale’s successor as Chancellor of Carlisle. Benjamin’s daughter Mary married the Rev William Hicks of Cubberley as already mentioned.

Captain Grisdale loses his ship and his opium

When I came across a story printed in the London Standard on 29 December 1845 concerning a collision of two steamers off the west coast of India I was intrigued. One of the ships, the Parsee, which was carrying a very large load of opium and treasure, was commanded by Captain Grisdale. So which Captain Grisdale was this? I will tell you later, but first the short story.

The sources for this story are the report in the London Standard plus various other reports in the Indian press. I would like to acknowledge the collation of these reports by marine salvager Pascal Kainic who I will quote:

A steamer like the Parsee

‘The “Parsee” was a little steamer employed in the East India country trade, owned by Messrs. Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy, Sons & Co. and commanded by captain Griesdale. She was totally lost by a collision  with the “Sir James Rivett Carnac”, captain P. Duverger, a vessel employed in the same service, but fortunately without loss of life.

The “Carnac” was on her way from Bombay to Tankaria Bunder and the “Parsee” was returning by the same route, with a cargo of 525 opium chests, valued at three lakhs of rupees, as well as a large number of native passengers on board; she had taken 45 when she touched at Surat. The collision took place in about 20° north of latitude, and 12 miles from the shore, about 11 o’clock at night, on 29th of October, in about 17 fathoms of water.

The night was fearfully dark and excepting the watch, all hands were asleep. It would appear that as both vessels had lights hung out, each was aware of the presence of the other, but unfortunately by mistake or ignorance , both altered their course in the same direction, and in consequence  the “Carnac” ran into the “Parsee”  on the starboard side, just abaft the foremast, cutting her side completely through.

The foremast of the “Parsee” was carried away by the bowsprit of the “Carnac” and immediately fell on the deck among the passengers, but providentially without hurting anyone. It was at once perceived that the fate of the “Parsee” was sealed, and her passengers and crew took advantage of the contact of the vessels to rush on board the “Carnac” for safety.

No time was lost in saving the whole of the passengers  and crew, consisting of 70 souls; and just as the last man stepped out of her, the little steamer sank.

The injury done to the steamer “Carnac” is trifling, her bowsprit was split and the bows injured.

She is undergoing the necessary repairs to enable her starting this day, 20th November, in prosecution of her voyage. This is the first collision in the Indian Seas.’

The London Standard also reported that £31,500 of coins was also lost.

Chines Opium Den

The British East India Company had wanted to find a way to pay for what they bought in China other than using silver. It hit upon the idea of taking opium grown in India to use to pay the Chinese. Large sections of the Chinese became opium addicts and Britain and France fought various Opium Wars with the Chinese to keep the trade open. The East India Company declared a monopoly on the trade in India which was pretty solid in Bengal and Calcutta but in the west their control was much less and various local Parsi merchants got in on the act. Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy, the owner of the two steamers which collided, was one of these Parsis,  hence the name Parsee, the ship commanded by Captain Grisdale. The other ship was named after a former Governor of Bombay Sir James Rivett Carnac.

The whole history of this opium trade is fascinating but I’ll leave it here.

So who was Captain Grisdale who had lost his ship and his opium? Was he perhaps Whitehaven-born Captain Joseph Grisdale who became a China Tea Clipper captain and died in Shanghai in 1859? Well I think not because Joseph only got his Master’s certificate in 1851.

That leaves only one possibility: Captain Grisdale was the Workington-born mariner Edward Grisdale who had been part of the crew of the convict ship Numa taking convicts to Sydney. He married one of the female convicts in Parramatta Female Factory in 1835. He then became a steamer Captain operating out of Tasmania before disappearing from the records. I wrote a story called Edward Grisdale’s convict wedding at Parramatta and one about his father called Ferrying Troops and emigrants – Captain Edward Grisdale of Workington.

So it was Workington-born Edward who was part of the India to China opium trade. Didn’t the family get around!

Workington Harbour

Murder at the White Lion Inn in Patterdale

“Oh Lord, I’m killed, he has stabbed me.”

On 26 February 1836 a twenty-two year old Cumberland lead miner called John Greenwell stepped ashore in the Australian penal colony of Sydney from the convict ship Susan. The voyage had taken 114 days and there had been a serious outbreak of scurvy which had taken the lives of several convicts. John knew he would never return to England as he was a convicted murderer. At his trial for murder in Appleby in Westmorland John was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but at the last minute this was commuted to transportation to Australia for life. And who had John killed? The answer is that he had repeatedly stabbed Thomas Grisdale of Patterdale, the son of local Hartsop Hall farmer Robert Grisdale, and Thomas had died of his wounds within the hour.

Before I tell the full story of Thomas Grisdale’s murder let us say something of the circumstances. John Greenwell was a lead miner in the Greenside ‘silver-lead’ mine in Patterdale. He had been born in 1814 in another lead mining village – Alston in Cumberland – but the Greenside mine was flourishing and miners like John came from all over to work there. The miners lived in appalling conditions in the mine ‘lodging shops’.

Greenside Lead Mine in Patterdale

Before there was a smelting mill at Greenside ‘the metal, after being washed, was put into bag holding about 1 cwt. each. The whole was carted to Penrith, where it was met by a string of horses and carts and conveyed to Alston, where it was smelted, and eventually from there put on the market’. The miners only got paid twice a year; they had to go to the Angel Inn in Penrith ‘where the agent (Mr. Errington) attended to pay the men’.

The miners, some accompanied by their wives, used to walk into Penrith. Others came by boat to Pooley, there being no ‘ Raven ‘ or ‘ Lady of the Lake ‘ in those days; whilst others came in carts — conveyances, or light carts as they were called, being very scarce in the country at that time.

From there they would head back to Patterdale to settle their bills in the mine’s ‘shop’ and of course to spend a lot in the local inns.

Mr. Cant’s shop on Patterdale miners’ pay day used to be like a fair, almost all the miners being supplied with provisions by him throughout the six months, their ‘better halves’ putting in an appearance on pay days to straighten up their shop bill.

It was after one of these pay days that John Greenwell and some of his mining friends were drinking in the White Lion Inn in Patterdale ‘Township’.

Patterdale Township circa 1900. The White Lion is on the left

The later Rector of Patterdale, the Rev W. P. Morris, wrote in The Records of Patterdale in 1903:

These pay visits continued until the year 1835, when a serious misfortune took place at Patterdale amongst some of the miners. It was always surmised that there was a little jealousy amongst the natives, and a parishioner was stabbed to death. The sad affair took place on a Sunday night (March 8th, 1835), when two miners, one named Joseph Bainbridge and the other Greenwell, both natives of Alston, had been down into what is termed the ‘Township’ (in the White Lion Inn), and whilst there had got into a quarrel with some of the residents. After dark they started for the mines, and whilst traversing one of the lanes leading out of Patterdale, they went into the dyke to cut themselves each a thick stick to provide weapons of defence should their assailants trouble them again. While in the hedge someone approached, and Greenwell, thinking it was one of their opponents, rushed out at him and stabbed him in the abdomen with the clasp-knife he was using. He turned out not to be a miner at all, but a young parishioner returning to his home. The two miners were tried at Appleby Spring Assizes in the year 1836 (actually 1835). Bainbridge was acquitted and Greenwell was sentenced to death, but was reprieved and sentenced to penal servitude for life. Greenwell was a quiet young man about 20 years of age, of light build, and bore an excellent character. Bainbridge was a powerful fellow, a kind-hearted chap, but rather rough in his manner, and somewhat quarrelsome when he had any drink. After his release he went into Durham to work in the coal pits, and I have heard my brother John, who lived at Hartlepool, say that he was one of the best coal hewers in the county. After the affair the officials thought it prudent and more safe to pay the men at the mines and not bring them into Penrith, hence the abandonment of Patterdale pay days at Penrith.

The White Lion Inn (left) in about 1900

But is this what really happened? It was not. There are many reports describing the trial and the testimony of the witnesses called. Here is just one published in 1836 in The Annual Register… of the year 1835. It gives the full story.

13 March – Murder – Appleby – John Greenwell was indicted for the willful murder of Thomas Grisdale at Patterdale on the 8th March. George Greenhill disposed that on the Sunday preceding he and the deceased went to the White Lion public-house in Patterdale. There were many persons in the house, and among them a young man named Bainbridge and the prisoner Greenwell. There was a great deal of noise, but the deceased was very quiet and took no part in it. Greenwell quarrelled with a man named Rothey, and they had a little fight or scuffle for about five minutes. They both went down on the floor. The deceased lifted them up, and seemed desirous to part them. After they had got up, Bainbridge and the prisoner Greenwell said they would fight any two men in the dale. The deceased said very good-naturedly, that if it was day-light he would take both of them, and he would then in the house, if anybody would see fair play. After this Bainbridge and Greenwell became so troublesome, that the landlord put them out. In the course of a little time the latter returned, and was again thrust out, but in these matters the deceased did not interfere. In the mean time the witness and two lads went out of the house with the deceased. Soon after, they saw Bainbridge call Greenwell to the end of the house, and they procured each a stick, about a yard long, and a little thicker than a walking stick. They came running towards these three, who ran out of their way for some distance, when the deceased, having not retreated awhile, said, “I have not melt (meddled) with them, why should I run away?” and stopped. The witness ran on about twenty yards further, and then stopped also. On turning his head, he saw the prisoner Greenwell run up to the deceased, and make a push at his belly, and then at his breast near the neck. The deceased seized the prisoner by the collar and pushed him away, and then put one hand to his belly, and the other to his breast, saying, “Oh Lord, I’m killed, he has stabbed me.” Witness and his companions then ran up to him, and the prisoner ran away. They soon after found the prisoner lying besides the wood, and told him to get up and go before them to the King’s Arms public-house in Patterdale. Being afraid of him, they told him to throw away what he had, and he threw a pipe from his pocket. They followed him, and he was taken into custody. The next morning a knife was found at the place where the prisoner had lain down, which was bloody. It appeared in subsequent evidence that the knife belonged to Bainbridge, but had been borrowed by the prisoner just before the commission of the fatal deed. A surgeon was sent for to the deceased, who was taken to the White Lion, where he died in three quarters of an hour. John Chapman and Thomas Chapman, two witnesses who were with Greenhill, corroborated his testimony, which also confirmed as to several points by other witnesses, without varying the general features of the case. The surgeon stated that either of the wounds was sufficient to cause death, and he could not state which was in fact the cause of the death as distinct from the other. In summing up the evidence the learned Judge defined the distinction between murder and manslaughter upon provocation, and put before them all the circumstances in the case which had any tendency to justify the more merciful conclusion; but after a short retirement the jury found the prisoner Guilty of wilful murder. Sentence of death was then pronounced upon the prisoner, and the execution ordered to take place the following Monday.

Obviously the Judge was somewhat sympathetic toward Greenwell and before the coming Monday he was reprieved and sentenced to life in penal servitude in Australia.

Hartsop Hall

Thomas’s Hartsop Hall ‘respectable’ farming family was devastated, their son was only twenty-seven. He was, reported the Kendal Mercury, ‘… sober in his habits… extensively known and greatly esteemed’. They buried him in Patterdale Churchyard, ‘close to where the old church stood’, on March 12th, 1835, erecting a tombstone which reads:

To the memory of Thomas, son of Robert and Elizabeth Grisdale of Hartsop Hall, who was brutally murdered by an unprovoked assassin on the evening of Sunday, March 8th, 1835, aged 27 years.

It continues:

 By man’s worst crime he fell and not his own, Belov’d he lived and dying left a name, With which his parents mark this votive stone, The grief is theirs, th’ assassin bears the shame. Better to sleep tho’ in an early grave, Than like the murder’r Cain exist a banished slave.

Patterdale Church in1805

For more about the family see The Grisdales of Patterdale and Hartsop and From Matterdale to Alberta – the story of the English past of one Canadian Grisdale family and Robert Grisdale’s Escape. And what of John Greenwell, the ‘murder’r Cain’, who would lead his life like a ‘banished slave’? After his reprieve from death, John would have first spent some time in prison in Westmorland before being sent to a hellish Prison Hulk anchored at Woolwich outside London (see here for a Grisdale-related story of Prison Hulks). The surgeon of the convict ship Susan, Thomas Galloway, kept a Medical Journal from 12 September 1835 to 26 February 1836. He tells us ‘of the three hundred convicts embarked, 200 were taken on board at Woolwich and 100 at Sheerness’, before departing from Portsmouth for Australia on 16 October 1835 –  it arrived in Port Jackson (Sydney) on 7 February 1836 with 294 male prisoners aboard.

Early convict ship like the Susan

Galloway tells both of the scurvy and that: ‘There were several men who had very recently been in Hospital for various illnesses and who concealed this at the time of the surgeon’s examination because of their desire to proceed to New South Wales. Also several old and very infirm men who had to be kept entirely on the Hospital Provision. Ophthalmia was not confined to the prisoners and several of the seamen were also affected as well as Officers of the Guard.’ As well as the 294 male convicts:

A detachment of the 28th Regiment arrived by the prison ship Susan. They were Landed at the dock yard in Sydney on Friday afternoon 12th February and marched to the barracks. The band did not meet them as was usual on such occasions. Some of the 28th who arrived on the Susan included Captain George Symons, Private James Flanagan, Private John Mooney, Private Henry Gunter, Private William Gollett, Private Walter Williams. Other convict ships bringing detachments of the 28th regiment included the Charles Kerr, Westmoreland,  Marquis of Huntley,  Norfolk, Backwell, England, John Barry, Waterloo, Moffatt, Strathfieldsaye, Portsea and Lady McNaughten.

But the convicts would have had a different welcome. First an ‘indent’ was taken so that if they escaped they could be identified. John Greenwell is described as 22, 5ft 7.5 inches, of ‘ruddy’ complexion, brown hair, with eyes ‘hazel and inflamed’. He had : ‘Hairy mole right ear, mole under left ear, ears pierced for rings, mole above right elbow, three scars back little finger right hand, and three on thumb, scar cap of left knee.’ Pretty much like all Australians then! I know only a little about what happened to John, suffice it to say that in 1848 after twelve years of penal servitude he was granted a ‘conditional pardon’ by the governor of New South Wales Sir Charles Fitz Roy. He was free to stay and work at his trade in Australia but could never return to Britain. As a miner did he go off to the new gold ‘diggings’, we don’t know. And here I will end except for one thing. The two old photographs of the White Lion Inn in Patterdale where Thomas Grisdale was murdered were taken by Patterdale photographer Joseph Lowe around 1900. They are the oldest photographs of Patterdale and Joseph’s wife was Jessie Grisdale, the great granddaughter of Robert Grisdale of Hartsop Hall, murdered Thomas’s father! See Death and photographs in Patterdale.

John Greenwell’s Conditional Pardon NSW 1848

Grisdale Cordwainers of Penrith – a genealogical investigation

Some years ago a nice lady in the United States contacted me about her family. There were a couple of mysteries. One of these remains a mystery, but I can now shed some light on the other. Although I do try to write stories rather than genealogical exercises, this article is just that: a genealogical investigation. It is also the story of a line of Penrith cordwainers or shoemakers

Penrith Workhouse was exactly the same as Cockermouth Workhouse shown here.

Let’s start with a ninety-two year-old ‘pauper’ and former joiner called William Grisdale who died in the Penrith Union Workhouse in 1890. William had spent at least the last ten years of his life in this horrendous institution; which at least gave him food and shelter after he had fallen on hard times. William had married Hannah Butterworth way back in 1821. He spent his whole life as a ‘journeyman joiner’ in Penrith, and between 1821 and 1833 he and Hannah had had six children. Hannah died in 1849 aged just forty-six. Once William’s children had all left in the 1850s, he started to be a lodger with various families in Penrith before having to go to the workhouse sometime in the 1870s.

Nineteenth-century Workhouse ‘inmates’

One little mystery is that it is clear that William was the son of cordwainer (i.e. shoemaker) Thomas Grisdale and his wife Jane Dixon. But it seems that William was baptized Thomas in St Mary’s church in Lancaster on 15th December 1799 and was born on 30 November 1798. His parents usually lived in Penrith, where all their other children were born, but had come somewhat south for at least a year to work in Lancaster. Why Thomas had changed his name to William (which was his grandfather’s name) we still don’t know, but it seems he did.

There is more to tell of William’s children, but maybe another time. Here I want to go back and clear up one other mystery.

As noted, William’s father Thomas was a Penrith shoemaker. He born in 1766 in Penrith and when both he and his wife Jane died (in 1821 and 1845 respectively) he was said to have been a ‘shoemaker’. I keep stressing his vocation because it’s important later. Thomas’s father William was a shoemaker too. His father and his mother, Elizabeth Stewardson, were married in Kendal in 1762. We find William mentioned as a shoemaker in Kendal (probably while an apprentice) but shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Penrith where their children were born, including Thomas in 1766.

Cordwainers as the Grisdales might have looked in Penrith

Now the mystery was this: Who exactly was William Grisdale? Where had he come from?

When William was buried in Penrith on 18 March 1800 the transcript of the parish registers say he was a ‘shoemaker aged 57’. I will show that either the age given by the informant was a mistake or it is a mistranscription of the original entry. This age led me initially to believe that William was the last child of Matterdale-born Joseph Grisdale and his wife Jane Robinson. Joseph had become the Miller at Pooley Bridge Mill in Barton in Westmorland, and his son William was baptized there on 5 June 1743, which given a few weeks delay from birth to baptism could easily fit William the shoemaker’s supposed age of 57 in March 1800.

But I was never happy with this identification. Millers were a step or two up the social ladder from simple shoemakers and none of the family names prevalent in Joseph’s family ever reappeared among the Penrith Grisdale shoemakers.

I then became convinced that William was actually most likely born in the parish of Watermillock, in which a good part of the valley of Matterdale lies – this as we will see is correct.

Cordwainers/shoemakers

In the mid-1790s the Penrith Trade Directory listed only three Grisdales: Jacob, William and Thomas, all listed as cordwainers i.e. shoemakers. Surely there was a relationship between the three? Thomas (born 1766) called his first child Jacob in 1791 and the name appears again later. Now Jacob is a very rare Grisdale name. In fact there is only one earlier occurrence of the name and that is a Jacob Grisdale born in February 1748 in ‘High Lowthwaite’, which is geographically in Matterdale but in Watermillock parish. He was the son of Benjamin Grisdale and his wife Grace Railton. And this Benjamin Grisdale was a shoemaker too! And he too had moved to Penrith because when he wife Grace died in Penrith in 1774 she was said to be the ‘wife of Benjamin Grisdale shoemaker’. This Benjamin had another son called Benjamin in 1736 who also became a ‘shoemaker’.

It was pretty obvious that the cordwainers William and Thomas Grisdale in the Penrith Directory were the father and son I have already discussed. Was William perhaps the brother of Jacob the third Penrith cordwainer in the directory or maybe his cousin?

Back in Watermillock in the early 1740s three William Grisdales were baptized in Watermillock church in 1740, 1741 and 1743. The last two rather unhelpfully both being sons of different Benjamin Grisdales. We can exclude the William born in 1743 because we know what happened to him. The William son of Benjamin born in 1741 attracted me for some time but always seemed wrong for complicated reasons to do with exact places of birth.

Ulcatrow in Matterdale/Watermillock

That leaves only one William Grisdale who could be our man: William Grisdale son of Thomas Grisdale of Ulcatrow who was baptized on 16 October 1740. But can this square with his supposed age of 57 when he died in 1800? Well it can because rather stupidly I hadn’t looked at the second page of the marriage bond between William and Elizabeth Stewardson made in Kendal on 19 April 1762. Here it clearly says that William is ‘21’. The ‘and upwards’ which follows is part of the printed form, and Elizabeth’s age is clearly said to be 24, which it was. If William was 21 on 19 April 1762 he would have been born between 20 April 1740 and 20 April 1741, which fits precisely with the William son of Thomas Grisdale of Ulcatrow baptized in Watermillock church on 16 October 1740. Actually William can’t have been over 21 because there is no other William Grisdale who would then fit the bill.

This attribution now seems blazingly apparent to me but it wasn’t for a long time. William’s age of 21 makes more sense than say 19 if he had been the son of Joseph Grisdale the Miller. In addition William named his first son Thomas, no doubt after his father. Finally it explains why neither he nor his sons named a son Benjamin, which one might have expected if William were the son of a Benjamin.

Page 2 of marriage bond of William Grisdale and Elizabeth Stewardson in 1762

So what was the relationship between shoemaker William and Thomas, father and son shoemakers, and father and son shoemakers Benjamin and Jacob Grisdale? There must have been one; it just depends on how far back we need to go to find it. Remember young Thomas Grisdale (born 1766) called his first son Jacob and the name crops up again later. It’s most likely that father and son William and Thomas worked with father and son Benjamin and Jacob – they were all shoemakers in Penrith. But what was the ‘blood’ relationship?

Here we enter another quagmire of various Benjamin Grisdales. Theoretically there are four Benjamin Grisdales who might be the shoemaker one: 1) Benjamin son of Thomas Grisdale and Mary Brownrigg, baptized in Matterdale in 1696; 2) Benjamin son of Thomas Grisdale of Dowthwaite, baptized in Matterdale in 1706; 3) Benjamin son of Edward Grisdale of Dowthwaite Head and Elizabeth his wife, baptized in Matterdale in 1711, and 4) Benjamin son of Joseph Grisdale of Townhead (Dockray) and Jane Martin, baptized in Matterdale in 1713.

Queen’s College Oxford in 1675, where many Matterdale Grisdales studied

To cut a long story short, we can exclude the Benjamin (number 3) born in 1711, because we know he died at Brownrigg Farm aged 68 in 1779. While not as certain I believe we should exclude number 2 as well because most likely he was the father of the later illustrious Reverends Browne and Benjamin Grisdale, who both went to Oxford University. This Benjamin married Watermillock girl Ann Browne in 1738. She was the daughter of  a well-to-do George Browne of Tongue whose son Joseph (Ann’s brother) not only went to Oxford but was later  to become the University’s Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy and Provost of Queen’s College! To be honest I don’t see George Browne letting his daughter marry Benjamin Grisdale the son of the rather poor Joseph Grisdale and Jane Martin of Townhead, but I may be wrong.

I don’t know what became of Benjamin number 1 born in 1696, unless of course he is the ‘pauper’ Benjamin who died in Skelton in 1787 said to be 87 years of age. I admit there is a chance that this older Benjamin was the shoemaker we are looking for but for the moment I doubt it.

If all this is correct then the Penrith shoemaker Benjamin Grisdale was the child of Joseph Grisdale and Jane Martin of Townhead (Dockray) in Matterdale, a couple who are the ancestors of numerous people I have written about on this blog. When Joseph died in 1750 he left some money to his sons including Benjamin, who was thus obviously still alive at the time.

Dockray Matterdale with Dowthwaite Head in the distance

Returning to Thomas Grisdale of Ulcatrow, the father of the shoemaker William Grisdale who married Elizabeth Stewardson in Kendal; who was he? Well at the moment I have not the slightest idea. Could he be linked in some way to the very first Josiah Grisdale who married Sarah Atkinson in Greystoke church in 1735, and who was also living in Ulcatrow in 1737 when his daughter Ann was baptized? This first Josiah Grisdale (from whom countless Grisdales are descended) has always been a complete mystery, because as far as I can see there is no mention of his birth, baptism or even death anywhere. He was clearly a respected Matterdale man because he was a Churchwarden of Matterdale church and also a witness in 1747 to the will of Edward Grisdale the brother of the late Rev. Robert Grisdale, the founder of Matterdale School. He was also a witness in 1754 at the marriage of Joseph Grisdale and Dinah Todhunter. If we could find out anything more about his place of birth or death or his parents it would clear up a lot.

So still more questions than answers. However I think with some certainty we can push the family of the nice American lady I mentioned at the beginning back one generation to Thomas Grisdale of Ulcatrow, whoever he was.

Page 1 of Kendal ‘shoemaker’ William Grisdale’s marriage bond 1762

Were the Grisdales Vikings?

This is on updated version of an earlier article.

Anybody with the name Grisdale today will, like everybody else on the planet, have an extremely mixed genealogical and genetic ancestry. They will have thousands of ancestors, some of whom will have originated in some surprising places. Surnames are usually passed down the paternal line although this is only one line among hundreds we might choose to explore.

Be that as it may. But one of the interesting aspects of the large Grisdale family is that wherever it is possible to trace a person’s ancestry it almost variably goes back to Matterdale. I have yet to find any instance of ancient Grisdale roots in Grisedale in Yorkshire (see here). My belief is that the place Grisdale from which the Grisdales of Matterdale took their name is actually modern Mungrisdale just north of Matterdale and not the Grisedale/Grisdale Beck, bridge, Tarn area just south near Patterdale  and certainly not Grisedale Pike near Kewsick. Mungrisdale was for long simply called Grisdale. See my article Which Grisdale did the Grisdales come from?

1576 map of Grisdale/Mungrisdale

 

Of course Grisdale (and its variant spellings) is in the first instance a place name. The etymology is quite clear: ‘dale’ is from the Old Norse ‘dalr’ meaning valley, while ‘gris’ is most likely from the Old Norse word gris, meaning boar, i.e. a wild pig. Whether the four Grisdales/Grisedales in Cumbria and Yorkshire were full of boars when they were settled by Scandinavians or whether they refer to the name of an original settler called ‘The Boar’ is unknown, though I tend to prefer the later interpretation.

I’ll concentrate here on the Cumberland Grisdales. Because Grisdale is a place name, then the early people taking the name were most likely styled as such because they came from there and had most probably moved some way away. They would have been referred to, for example, as John or Richard of Grisdale (or in the Norman French version John or Richard de Grisdale), to distinguish them from other Johns and Richards living nearby. If people lived in the same place, say Grisdale itself, they’d be no need to say they were ‘of Grisdale’.

Other naming patterns were also used. So one might have say a Robert (the) Butcher, John (the) Tailor or Richard Johnson (son of John). We often also find whole strings of ancestry: like John son of William son of Robert. The patronymic suffix son, as in Richardson, is a Germanic and Scandinavian usage; the Welsh used ‘ap’, Robert ap Rhys would become anglicised as Robert Price; in Scotland there is ‘Mac’, in Ireland ‘O’; while the Normans had ‘Fitz’. I’ve used names like John, Richard, William and Robert here because they were certainly common Grisdale names at a later date. But these names are all Norman and only started to be used extensively in England in the twelfth century after the Norman Conquest. Before that we might conjecture names like Sigulf (of) Grisdale – and Sigulf for example means something like Victorious Wolf! See my article When did the Grisdales become Grisdales? for a fuller discussion of names.

Let’s be more precise in locating the two Cumbrian Grisdales neighbouring Matterdale.

Today on the eastern slopes of Helvellyn, running down to Lake Ullswater, we find a valley called Grisedale with Grisedale Beck (Scandinavian for stream) running down it. At the head of the dale lies Grisedale Forest, which was once a hunting preserve of the local lords, and then Grisedale Tarn. ‘Forest’ it should be remembered did not at this time primarily refer to a wooded area (though it might be so), it was an area strictly reserved for the nobility’s hunting of deer and even boars. In Norman times, these areas were tightly controlled and protected by the lords’ foresters and by forest law. Settlement within the forests was highly discouraged, even banned. As I have argued elsewhere I don’t presently think this is where our Grisdales originally came from. I prefer Mungrisdale which was for centuries just called Grisdale. In my article Which Grisdale did the Grisdales come from? I summarized the reasons for my preference:

1747 Map of Grisdale/Mungrisdale

‘There are two reasons I now believe that it is from this Grisdale that the Matterdale Grisdales derived their name. First, (Mun)grisdale has always been part of the barony and parish of Greystoke (the earliest records of this are from the thirteenth century). Matterdale too was part of the same barony, whereas Grisedale near Patterdale never was. As the barons of Greystoke were the lords and owners of Matterdale (including Dowthwaite) it was no doubt one of them (or less likely one of their vassals) who originally granted the ‘free’ tenancy of Dowthwaite Head Farm to one of their men from Grisdale. Second, while we know that (Mun)grisdale was a small hamlet, it was a significant enough settlement not only to have an early chapel but also significant enough to be mentioned as the place of birth, death and origin of many families recorded in the registers of Greystoke and to be included in the early manorial records of Greystoke. On the other hand it doesn’t seem that the Grisedale on the slopes of Helvellyn was ever more than a ‘chase’ or private hunting ground.’

Norse Fleet

So who had settled Grisdale originally? Clearly one or more Scandinavians, whether one was called ‘The Boar’ or not. And when? Well probably in the tenth century. Present day Cumberland and Westmorland (Land West of the Moors) were originally part of a British kingdom called ‘Cumbria’. The people were British and spoke a British language called Cymric – from whence the names Cumbria and Cumberland derive. They lived all over the area, more in the more fertile flatlands surrounding the hills but also partly in the uplands too. One example of an upland Cymric settlement is Great Crosthwaite near Keswick. Certainly this is a partly Scandinavian name – ‘thwaite’ is a Scandinavian word meaning clearing. But the Cross itself refers us back to the sixth century British Saint Kentigern, and a Celtic church and cross dedicated to him had probably stood on the site for centuries before the advent of the Vikings.

The Anglo-Saxons first started to arrive in southern Britain in the fifth century, later in the North East. They hadn’t managed to make much impression in the western mountainous regions of Cumberland, though they did a little more so in Westmorland. What made more impact was the arrival of Norwegian ‘Vikings’ in the tenth century from their bases in Ireland and the Isle of Man. First they raided and then they settled.

Vikings arrive

It was most probably one of these Hiberno-Norse ‘Vikings’, who might or might not have been called ‘The Boar’, who first settled Grisdale and gave it its name. For a fuller discussion of the Norse settlement see my article The first Scandinavian settlers in North West England.

One thing of importance is that until the great Norman monasteries and abbeys were founded in the twelfth century – such as Furness and Saint Bees – and they established a huge wool industry based on upland sheep ‘granges’, most of Cumberland was still forested. When individual Norwegians wanted to settle in these remote areas they usually first had to clear parts of the forest, creating ‘thwaites’.

Turning to the name Grisdale: probably coming from present day Mun(grisdale) some people ‘of Grisdale’ started to spread out and create or join other settlements. When exactly this happened is lost in the mists of time.. The first mention we find in the historic record of someone actually called ‘of Grisdale’ was a certain Simon de Grisdale in Halton in Lancashire in the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1332. There is also a burgess and farmer called Rolland de Grisdale in the newly created town of Kendal in 1404/7.  See my article When did the Grisdales become Grisdales?.

Dowthwaite Head Farm

But the first Grisdales we can truly identify in any numbers were the Grisdales of Matterdale in the mid sixteenth century. The earliest mention is to a freee yeoman farmer John Grisdale farming at Dowthwaite Head in 1524. I wrote about John in an article called Dowthwaite Head and the first Matterdale Grisdales.  One or two other Grisdales appear quite early too in Crosthwaite and a few other Cumbrian areas, but these seem to have moved there from Matterdale.

Matterdale itself is a Scandinavian place name. It lies just a little south of Mun(grisdale) and just over the hill from Grisedale Beck near Patterdale. In later times it had three main hamlets: Matterdale End, Dockray and Dowthwaite Head. The Grisdales of Matterdale were found in all three. A major group of them became yeoman farmers in Dowthwaite Head, a place itself signifying a clearing made in the woods, probably by some Scandinavian – possibly Dudh. Others lived only a couple of miles away at Crookwath near Dockray. Crookwath means crooked ford or shallow in Old Norse. We don’t know whether such places as Dowthwaite and Crookwath were first cleared by Viking settlers in the early days of Norwegian settlement in the tenth century or much later by these settlers’ descendants, who were probably still speaking a roughly Norse language.

Crookwath Barn

We know that many people were well establised in different parts of Matterdale by 1332, because in the 1332 Lay Subsidy Roll we find their names (see here). We also find one of them was living at Crookwath and we know from people who had moved away that Dockray existed too – they took the name ‘de Dockray’.

While it seems reasonable to assume that such places as Grisdale, Matterdale, Dowthwaite, Dockray and even little Crookwath were Norwegian settlements this doesn’t necessarily mean that all subsequent people carrying the place name Grisdale as their family name were genetic descendants of these early ‘Vikings’. They quite possibly could be, but they could as well be, for instance, descendants of British Cymric people who happened ‘still’ to be living in the Grisdale area, or even later Anglo-Saxon or Norman immigrants, or a mixture of all three. If I refer today to ‘Robert from Scotland’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that Robert’s ancestors were Scots, they could have come from anywhere.

Gowbarrow Hall – A Stateman’s Farm

What is sure is that in the years after 1524 and then following Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1537 there started to be many Grisdales in Matterdale. We know this both from early entries in the Greystoke Parish records (Matterdale hadn’t yet got a church), from numerous Grisdale wils and from the Cumberland muster role in 1581 when nine Grisdale ‘bowmen’ from Matterdale turned up in Penrith to stand ready, once again, to defend Cumberland against the Scots. It was families such as these Grisdales who first started to carve out the landscape of Matterdale we see today. The Grisdale family or ‘clan’ became classic examples of what is called in Cumberland ‘statesmen’. They were still sheep farmers and tenants of the local lord but they had gained the ‘customary’ right to pass on their tenancies to their heirs. In the seventeenth century these ‘statesmen’ built single-story stone long-houses which accommodated their families and their animals, structures of Cumberland so noticeable to this day. These long-houses were either built on top of, or more usually next to, existing wooden long-houses, which often became the future barns or bryers.

What about the original question: ‘Were the Grisdales Vikings?’ The most likely conjecture is that the historic Grisdales of Matterdale had originated from not so far away (Mun)grisdale, but had done so in the fourteenth century before arriving in Matterdale towards the end of the fifteenth century from elsewhere (see here).

In addition, Grisdale was, it is clear, a Viking or better-said a Scandinavian settlement, dating perhaps from as far back as the tenth century. So it’s quite likely that they were descended, at least in the paternal line, from early Vikings, although by the time they appear in the historical record in any number, in the sixteenth century, they most likely would have had English, Celtic and even Norman ‘blood’ as well.

Greystoke Castle

Another thing to consider more is family naming patterns. These, I think, also tend to argue for a later arrival. We don’t know much about early Scandinavian naming patterns in Cumbria but there is a lot of evidence from, for example, the many Nordic and Icelandic sagas. Some of which refer to events that took place in Britain. Here the patronymic suffix ‘son’ is usually used. Even in the early eleventh century, when Scandinavian Forne became the ‘first’ Norman Baron of Greystoke, he was referred to as Forne Sigulfson and his daughter Edith, who became King Henry I’s mistress, was called Edith Fitz-Forne Sigulfson (Edith daughter of Forne, son of Sigulf). See here and here.

Surnames, as we know them today, whether derived from occupations, places of settlement, topographical features or ancestors, only really started to stabilise in the late middle ages. I discussed what we might infer from naming patterns in my article When did the Grisdales become Grisdales?

The great days of Cumbrian statesmen such as the Matterdale Grisdales were not to last. Their economic prosperity declined. Some were able to take a step up to the level of local gentry, some sank into poverty and obscurity, others moved to the squalor of the industrial towns in Lancashire, yet more joined the army or the church or they went to sea, while others emigrated. The Grisdales of Matterdale did all of these.

When did the Grisdales become Grisdales?

We know that there was a free tenant farmer called John Grisdale farming at Dowthwaite Head in Matterdale in 1524. As I have suggested before, either he, or possibly his father or even grandfather, had probably arrived in Matterdale sometime in the later 1400s (see here). We know too that Grisdale refers to where the family originally came from and when they moved from ‘Grisdale’ they would have been given the name ‘of’ or ‘de Grisdale’ by the locals to help identify which John or Edward or Robert they were talking about. I have discussed elsewhere which Grisdale this might have been (see here). My own view is that it was present-day Mungrisdale which for a long time was called simply Grisdale. But it is almost certain that the family was called Grisdale before it moved to Matterdale. Here I’d like to explore the question of when, and perhaps also where, the Grisdales first got their name.

In the future I’ll have a lot more to say about the sixteenth century Grisdales of Matterdale but let’s start with saying a little about English family or surnames – how and particularly when they arose and when they stabilized.

As in many countries in England names were for centuries just first or ‘christian’ names: Robert or Richard or if we go back before the Conquest then more likely Alfred or Harold. There was a patronymic system, so you might have Robert son of John, from where might arise Johnson. The same was seen in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Using anglicized names, in Scotland a Malcolm mac Donald, i.e. son of Donald might give the family name MacDonald; in Ireland Fergus O (son of) Neill could give the family name O’Neill; while in Wales the family name Price will have come from a son (ap) of Rhys.

I can’t help mentioning the two Irish homosexuals William fitz Gerald and Gerald fitz William. Fitz of course being the Norman-French designation for son. Hence Fitzroy – son of the king.

Before such surnames derived from ‘first’ names became fixed, simply calling someone Edward son of Alfred might not suffice so we find longer names such as Edward son of Alfred son of William.

Such a system of naming is still found in many countries. In Iceland: ‘A man named Jón Einarsson has a son named Ólafur. Ólafur’s last name will not be Einarsson like his father’s; it will become Jónsson, literally indicating that Ólafur is the son of Jón (Jóns + son). The same practice is used for daughters. Jón Einarsson’s daughter Sigríður’s last name would not be Einarsson but Jónsdóttir. Again, the name literally means “Jón’s daughter” (Jóns + dóttir).’ In Iceland too you can still find matronymic names such as Heiðar Helguson (Helga’s son). It must make Icelandic genealogy very hard.

I will later show early examples of this way of naming for real people in Matterdale and in Grisdale itself.

Another major group of English surnames derive from occupations: Wilfred (the) Smith, Henry (the) Tanner or even Margaret Thatcher. Of course Henry the Tanner’s father might not have been a Tanner, he might have been Edward the Butcher. But if you’re called Tanner then somewhere along the line the occupational name of one of your ancestors who was a Tanner became fixed and became the family name.

Then there are surnames derived from characteristics or nicknames: George Strongarm or Stephen Goodenough.

And then there is another large group of names which are locative i.e. they describe a particular place. In an existing stable community someone might be called by the house where he lived, for example Arthur (of the) Newhouse, or a very specific locality, maybe Thomas (of) Underwood. Such names when they were first used only made sense if the other members of the community knew where the ‘Newhouse’ or ‘Underwood’ was; they wouldn’t have meant much to people from elsewhere. This brings us to names such as Grisdale, names referring to slightly larger and further away places. If Jeremiah had moved to the area from Stafford he would often be called Jeremiah de Stafford. If the ‘de Stafford’ became stuck as the family name and the ‘de’ dropped as it often was we get a ‘Stafford’ family.

It is important to note that it made no sense whatsoever for some who lived in Stafford to be called ‘of’ or ‘de Stafford’, because everyone there was ‘of’ Stafford. Don’t get confused because lords of the manor often took a secondary (sometimes primary) appellation from their manor, i.e. Lord X of Stafford, or even in the late thirteenth century a certain John Lancaster de Grisdale (to whom I’ll return on another occasion). Calling someone ‘of’ or ‘de Stafford’ only made sense when someone moved from Stafford to somewhere else and his origin was used to identify him in his new home. This is the case with the name Grisdale.

One final point here: if a man moved to London from a known town such as Lincoln, Norwich or even Stafford there was a good chance that he would be given that name. But if someone moved from the tiny mountainous hamlet of Grisdale (now Mungrisdale) to London then calling him ‘de Grisdale’ probably didn’t make much sense as no one in London would have had any idea where Grisdale was. If however the Grisdale man moved to somewhere much nearer than London he might indeed have been called Grisdale – this is undoubtedly what happens with our Grisdale family. I’ll give two real examples later.

King Edward the Third

Before I do this it might be quite instructive to actually look at the real names of the principal families in Matterdale and Grisdale way back in 1332.

Since the Norman Conquest in 1066, the French-speaking kings of England would continually tax their victims, i.e. the people of England, to pay for their luxuries and incessant wars. They periodically taxed both the clergy and the laity. The later taxes are known as Lay Subsidies and are recorded in ‘Rolls’, hundreds of which still survive. There was a Lay Subsidy in 1332, the sixth year of King Edward III, and luckily it includes Cumberland. Here we find the names of the inhabitants of all the parishes, villages and hamlets, as well as the value of their goods and how much tax they should pay (in this case a fifteenth). Both Matterdale and Grisdale (now Mungrisdale and spelt Grisedale in the lay subsidy) were in the Ward of Leath, and here are the inhabitants’ names:

Matterdale 1332:

Robert son of Alicia, Henry del Crokwath, William son of Richard, William de Blatern, Richard servant of Richard, Robert son of Robert, John Gedirwit, John de Burton, Adam son of Robert, John Dickson, Adam son of Richard, Waddle forestar, Adam de Withebathin and Robert son of William

Grisedale 1332:

William Skraghird, Peter son of Hugh, William Slegh, William Riotis,  Robert son of John, Robert son of Gilbert, William son of Robert, Adam son of Peter…… there were seven more names but the Roll was ripped after Adam.

Crookwath Barn, Matterdale

What you can immediately see is how many families didn’t yet have a surname – notice all the ‘sons of’. But some family names had stabilized: William Slegh and John Dikson to name just two. It’s interesting to note that Wilfred Grisdale married Ruth Slee in Matterdale in the seventeenth century and Dickson was a common family name in Matterdale for centuries to come. And then we have the place names: further away places such as ‘de Burton’, ‘de Blatern’ and ‘de Withebathin (Wythburn?), and then local places such as ‘del Crokwath’ – Crookwath being a tenement near Dockray in Matterdale which was farmed by the Grisdales in the seventeenth century. We even find the occupational name Waddle forestar.

So in 1332 the process of stabilizing surnames in Cumberland was nowhere near finished, and you can find the same in all the other places covered by this Lay Subsidy Roll.

One point of parochial Grisdale interest is that while we can see that although families such as the Slees and Dicksons were already in Matterdale in 1332 the Grisdales clearly were not.

In England in general surnames were formed over the period of about 1250 to 1450. In the south of the country many had become fixed by 1350 but in the north, including Cumberland, it wasn’t until about 1450 that most families had a fixed name.

Now let’s return to the question: when and possibly where had the Grisdales become Grisdales?

As I have already said, it is my belief that the first Grisdales arrived in Dowthwaite Head in Matterdale in the second half of the 1400s or maybe as late as 1500. As we have seen even surnames in Cumberland had stabilized by this time and thus we can be reasonably sure that when they arrived they were already called Grisdale or just possibly still ‘de Grisdale’ and that therefore they had not come directly from Grisdale.

Where had they been before?

Are there any mentions of Grisdales before we hear of John Grisdale, the early sixteenth-century farmer at Dowthwaite head? There are just two.

In the year 1407 a certain Rowland de Grisdale held one burgage in the new town of Kendal in Westmorland from its lord Sir William Parr. He had held the same in 1404. Also in 1407 ‘Rolland de Grisedale’ held two tenements (i.e. farms) in Underbarrow/Bradley Field, just a couple of miles west of Kendal, of Sir William Parr’s son John. We know that he had held this tenement in 1390 as well.

Burgage is a medieval land term used in England and Scotland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town (“borough”) rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property (“burgage tenement”) usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land (Scots, toft), with a narrow street frontage. Rental payment (“tenure”) was usually in the form of money, but each “burgage tenure” arrangement was unique, and could include services. As populations grew, “burgage plots” could be split into smaller additional units. Burgage tenures were usually money based, in contrast to rural tenures which were usually services based. In Saxon times the rent was called a landgable or hawgable.

Burgage Plots

It’s interesting to note that almost six hundred years later another Grisdale, Richard, was farming in exactly the same place as Rolland Grisdale was in 1407! I wrote about this later Richard here.

Bradley Field Farm. Here or near here Rolland de Grisdale farmed around 1400

Now we don’t know if this Rolland/Rowland Grisdale was in any way connected with the Grisdales of Matterdale who first appear in the records about a hundred years later. But bear in mind two things. First, if Rolland de Grisdale of Kendal had children its most likely that they would have been called ‘de Grisdale’ too; the fact that we don’t find any children has to do with the paucity of the records not the fecundity of fifteenth century Lakeland people! Second, lo and behold, in 1571 in the Greystoke church records we find the burial of ‘Rolland son of John Grysdell of Matterdale’. It might of course be a pure coincidence, but it just might not.

Just try a thought experiment. If this Matterdale Rolland died as a young man in 1571 then his father John could well have been born in the first quarter of the 1500s, and indeed his father might have been the John we know was farming at Dowthwaite Head in 1524, who I think must have been born in around 1470 – 1480. If Rolland of Matterdale had been named by his father John after his own grandfather (as was often done) then we are within spitting distance of Rolland de Grisdale of Kendal. Of course this is pure conjecture, but the fact is the Matterdale Grisdales had to have come from somewhere before they arrived in Matterdale and Rolland of Kendal is the only person bearing the Grisdale name we find in any fifteenth century record.

Halton Lancashire on the River Lune

But now let’s go even further back to the very first Grisdale I can find: Simon de Grisdale. Simon appears in the 1332 Lay Subsidy Roll we have already discussed, not in the Lake District but rather in the parish of Halton in Lancashire, a few miles from Lancaster. He held a tenement in Halton of its lord William de Dacre.

Now here’s another coincidence? Because Dacre lies immediately adjacent to both Matterdale and Grisdale in Cumberland. William was the lord of this Dacre.

He (William) was born on 12 March 1265/6 in Castle Naworth, Yorkshire, the son of Ranulph and Joan de Lucy. He first married Anne Derwentwater (Derwentwater is a lake in the Lakes district of Cumbria). Next he married Joan Garnet, the daughter and sole heir of Sir Benedict Gernet, the Royal Forester.

He obtained a charter for free warren of all his demesne lands at Dacre and Halton in about 1303/4 (actually he first got the manor 1297)…. He joined the expedition of Edward I, the “Hammer of the Scots,” in to Scotland the same year. He was also engaged in the wars in Scotland between 1308 and 1311. The family had neither been rich, nor members of the baronage, but the family’s fortunes rose with the success and booty gained by William in these wars.

‘Though the Dacres and their heirs held Halton for about three centuries, their history belongs to Cumberland and there is little trace of their interest in Lancashire.’

Dacre Castle in 1802, Built by the Dacres in the mid fourteenth century

Remember too that Dacre was part of the barony of Greystoke as were Matterdale and Grisdale (Mungrisdale).

So is it too much too imagine that when William de Dacre wanted to find farmers for his new Lancashire manor he might have asked his Cumberland steward and he found a Simon living in Grisdale to whom he granted a tenement in Halton, and who then became known as Simon de Grisdale?

Again, I repeat, all this is pure conjecture. So what might we be able to say?

From what we know of English surname formation, and particularly in northern England, the most likely scenario is that sometime in the fourteenth or fifteenth century (and I would say more likely in the fourteenth) an ancestor of the Matterdale Grisdales had moved from Grisdale/Mungrisdale to somewhere else where they started to be called ‘de Grisdale’. The ‘de’ part would most likely have continued in use for quite a while before eventually disappearing – there are hundreds of examples of this. And then, I think, one of this family, called by now Grisdale (and its variant spellings), arrived to take up the farming of the tenement at Dowthwaite Head in Matterdale in the latter part of the 1400s. This might have been the John Grisdale we find in the records or possibly his father.

Could the person who originally left Grisdale have been the Simon de Grisdale we find in Halton in Lancashire in 1332? Could Rolland de Grisdale in Kendal around 1400 have been one of the family too? We don’t know but it’s certainly possible, after all if Simon and Rolland de Grisdale had sons where did they end up?

1576 Map of Grisdale/Mungrisdale

 

1747 Map of Grisdale/Mungrisdale

 

The Dutch Underground help Welsh RAF pilot Eric Grisdale

Welshman Eric Grisdale was born in Caernarvon in 1920. He started work as a clerk but when the war came Eric joined the RAF and became a bomber pilot. In the early hours of 23 May 1944 Eric was piloting a Lancaster bomber of 626 Squadron as part of a massive incendiary attack on Dortmund. Despite severe engine problems en-route the Lancaster delivered it load of fire and death on Dortmund. But while on the way home Eric’s Lancaster, now running on ‘two and a half engines’ was suddenly attacked and shot down by a German night fighter near Eindhoven in Holland. Four of the crew of seven managed to bail out safely but the other three died. With the help of the courageous Dutch Underground and Flemish partisans, Eric managed to evade capture and spent nearly four months in hiding, constantly moving around. Eventually he met up with the advancing U.S. Army and made it home.

This is Eric’s story. Actually many years after the war he wrote his own story in a short book called One of the Few. Despite my best efforts I have yet to obtain a copy (I since have click here). However from the accounts of others who talked with Eric, the squadron’s operational logs and the official RAF ‘Evasion Report’ I think we can reconstruct Eric’s Lancaster flight and his subsequent evasion.

But first let me extremely briefly tell how Eric’s very English forebears (with the Norse name) had come from Matterdale to Wales. They weren’t the only Grisdale family to do so and they certainly weren’t the first.

Llanbeblig Church, Caernavon

Like countless others I have written about on this blog, Eric Grisdale was descended from seventeenth-century Matterdale couple Joseph Grisdale (1687-1750) and his wife Jane Martin (1687-1769). We could of course go even further back. To cut a long story short, Joseph’s grandson Thomas Grisdale (1772-1841) had moved in the 1790s with some of his brothers from Matterdale to the Lancashire cotton mill town of Bolton. The whole family became cotton weavers and I have told of many of them and their descendants before. One of Thomas’s grandsons was called Elijah, born in Bolton in 1836. His father George (1807-1887) was a ‘Power Loom Weaver’. For reasons I don’t know twenty-three year-old Elijah married Llanbeblig girl Margaret Cowburne Howells in Caernarvon in 1859. The family was very poor and Elijah died in Caernarvon’s workhouse in 1878. To skip a couple of generations, RAF pilot Eric Grisdale was the great grandson of this Elijah who first brought the family to Wales. If you would like more detail please contact me.

Let’s now fast-forward to the Second World War. Eric joined the RAF on 28 February 1941. He trained with No. 26 OTU (Operational Training Unit) and did his bomber conversion with No. 1653 Conversion Unit. I haven’t got Eric’s full RAF record so I’ll just say that he was most probably a founder member of Lancaster 626 Squadron when it was formed at RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire in November 1943. The squadron undertook many bombing missions over enemy territory and Flight Sergeant Eric Grisdale was one of their pilots.

Sixteen 626 Squadron crews at RAF Wickenby in January 1944

On the 22 May 1944 a huge bombing raid took place – the destination was Dortmund. Among the 361 RAF Lancasters there were fourteen from 626 squadron, one of which, with the markings UM-U, was captained by Eric.  On board were most of his usual crew: Sgt R. A. Sindall RAF, Flight Engineer; Fg Off J. B. Morritt RCAF, Navigator; Flt Sgt R. H. Punter RCAF, Bomb Aimer; Sgt I. A. Prestwell RAF, Wireless Operator; Sgt R. J. Turtle RAF, Mid Upper Gunner and Sgt R. W. Richardson RAF, Rear Gunner. Canadian navigator Morrit had replaced Eric’s usual Canadian navigator G. A. Pierce.

Eric Grisdale and his crew at RAF Wickenby

The aircraft carried a 400lb high explosive ‘Cookie’ and 7920 lbs of incendiary bombs. It took off from RAF Wickenby at 10.30 in the evening. I am indebted for what follows concerning the flight to Tony Beeton.

‘As the aircraft crossed the Dutch coast the port outer engine started to give trouble and ran very roughly. After awhile it ran smoothly again so the decision was made to continue onto the target. The crew had an uneventful trip to the target and began their bombing run just a little behind the allotted time. As the pilot held the aircraft steady, following the bomb aimers instructions a piece of flak shrapnel hits the starboard inner engine with a loud bang but the pilot held his course until the call “Bombs Gone” when he banked to starboard and headed for home.

By now the starboard inner had lost its oil pressure requiring that it be shut down. At almost the same time the port outer engine started to give trouble again and the Lancaster was flying on two and a half engines, slowly losing height.

Lancasters being attacked by German night fighters

At about 02.00 hours whilst flying at about 19,000 ft over Holland, the Lancaster was suddenly raked by bullets from an enemy night fighter all along the port side. The port fuel tank was ruptured and the port wing caught fire and was burning furiously. The Pilot called to the crew over the intercom and found the Wireless Operator and Navigator had been killed by the burst of gunfire. He realised that the position was hopeless and as the aircraft was becoming difficult to handle, gave the order “Abandon Aircraft”.

The only response he received was from the Rear Gunner who said calmly “Do you mean now”. The pilot replied “Yes”. As the Pilot made his way down to the escape hatch in the Bomb Aimers position there was a violent explosion within the aircraft, followed a few seconds later by another. The next recollection the Pilot had was being free from the aircraft and falling towards the ground. He managed to open his parachute and watched as his burning Lancaster fell past him and crashed onto the ground. There were no signs of the other crew members.’

It sadly turned out that Sergeants  Morrit, Prestwell and Richardson had been killed, but the other four crew members, including Eric, had made it safely to the ground, where they found themselves near Asten outside Eindhoven in German-occupied Holland. Sindall and Turtle were soon captured and became POWs. Here we can read Eric’s own words, taken from the official RAF ‘Evasion Report’ written after an interview by M.I.9 at RAF Hendon on 15 September 1944, two days after Eric had flown home from Brussels. I’ll quote it in full as it’s quite brief.

23 May 44, Baled out near Eindhoven.

I was the pilot of a Lancaster aircraft which took off from Wickenby at 2230 hrs on 22 May 44. We were shot down by a night fighter, and baled out at 0115 hrs on 23 May 44. On landing I looked for other members of the crew and hid my parachute. I could see no one, so started walking South West.

After walking some distance I was stopped by a party of civilians, one of whom spoke very good English. They took me to a doctor, who treated my broken hand and cuts and bruises on my face. I was then taken to a farm about two miles from Someren… a small village South East of Eindhoven.

Next morning I was joined by F/Sgt, Punter… and we stayed at this farm for seven days.

Till 7 Jul 33, Camp near Eindhoven.

From here we moved to a camp run by the Dutch underground movement in woods near Eindhoven where we met F/Sgt. Gardner and F/Sgt. Sparkes. We were later joined by F/Sgt. Tend, R.A.F F/O Walker, R.A.F., F/O Walker, R.A.F., Sgt. Simmons, R.A.F., Sgt. Kinney, U.S.A.A.F., and Lt. Cooper, U.S.A.A.F. We remained in the camp until 7 Jul, when we moved to a farm for one night.

Crossed into Belgium.

Next morning we went by train from Venraij to Sittard. Here we lived in a private house in the town for three weeks. We were then moved to another house, near Roggel. We stayed there for two nights and then moved to a hut in the woods, where we stayed for ten days. From here we moved to a hut in an orchard near Kempen and, after two days, to a farm near Hunsel. Four days later we were taken over the border with Belgium.

We spent three nights on a farm near Kinroy. As the Germans were active in this part, we moved into the woods. After thirteen days we moved to another wood near Eelen, where we met some Belgian Partisans. We stayed with them for five days.

12 Sep 44, Contact with U.S. Troops.

The Allied lines were rumoured to be very near, and the Partisans foregathered in a wood near Rotem. We spent four days with them, but had to leave on account of an attack by the Germans. We headed. W. Towards the Allied lines.

On 12 Sep we were told by a farmer that Allied tanks were in the vicinity, and that evening we met an advanced unit of U.S. Troops.

Dutch Resistance group in 1944

I’m sure Eric’s own book provides many more details and observations, but for now I’ll leave the story here. The day after Eric and the others had met the Americans he was flown home from Brussels to RAF Hendon.

Eric had spent nearly four months avoiding capture but only succeeded with the help of many courageous Dutch and Flemish people; I’m sure he was always grateful to them.

In 1946 Eric married Enid Jones in Caernarvon, he died in 1991.

But let’s not forget the countless thousands of German civilians who died horrific deaths in cities all over Germany which were subjected to Allied fire-bombing and subsequent firestorms, as was Dortmund on this night of 22/23 May 1944.

The great American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who was a POW in Dresden and dug corpses from the rubble following a massive incendiary raid on that city in February 1945, later wrote:

You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

I do recommend you read Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughterhouse Five, unless that is it is still banned in parts of the United States as it once was.

‘A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat–heat intense enough to melt human flesh.’

Survivors of such raids told how:

The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city.

As the heat intensified people ‘either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid–often three or four feet deep in spots’.

The results of incendiary bombing

Enough of that! On a less strident note I’ll end, as I often do, with two poems:

My brief sweet life is over,

My eyes no longer see,

No Christmas trees,

No summer walks

No pretty girls for me,

I’ve got the chop, I’ve had it

My nightly Ops are done,

Yet in another hundred years

I’ll still be twenty one.

R.W Gilbert

And:

“Darky” Call by Pip Beck

Through the static

Loud in my earphone

I heard your cry for aid

Your scared boy’s voice conveyed

Your fear and danger;

Ether-borne, my voice

Went out to you

As lost and in the dark you flew

We tried so hard to help you,

In your crippled plane –

I called again

But you did not hear

You had crashed in flame

At the runway’s end

With none to tend

You in your dying …

from “A WAAF in Bomber Command”

Eric’s Lancaster was the only one of 626 squadron not to return that night. See above

So the Grisdales of Matterdale became not only Canadians, Americans, Australians and even South Africans, some, God help us, became Welsh too. I’m only joking – have a look at my name. But some Canadian Grisdale men married French Canadian women and became ‘French’ – now that’s truly beyond the pale!

Oh and it’s nice to find the Dutch still remember Grisdale’s Lancaster crew: https://www.bhic.nl/lancaster-bij-het-ven

 

 

Joseph Grisdale of Wythburn

‘Wythburn’s modest house of prayer, / as lowly as the lowliest dwelling.’ – William Wordsworth in The Waggoner

Most of the farm and buildings in Wythburn were flooded in the late nineteenth century when Thirlmere reservoir was created to supply water for Manchester, only the chapel and one farm remain, the rest is under water or has been demolished.  In 1768 a young Joseph Grisdale was already a ‘husbandsman’ there. This Joseph farmed at Wythburn for at least the next twenty years and had six children there with his first wife Sarah Graves, who he married in Crosthwaite (Keswick) church in 1773. The second of these children was the Joseph Grisdale (born 1778) who would go on to farm at Orrest Head near Windermere (see here).

Wythburn Valley by Joe Hush

In 1894 when the work on the reservoir was just finished, the famous Canon Rawnsley wrote about Wythburn church’s bell:

Thirlmere

We have come “over t’ Raaise Gap” now (Dunmail Raise). We are in Manchester at the Lakes. … That brand-new bell and its brand-new belfry of the little Wythburn Church is a bit of Manchester work … For how many years the little bell had hung in its simple cobble-stone rough-cast belfry at Wythburn Chapel one cannot say.

In a moment, at the bidding of new lords of the soil, the rough old things are demolished; replaced by something spick, span, and new. One almost wishes the good fairies would take away in the night the well-dressed stones and build up again that queer old cobble belfry; one would forgive the parish clerk, if next Sunday he should be found as his fore-elder in the office at Wythburn was once found, “astride of the roof-ridge waiting to give the ‘third ring’ to call the worshippers to prayer.” On asking that clerk of olden time why he was perched roof-high, his answer to the Wythburn priest was, “O Sir, Jemmy Hawkrigg brak yan o’ his car reapps tudder day i’ t’ hayfield, and they gat t’ bell reapp an’s forgitten to bring ‘t back ageaan, seah I’ve been fworst to git up on t’ riggin and ring wi’ my hands, and I thowt it was neah use comin’ doun ageaan between time and I’se stoppan to give t’ third round and than I’se be wi’ ye.”

Also threatened by the dam was ‘The Rock of Names’, on which Wordsworth had written:

O thought of pain / That would impair it or profane! / And fail not thou loved Rock! to keep / Thy charge when we are laid asleep.

The rock was on the right hand side of the old road, now submerged, and on it were carved the initials:

W.W. (William Wordsworth).

M.H. (Mary Hutchinson).

D.W. (Dorothy Wordsworth).

S.T.C. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge).

J.W. (John Wordsworth).

S.H. (Sarah Hutchinson).

‘As the rock could not be saved from submergence, various applications were made to the Corporation of Manchester for leave to remove it, and ultimately it was agreed to allow it to be taken to the Wordsworth Institute, Cockermouth. In attempting to do this, however, it went to pieces – it was blown up by the workmen making the dam. The fragments containing the initials were preserved, and have been built into a cairn on the solid base of the mountain, at a point above the new road diversion, in a line with the rock from which they were taken. This was done by persons in the neighbourhood.’ So wrote Philip Wilson in the 1890s. Later, in the 1980s, they were removed to the Wordsworth Museum at Dove cottage in Grasmere.

The Rock of Names

Wythburn church

Joseph Grisdale the eighteenth-century Wythburn farmer was the son of a Matterdale-born ‘Waller’ also called Joseph who was born in Dowthwaite Head, Matterdale in 1704. As a Waller he moved around a lot. He married twice and lived in Martindale and then in Dacre. Our Wythburn Joseph was born around 1748 or slightly earlier, and was most likely the son of ‘Waller’ Joseph Grisdale and his second wife Mary Sisson, who were married in Barton church in Westmorland (on the east side of Ullswater) in 1738. When his father Joseph died in Bald End How in Matterdale (to where he had returned in old age) in 1768, his Letters of Administration mention his son Joseph a ‘husbandsman in Wythburn’.

When Joseph’s mother Mary (nee Sisson) died aged seventy-seven in 1781 in Matterdale, she refers to a number of children in her Will, namely, Joseph, John, Jane, Ann, Mary, Martha and Sally. She also refers to her ‘step-daughter’ Betty Otley, who was born to Joseph Grisdale, the Waller, and his first wife Agnes Lancaster in Martindale in 1737.

Dacre on Ullswater where many of Joseph the Waller’s children were boirn

Joseph and Sarah had six children, all baptized in Wythburn Chapel. When Sarah died in 1788 aged forty, Joseph married Betty Gately the next year in Crosthwaite parish church.

It’s most likely that Joseph then took his family to farm in Langdale because we find several mentions of a Joseph Grisdale farming there in 1798.

Wythburn (Wiborn) in 1760

‘Withburn’ in 1800

 

Wythburn sheepfold

 

One unsubmerged Wythburn farm

 

 

Jeremiah Grisdale of Middle Fell Place, Great Langdale

This is the third short pictorial sketch of one line of Matterdale Grisdales who farmed around Windermere and in Langdale in the nineteenth century. The previous two concerned Jeremiah Grisdale’s farther John (see here) and grandfather Joseph (see here). Here I’ll show some pictures of the Langdale sheep farm called Middle Fell Place. Jeremiah Grisdale, whose name morphed later on to Grisedale, was the tenant farmer at Middle Fell Place from about 1887 to his death there in 1920.

Middle Fell Place, Langdale

Jeremiah was born in 1851 at his father John’s Langdale sheep farm called Stool End; he was the last of seven children of John and his wife Ann Airey. He probably stayed working with his father until he was twenty-one when he married local Langdale farmer’s daughter Jane Gillbanks Clark in 1872. Like his father and grandfather before him, Jeremiah now started work as an agricultural labourer before he could get the tenancy of his own farm.

Knott House farm, Grasmere

Over the next about fifteen years Jeremiah worked at Knott House farm near Grasmere (he might have worked elsewhere as well). Knott House farm was right next door to ‘Winterseeds’ to where his father and mother had retired in the 1870s, so they would still have been close. At Knott House Jeremiah and Jane had five children before they got the tenancy of Middle fell Place in Great Langdale in about 1887, four more children were to be born at Middle Fell.

When Jeremiah’s grandson Ernest Grisedale (the E had now been permanently added) was interviewed in Vancouver in Canada in 1980 he said: ‘My grandfather had a big sheep ranch in a place called Langdale’, this was Middle Fell Place. Ernest was the son of Jeremiah’s son Jeremiah and had attended Grasmere school before his family emigrated to Vancouver in 1913.

Middle Fell by Simon Whitfield

John died at Middle Fell Place in 1920 and his wife was still there when she died in 1931.

All the following images are of Middle fell Place.

1770

 

 

 

 

 

John Grisdale of Stool End Farm, Great Langdale

Stool End is a sheep farm in the bleak but spectacular valley of Great Langdale in Westmorland. It is much beloved as the subject of photography by the walkers in the Lake District. It was and is a mountain sheep farm. Throughout the third quarter of the nineteenth century the farmer at Stool End was John Grisdale.

Stool End Farm, Great Langdale

Grasmere Church

John was the second child of the farmer Joseph Grisdale I wrote about recently (see here). He was baptized in St. Oswald’s church in Grasmere where in the adjoining Dove Cottage William and Dorothy Wordsworth were living at that time. He spent his early years on a farm somewhere in Grasmere/Langland and then in Staveley near Kendal, but in about 1824 when John was sixteen the family came back to become tenants at Orrest Head farm near Windermere, where John would have helped his father Joseph.

John married Ann Airey in Windermere church on 6 June 1831. Now he had to establish himself as a farmer, which like his father involved several moves while his seven children were being born. First they farmed Black Moss farm just outside Windermere before moving for a very short period to the east of Kendal, to Old Hutton where they had a small farm at Eskrigg End.

Then probably in the summer of 1851  the family made its way back to near where it started and became the farmers at Stool End Farm in Langdale. Here in 1851 their seventh (surviving) child, Jeremiah, was born; he was baptized in Langdale’s Holy Trinity church on 29 June.

The family remained the tenants at Stool End for over twenty years. Sometime in the 1870s John finished his hard life as a mountain sheep farmer and retired with his wife and their son John to a former smithy called Winterseeds, just north of the village of Grasmere. Ann died in 1880 and John in 1884 aged seventy-eight.

Here are some more pictures:

Winterseeds Grasmere

 

Map showing Stool End (bottom)

 

Stool End in the distance

 

Stool End

 

 

Langdale

 

Great Langdale

Langdale Holy Trinity built in 1857

Little Eskrigg End farm, Old Hutton

Great Langdale

 

Stool End

 

Stool End

 

Stool End

 

 

Joseph Grisdale of Orrest Head Farm, Windermere

I thought I’d try something a little different. Over the next few weeks I’ll try to tell just a little about one long line of Grisdales who farmed for centuries in different parts of the Lake District. As there are few documents or interesting anecdotes, I’ll do this by focussing on their farms and by using photographs and paintings to give an impression of the places they lived and worked. Towards the end I’ll give a few genealogical pointers. Let’s start with Orrest Head Farm near Windermere.

Orrest Head lies just a mile or so up a hill from the village of Windermere in Westmorland. When you get to the top on a clear day there is a wonderful panorama over the lake of Windermere and to the high Langland Pikes on the other side. In 1930 the great Lakeland walker and writer Alfred Wainwright first visited the Lake District from his home in Blackburn. Leaving the train at Windermere he climbed the path that starts just outside the station and goes to Orrest Head. He wrote later in his autobiography:

Suddenly, we emerged from the trees and were on a bare headland, and, as though a curtain had dramatically been torn aside, beheld a truly magnificent view…

‘So enchanted was he by the views of fells and lakes that they changed his life.’ Eventually he was able to move to the Lakes and started to write his pictorial guides.

Orrest Head Farm

In the nineteenth century just before one got to the viewpoint there were a few farms. One rather unsurprisingly was, and still is, called Orrest Head Farm. For a great part of the mid nineteenth century the tenant farmer there was called Joseph Grisdale. Actually the farm had two houses; in one lived the wealthy ‘squire’ John Braithwaite with some servants – Braithwaite owned the farm – and in the other lived Joseph Grisdale with his family, who actually farmed the land – which meant mostly sheep rearing.

The BBC visited the farm in 1986 and wrote:

A typical farmer’s day at Orrest Head  farm will depend on the time of year.  Throughout the year he will get up at 6.30 a.m. to milk the cows and then have his breakfast at 8.30 a.m. In spring, much of his day will be spent  with the new lambs. Most of them are left outside and only those which are ill or without a mother are brought in to the warmth of the farm. Once they are strong enough, they rejoin the flock.

In summer, hay and silage making are the main tasks; often he does not get to bed until 1.0 a.m. In autumn he is mainly concerned with selling the lambs at the local market in Kendal, while in winter, all the repair work around the farm is undertaken, such as mending the miles of drystone walls  and repairing broken fencing.

John Braithwaite was a local worthy and benefactor of Windermere church. When he died in 1854 a memorial inscription was placed in the church:

John Braithwaite of Orrest Head in 1846 by William Bowness

In memory of John Braithwaite of Orrest Head Esquire, whose love of God and man prompted him to munificent acts in furtherance of education and religion, this monument is erected by friends and neighbours desirous to record their grateful sense of his benefactions and their esteem for his virtues. A sound understanding, kindly affections and firm integrity were united in him with a singular modesty, and rendered him, both in public and in private, useful, be- loved, and respected. For the benefit of the poor around him he added at his private cost an aisle to St. Mary’s chapel, Birthwaite; and dying on the 1st of March A.D. 1854 left the endowments herewith inscribed to promote the improved education of youth in this and adjacent parishes. His mortal remains are interred on the south outside this church in which he was for many years a devout and constant worshipper; his whole life bearing witness that he was a sincere, a humble, and a faithful Christian. Bequests of Mr. Braithwaite £2000 to the trustees of the endowed school, Bowness, the annual proceeds to be applied as an exhibition to St. John’s College, Cambridge, tenable for four years by a youth born in Applethwaite or Undermillock, educated two years in the said school and nominated by a majority of the trustees thereof; and during vacancy of exhibition, in any manner for the benefit of the said school, or of any youth or youths under the age of twenty five years who shall have been educated thereat, according to the discretion of the said trustees. £1200 to the same; the annual proceeds of one moiety to be applied towards the salary of an undermaster of the boys, of the other moiety to be applied to the salary of the mistress of the girls. £1000 to the trustees of the school for Great and Little Langdale; £1000 – for Troutbeck; £1000 -at Birthwaite ; £1000 at Ings. In the last four cases the annual proceeds to be applied as an increase to the salary of the master or otherwise for the benefit of the school according to the discretion of the respective trustees. The above bequests were left free of legacy duty.

At the time of Braithwaite’s death Joseph Grisdale had lived alongside him at Orrest Head Farm for about thirty years. In the same church there is a much more modest memorial to the first wife of one of Joseph’s sons called Jerimiah:

Sacred memory of Elizabeth Wife of Jeremiah Grisdale of Orrest -Head who died February 24th 1839 Aged 24. Weep not for me my Husband dear, I am not dead but sleeping here; My Glass is run, My Grave you see, Prepare for Death, and follow me.

Modern Painting of view towards farms at Orrest Head

Joseph Grisdale was born in Wythburn in Cumberland in 1778 the son of farmer Joseph Grisdale and his wife Sarah Graves. The family of course originally came from Matterdale and we can trace it with certainty back to 1600 if not before. I might return to Joseph the Wythburn farmer at a later date. It’s possible that after the death of his wife Sarah in 1788 Joseph senior moved with the family to the Grasmere area of Westmorland. Whatever the case it was in Grasmere church that son Joseph married a local farming girl called Margaret Coward in 1803.

At first Joseph and his wife Margaret farmed or worked on a farm somewhere nearby; I believe in Langdale. Then they moved to farm in Staveley near Kendal before finally arriving at Orrest Head Farm in about 1824; they had already had ten children and three more were soon to be born at Orrest Head. I’ll follow their second son John, born in Grasmere in 1806, in the next article. He farmed in the higher mountains at Stool End Farm in Langdale.

Just before his death Joseph moved to the Westmorland village of Crook where he died in 1861 aged eighty-three.

For Joseph’s father Joseph see here. For his son John see here.

Here are some more photographs and paintings of Orrest Head.

 

View in winter

 

view from orrest head by robin lowry

 

Windermere. from Orrest Head – James Baker Pyne. Lithograph by W Gauci

Death and photographs in Patterdale

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh! was it meet, that — no requiem read o’er him—
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him
Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?
–  from Hellvellyn by Sir Walter Scott (1806)

In 1890 a young ‘artist, photographer and landscape painter’ called Joseph Lowe set off from the barn (‘shanty’) his was living in on Home Farm in Grisedale Bridge, Patterdale. He was walking to the summit of Helvellyn to be present at the unveiling of a memorial to another young artist called Charles Gough who had died there in 1805 in mysterious circumstances. Gough’s body hadn’t been found for three months but his faithful dog Foxie had never left him. Poets wrote poems about him, painters painted paintings, as I will tell.  Joseph Lowe would have first walked along Grisedale Beck and then either turned right to climb the vertigo inspiring Striding Edge, a route Charles Gough had taken, or left via Grisedale Tarn, the easier way to the summit.

The reason I want to write about Joseph Lowe is not so much to do with the fact that he married a Grisdale girl, or even because he lived and walked in places called Grisedale (which didn’t have the E in the nineteenth century); rather he became a wonderful photographer of the Lake District in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

But I like Charles Gough’s story so much I’ll start with him.

Gough was a tourist visiting the Lake District from Manchester in April 1805, when on 17 April he decided to walk over Helvellyn to Grasmere. He took his dog, Foxie, with him and set off via Striding Edge. He was never seen alive again. Three months later on 27 July a shepherd heard barking near Red Tarn, and on investigating, discovered Foxie beside the body of her master. The shepherd summoned assistance, and a crowd returned to the scene. They collected skeletal remains and some of Gough’s belongings, which included fishing tackle, a gold watch, silver pencil and two Claude glasses. Also recovered was Gough’s hat, which had been split in two. From this it was surmised that he had fallen to his death from the treacherous Striding Edge. Foxie was found to have not only survived the months beside her dead master, but had also given birth to a puppy, which died shortly afterwards.The healthy dog and the skeletal remains of Gough led a Carlisle newspaper to report “The bitch had pupped in a furze near the body of her master, and, shocking to relate, had torn the cloaths from his body and eaten him to a perfect skeleton.” Another report suggested that Gough had been eaten by ravens.

Mystery surrounded the circumstances of Gough’s death, not only as to how he had died but why he had attempted the dangerous ascent of Helvellyn without a guide. Gough had been contracted by a local artist to copy drawings, but was renowned for being adventurous to the point of taking dangerous risks. Thomas Clarkson, who had met him reported afterwards that Gough was a “venturesome person” whose headstrong nature had caused the local shepherds alarm”. Gough was to have been guided by a man who was a volunteer in the local militia, but who was busy on parade that day. Gough’s body was subsequently buried in the Quaker graveyard in Tirril.

The story of Gough and his faithful dog so touched Lakeland poet William Wordsworth that he wrote a poem called Fidelity about it. It was much mocked at the time, but I rather like it. Fidelity (1805) can be found at the end, as well as Sir Walter Scott’s poem of the next year called Hellvellyn; an extract from which I started with. Even Edwin Landseer painted the scene of  Gough’s death, calling it Attachment, see below.

For a slightly less Romantic view of the story do read this.

 

Edwin Landseer’s Attachment

Let’s return to budding artist and photographer Joseph Lowe. He was born in Rusholme, Manchester in 1865 into a Wesleyan Methodist family. On leaving school he started to work as a ‘warehouseman’, which he was already doing in Manchester when he was fifteen. But a working-class life in the squalor of Victorian Manchester obviously wasn’t his dream. He was probably something of a Romantic because sometime in the 1880s he set off from the city and found a new home in the Lake District – one of the spiritual homes of English Romanticism. The first home he found was, as mentioned, in a barn (called a ‘shanty’) of  the farmer of Home Farm in Grisdale Bridge near Patterdale in Westmorland. Sometime later, in the 1890s, Joseph moved to a cottage in Grisdale Bridge where his immediate neighbours were the family of Robert Grisdale. Robert was the bailiff of Hall Farm.

During these early years how did Joseph make a living? ‘He had not started to advertise a studio at that time so maybe he worked from home and travelled around taking pictures of the countryside and quite possibly visiting people at their homes to take their portraits.’

By 1901 Joseph calls himself a ‘landscape photographer’ – it seems did had given up his pretentions to be a painter. ‘By this time Joseph will have been taking pictures of the local countryside and selling them to the public.’

Jessie Grisdale Lowe

It was while living at Grisdale Bridge that Joseph would have met Robert Grisdale’s daughter Jessie, who was twelve years his junior. However things happened, in 1905 forty year-old Joseph married twenty-eight year-old Jessie Grisdale in Patterdale church. The couple set up home just down the road at ‘Yew Tree Cottage’ Deepdale Bridge, still in the parish of Patterdale. Here they would live and have the photography studio until Joseph’s death in 1934.

It was probably around this time that Joseph started to produce his landscapes in postcard format for sale to the public as picture postcards were becoming very popular… he travelled all over the Lake District taking topographical photographs and he published them as postcards.

As well as being a prolific photographer, Joseph also took an active interest in the village activities and was involved in some role or another in athletics, cricket, football and rifle shooting.

It was not until 1925, when he was 60 years old, that Joseph advertised his studio in trade directories. His studio was at his home in Yew Tree Cottage at Deepdale Bridge. Maybe his travelling activities had diminished by that stage in his life.

Because of his extensive knowledge Joseph gave lectures and talks about the Lake District.

From Photographers of Great Britain and Ireland, 1840-1940

Yew Tree Cottage at Deepdale Bridge (see below for Joseph’s own picture)

In 1909 Joseph and Jessie had a son called Geoffrey who didn’t  have his father’s artistic bent and became a ‘road contractor’. Geoffrey married and moved south and later in life his mother Jessie (Grisdale) Lowe probably left Yew Ree Cottage and lived with her son. She died in 1970 aged 94 in Surrey.

To finish I’ll just briefly place Jessie Grisdale’s family. She was the fifth of six children of Hartsop-born Robert Grisdale (1845-1912), who became the bailiff of Hall Fram in Grisdale Bridge, and his wife Rachel Storey. Robert’s parents were John Grisdale (1809-1883) and his second wife Mary Brownrigg. John’s an interesting man; he was born in Hartsop Hall became a miller in Hartsop then a landowner and ‘stateman farmer’ at Beckside Farm, as well as one of the last masters of the Patterdale Hunt before it merged with the Matterdale Hunt in 1871. And John’s parents were the Robert Grisdale and (1782-1861) and Elizabeth Jackson I discussed in a previous article (see here).

Joseph Lowe

A few of Joseph Lowe’s photographs

Patterdale township

 

Yew Tree Cottage, Deepdale

 

Postcard of Ullswater and St Patrick’s Well

 

Helvellyn

 

FIDELITY (1805)

By William Wordsworth

The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog’s fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza:–

“How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber,

When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start.”

I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza in my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.

A BARKING sound the Shepherd hears,

A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts–and searches with his eyes

Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern

A stirring in a brake of fern;

And instantly a dog is seen,

Glancing through that covert green.

 

The Dog is not of mountain breed;

Its motions, too, are wild and shy;

With something, as the Shepherd thinks,

Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;

What is the creature doing here?

 

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December’s snow;

A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,

Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

 

There sometimes doth a leaping fish

Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;

The crags repeat the raven’s croak,

In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes–the cloud–

And mists that spread the flying shroud;

And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,

That, if it could, would hurry past;

But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

 

Not free from boding thoughts, a while

The Shepherd stood; then makes his way

O’er rocks and stones, following the Dog

As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found

A human skeleton on the ground;

The appalled Discoverer with a sigh

Looks round, to learn the history.

 

From those abrupt and perilous rocks

The Man had fallen, that place of fear!

At length upon the Shepherd’s mind

It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came;

Remembered, too, the very day

On which the Traveller passed this way.

 

But hear a wonder, for whose sake

This lamentable tale I tell!

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,

Repeating the same timid cry,

This Dog, had been through three months’ space

A dweller in that savage place.

 

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

When this ill-fated Traveller died,

The Dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his master’s side:

How nourished here through such long time

He knows, who gave that love sublime;

And gave that strength of feeling, great

Above all human estimate!

 

Hellvellyn (1806)

By Sir Walter Scott

 

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striding-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

 

Dark green was that spot ‘mid the brown mountain heather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,

Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,

Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,

For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,

The much-loved remains of her master defended,

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

 

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?

How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh! was it meet, that — no requiem read o’er him—

No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,

And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him

Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?

 

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming,

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

 

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,

When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

Notes

In the spring of 1805 a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Helvellyn, His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bunny, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland

Four Penrith Grisdale Sisters

This is the story of four Penrith Grisdale sisters born in the 1850s and early 1860s. Their lives turned out to be very different but they always kept in close touch to the end even when thousands of miles apart. The girls were Ann, Agnes, Emma and Hannah. Agnes Grisdale was my great grandmother.

First we need to say a little about the girls’ parents. Their father was a Penrith carpenter called Wilfred – what else! Born in 1815 in Penrith, Wilfred was the first of nine children of William Grisdale and his wife Mary Charters. Strangely enough in this rural town, William, helped by his wife, was a ‘Dancing Master’. I wrote a little about them before (see here).

Wilfred Grisdale, the sisters’ father and my 2x great grandfather

William’s was a family that spread all over the world from its origins in Matterdale: William’s brother Wilfred emigrated with his family to Canada in 1816/7 (see here); his son William emigrated to the goldfield town of Mansfield in Australia and had many adventures there (see here and here); while his London-born niece (his brother Gideon’s only child) first became a ballet dancer in Drury Lane, then married a famous painter called John William Gear, emigrated with him to Boston where he committed suicide, and ended up hawking fish in Falmouth in Cornwall (see here). There are others I could discuss.

Coming back to Wilfred, the girls’ father, he grew up with his brothers and sisters in Penrith, no doubt seeing his parents go off each day to teach dancing. But he obviously didn’t have such a bent and having done an apprenticeship he followed the more usual family route and became a joiner/carpenter.

The family lived in Rawcliffe Lane. In 1837 Wilfred married Penrith girl Hannah Robinson in St. Andrew’s church, where hundreds of the family had been and would be baptized, married and buried. Over the next ten years Wilfred and Hannah had seven children: William, Joseph, Thomas, Mary Ann, Wilfred, Elizabeth and Sarah. No doubt worn out by all this child-bearing Hannah died in 1853 at the age of thirty five.

Wilfred Grisdale again in his Penrith garden

Wilfred was left with all these children. What was he to do? Men in those days, and perhaps still today, couldn’t do without a wife and a mother for their children. If Wilfred couldn’t get another wife soon the options were the orphanage and the workhouse. So in 1855 only two years after his wife’s death he married the widowed Elizabeth Nicholson (nee Hayton), who brought with her two Nicholson children. So now there were nine children. But not content with this Wilfred and Elizabeth soon produced four more daughters, the subject of this story: Ann 1856, Agnes 1858, Emma 1860 and Hannah 1863.

As the girl’s were growing and some of their older half-siblings started to leave, the family was living in Rawcliffe Lane, the same street as Wilfred’s parents.

Wilfred Grisdale spent his last years as the caretaker of Penrith’s Liberal Club in Devonshire Street. He loved horses and gardening and died in Penrith in 1893 aged seventy-seven.

That’s enough factual genealogical background. Let me consider the later lives of the four sisters, in the order of their birth.

Ann Grisdale 1856 – 1937

Nathan and Ann (Grisdale) Thomlinson with son Dougie

Oldest sister Ann Grisdale married Westmorland farmer turned ‘Mineral water Carter’ and travelling salesman Nathan Thomlinson in Penrith in 1893. The family stayed in Penrith, living first at in Benson Row before moving sometime during the First World War to 146 Graham Street where they died: Ann in 1937 and Nathan in 1941.

They had two children but one died young. Wilfred Douglas Thomlinson (yes Wilfred again!) was born in 1895. He joined the Border Regiment in 1913 before the outbreak of war and served throughout the war in the Machine Gun Corps, mostly in India but also in North Africa. He became a Sergeant and was demobilized in 1919.

Wilfred Douglas has some family still living not far from Penrith.

Agnes Grisdale 1858 – 1925

Agnes Grisdale

Agnes was my great grandmother. Somehow and somewhere she met the Shropshire-born railway ‘fireman’ and later engine driver Frederick Lewis who lived in Southport in Lancashire. Although trains certainly came to Penrith, I think Agnes had for some reason moved to Southport sometime prior to 1885 but after 1881 when she was still with her parents working as a general domestic servant. The reason is that when Agnes married Frederick on 30 April 1885 in Southport’s St. Andrew’s church, they both said they resided in Southport. Their first child William was born in December; as I say again later: do the maths yourself. Over the next seventeen years nine more Southport children were born, making ten in total: Edith 18887, Wilfred 1889, Percy 1890, Winifred 1892, Agnes 1894, Herbert 1896, Gertrude 1898, Reginald 1900 and Edith 1902.

Throughout this time Frederick was a railway engine driver.

Notice all the ‘Grisdale’ names: Wilfred, Agnes and William, although William Lewis was Frederick’s father.

Briefly said, William Lewis 1885 joined the Royal Navy as a gunner, was commissioned in the First World War, and served for thirty years. He lived near the Chatham naval dockyards in Kent; one of William’s sons was a RAF pilot and was killed in Algeria in 1944 (see here). Son Wilfred became a carpenter like his father but found it difficult to find work so he emigrated to Massachusetts in 1911 and was soon followed by three of his sisters: Agnes, Edith and Gertrude, but only Wilfred and Agnes stayed. Percy Lewis followed his father by becoming a Southport-based engine driver all his life; he was my grandfather.

Frederick Lewis died in Southport 1913 aged fifty-two. Agnes (Grisdale) Lewis died in the same place in 1925 aged sixty-seven.

Frederick Lewis (top middle) with siblings in Southport in 1882

Obviously I never knew Agnes or Frederick, but I did know several of their children. My ‘American’ grand aunt Agnes Lewis (Agnes Grisdale’s daughter), who was said to be very like her mother, was one of the jolliest people I have ever met.  My ‘American’ grand uncle Wilfred was dearly beloved by his Massachusetts family, not a thing that is said about my Royal Navy grand uncle William.

Agnes Grisdale’s descendants today live in the United States, England, France and even Hong Kong.

Emma 1860 – 1930

Stone Mason William Lowthian with parents and son in Plumpton

Now let’s turn to the third sister Emma, born in Penrith in 1860. After living with her parents, sisters and various half siblings, she became a domestic servant in the town. In 1887 she married the Plumpton Stone Mason William Nicholson Lowthian in Penrith – William was seven years her junior.  They had four sons in Plumpton: Joseph William Simpson Lowthian 1887, Herbert Stanley Lowthian 1889, Tom Simpson Lowthian 1896 and Wilfred Edward Lowthian 1902. The family lived in first in a cottage Brockley Moor and then for most of their lives in England at ‘Hill Top’, both in Plumpton Wall.

By 1903 Emma’s eldest son Joseph W. S. had started work in Carlisle as a railway clerk with the London & North-western railway. He was still there in 1911. It was probably through his work with the railway that Joseph had the idea of emigrating to Canada. It might even have been that he had a job offer from the Canadian Pacific Railway, for whom he was to work until his retirement.

1911 was a busy year: on 2 April he was still single and working as a railway clerk in Carlisle, he must then have immediately married local Carlisle girl Phoebe Hodgson Couling before departing a few days later from Liverpool on the steamship Tunisian which arrived in Halifax Nova Scotia on the 14 April. Joseph said he was a clerk and would be that too in Canada, giving his destination as Winnipeg. Whether he ever went to Winnipeg I don’t know because in 1911 he came to Revelstoke, B.C., where he went to work for the Canadian Pacific railway. Phoebe, by now pregnant, arrived in Quebec on the ship Laurentic on 15 July 1911 and took the train to Revelstoke. There their first daughter Amy Elizabeth was born in November – you can do the maths yourself. Another daughter Phoebe was born in 1917, but mother Phoebe died giving birth, aged just thirty-one.

Emma (Grisdale) Lowthian with her four sons outside their house in Plumpton before they started the move to Canada and the US

But going back to Cumberland, Emma’s husband, the Stone Mason William Lowthian, had died in 1912 aged forty-five. Two years later Emma’s third son Tom Simpson followed his brother to Canada and settled in Field, British Columbia, where he too became an ‘agent’ on the railway. Tom was drafted into the Canadian army, went to fight in France but returned safely at the end of 1918. Back in England in 1915 his younger brother Herbert Stanley, by now living in Penrith, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was killed in Flanders in 1917.

Portland, Oregon in the 1920s

All this left Emma and her youngest son Wilfred Edwin the only members of the family still in England. This changed in 1922 when they both arrived in Canada on the S/S Montrose, their passages having been paid by Joseph in ‘Vancouver’. Emma said she was coming ‘to keep house for son (who is a widower)’. Actually Joseph had already moved from Vancouver to Seattle in Oregon in 1918, where he was working in the Canadian Pacific’s traffic department as a ticket agent; he moved again to Portland in 1924 and ‘was retired on pension June 30, 1952’. He died in 1953 having been married briefly again in 1924 to an interesting Washington D.C. woman called Maude Sedalia Proctor (worthy of a separate story). He somewhere also had a daughter called Mary.

Brother Tom Simpson moved from Vancouver to Seattle after his marriage in 1924 and had two sons there. Brother Wilfred (Fred) moved to Washington State, married and had one son also called Wilfred.

Emma (Grisdale) Lowthian died in Portland in 1930 aged 70; many of her descendents still live in Oregon, Washington and elsewhere in the United States.

Hannah Grisdale 1863 – 1947

The four Grisdale sisters together

Unfortunately we don’t know much about the youngest sister Hannah; all I have are a few pictures. She never married and after a life in domestic service in Cumberland and Cheshire died in 1947 in Carlisle aged eighty-four. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t worn out by having children that she lived so long?

I know this has been a bit of a wiz through countless lives, each one of which probably merits a story of its own. To finish I’d like to mention two things. First, I said that the sisters always kept in touch. I know this is true from communications with various descendants of the sisters. Letters were sent backwards and forwards from Oregon. The Thomlinsons and the Lewis’s visiting each other. When Agnes Grisdale died in 1925 flowers and greeting came from the Oregon family. I have lots of other examples.

In my own grandfather’s diary I find several mentions of him going to visit his cousin ‘Dougie’ Thomlinson (i.e. the ex-soldier Wilfred Douglas Thomlinson). But by now all the personal links are gone. When we discover a relative linked to us by the four sisters we are surprised, and I hope delighted too. Such is the way of the world.

Wilfred Grisdale’s house in Deerfield, Michigan. His father, grandfather and great grandfather were all called Wilfred!

Second, I want to mention the name Wilfred. In my Grisdale lineage it is almost the defining family feature, like say Robert is in other lines. It all goes back to the Dockray, Matterdale Blacksmith Wilfred Grisdale (1711 – 1795). Very late in life Wilfred had a number of children with his second wife Ruth Slee. From them are sprung the literally hundreds of Wilfred Grisdales, or people with Wilfred as a middle name, who were and are found throughout the world. This is true in Canada and the United States as well as in Britain. It was even once true in Australia. See here for just one example.

Not only was there my 2x great grandfather, the Wilfred Grisdale I began with, but my ‘American’ grand uncle was called Wilfred Lewis too.

Now this Blacksmith Wilfred was not the first of that name in Matterdale, he was the second. The first was a Wilfred Grisdale born in 1675 in Hollas (The Hollows). He went on to make a fortune in London as a brewer before returning to Cumberland as a lord of the manor. Even after his death his money paid to build Wordsworth House in Cockermouth where the Lakeland poet William Wordsworth was born and raised (see here).

My grandfather Percy Lewis with two of his brother Wilfred’s grandchildren in Massachusetts the 1950s

From Matterdale to Alberta – the story of the English past of one Canadian Grisdale family

One probably rather cold day in October 1911 a large Grisdale family were walking the last few miles from the railway station in Okotoks near Calgary in Alberta to meet father Robert who had been working on a cousin’s ranch since the spring. The family consisted of Nancy, Robert’s wife, and his eight children. News of the family’s arrival in Canada from England hadn’t yet reached Robert and when two of his sons, Robert (Bob) and Thomas (Tom), ran ahead of the others and rounded a corner of a large barn, father Robert was surprised to say the least. His grandson Bill said that his father Tom ‘would never forget the look on his father’s face’.

Okotoks Railway Station in 1909

I’ll return at the end to say just a little about the family’s life in Canada, where a veritable clan of descendents still live. But here I’d mostly like to say something about the family before it took the big decision to emigrate and why it had done so. I’ll tell something too of the family’s deeper history.

Robert, who was so surprised by his family’s arrival, was born in 1867 in Benson Hall in Scalthwaiterigg in Westmorland in England, the first of four children of a young but up-and-coming farmer called Richard Grisdale and his wife Agnes Martindale. He was baptized Robert Edward – Robert after so many of his ancestors and Edward after his maternal grandfather Edward Martindale. The imposing Benson Hall, where Robert was born, was the farming home of the Martindales. Today it is a listed building.  I’m afraid I don’t yet have a photograph so here’s how it’s described in the Listed Buildings Report, you can skip this bit if you want:

Possible pele tower at Benson Hall. The present building of C17 and C18 date appears to contain an earlier tower within the existing building. Farmhouse. Probably C16 with C18 and C19 extensions.

Stone rubble with slate roofs. West facade of 3 storeys and 3 bays, 2nd and 3rd bays are C18. Windows have flat arches and are sashed with vertical glazing barns and horns; 1st bay of ground floor has small light. Possible loop to 2nd floor. Entrance to 2nd bay has C20 door. Gable-end stacks.

North return has sashed windows and attic windows. South return has blocked entrance and 2 windows, the 1st former entrance, under dripcourse, to ground floor. East elevation has projection to north end under catslide roof and with canted angle. Round-headed stair window has small-paned fixed glazing with top intersecting glazing bars. Large single-storey gabled C19 extension.

Interior has thick wall, the original east wall to 1st bay, with entrance passage through, which has draw bar holes to former external entrance. Oval holes in floors above passage have iron grilles in timber frames and rectangular hole in attic floor, probably for hoisting purposes. Spiral stair opens off passage. Vaulted chamber to ground floor. Stair has open string; upper flight has 2 turned balusters to the tread, and balustrading to 2nd floor. 6-fielded-panel doors with H-L hinges and drop handles.

Room to 1st floor has entrance to spiral stair and closet with opening to small chamber in floor, possibly priest hide, cased beams, dado rail and cornice, fireplace has eared architrave, lattice frieze and dentilled cornice; similar room has later partition. Attic, not inspected, has moulded beams with run out stops, probably C16, and access down ladder to chamber in north-east angle, said to be cock pit but possible priest hide or storage space.

Shortly after Robert’s birth, his father Richard somehow managed to get the tenancy of a 700 acre farm called Barrowfield in not too distant Underbarrow, just west of Kendal. More children were born there: Jane 1869, Thomas 1871 and John 1873.

Barrowfield Farm

Richard was still in his twenties as his family grew and things looked promising. After all although all his ancestors had been farmers none had had a farm as large as 700 acres. But tragedy was soon to strike. In 1876 Richard Grisdale died aged just twenty-nine. The cause of Richard’s death I have yet to ascertain. So Agnes was left with four young children and certainly couldn’t stay at Barrowfield Farm any longer. I am sure Richard’s premature death profoundly altered the whole subsequent history of the family, to which I will return.

Boredale Head farm

Let’s go back a bit, even a lot, because of course these Grisdales, like almost if not all others, hailed from Matterdale and more specifically from Dowthwaite Head farm (see here). In a previous article I told of how an earlier Robert Grisdale (born in 1705 in Dockray, Matterdale) had moved from Matterdale, married Johnby girl Esther Gatesgarth, and in about 1738 taken the tenancy of Boredale Head farm in Martindale in Westmorland, which lies on the other side of Ullswater from Matterdale (see here). I also told of how some of his sons moved to farm and run an inn in nearby Patterdale and Hartsop in the 1770s. One of these sons was Thomas Grisdale (1746-1813). I’m sorry there are and will be so many Roberts and Thomases!

Probably in 1774 Thomas took over Caudale Beck farm on the shores of the small lake called Brothers Water near Hartsop. After his death there in 1813 one of his nephews took the farm. But two of Thomas’s sons, Robert (1782-1861) and George (1789-1864), who were both born at Caudale Beck farm, went to farm at the next-door but more imposing Hartsop Hall, probably in about 1809. George eventually moved on to farm elsewhere in Patterdale, but Robert kept the tenancy of Hartsop Hall until his death in 1861, being helped in the early years by his large family.

Caudale Beck farmhouse

Hartsop-born Robert had married Elizabeth Jackson in Martindale in 1807; their children were: Thomas 1808, John 1809, Elizabeth 1811, Robert 1815, Jane 1817 and Mary 1820, all except Thomas born in Hartsop. Thomas the first child was born in Martindale at the former Grisdale farm called Boredale Head (or Dale Head for short). It seems clear to me that what happened is that sometime in his youth Robert went back to work on Boredale Head farm where Elizabeth Jackson’s parents John and Elizabeth Jackson were now the tenants; we find the Jackson family there in 1787 in the Constable’s census of Westmorland, including young Elizabeth herself. There Robert met Elizabeth and they married and had their first child in Martindale in 1808 before moving back to Hartsop. We don’t know a great deal about the life of Robert Grisdale Senior of Hartsop Hall, just two things might be of interest. In 1903, the Rev W. P. Morris, the Rector of Patterdale wrote in The Records of Patterdale:

Robert Grisdale, the then farmer (of Hartsop Hall), was one night riding home on horseback from Cockermouth when he was accosted by two of them (a gang of robbers) when coming through Dockray. He at once perceived what their intentions were, but he showed them his pistol and galloped home in safety. It was not considered safe for any person to be out when darkness had set in. The gang consisted of four men, who went about wearing masks and carrying rifles and pistols.

On another occasion:

There is a right of way through the house. It was into this house that the notorious gang of burglars attempted to enter with the intention of murdering the whole family. These desperadoes were the terror not only of the neighbourhood of Patterdale, but also in and about Penrith.

Hartsop Hall

I gave a fuller version of this story in an article called Robert Grisdale’s Escape (see here). Another aspect of his life that is I think worth mentioning is that while he was the farmer at Hartsop Hall the Patterdale Hunt kept its fox-hounds there. The Rev. W. P. Morris also wrote:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were two packs of foxhounds in the neighbourhood — one at Patterdale, and the other at Matterdale. The masters of both packs were very proud of their respective charges, and great jealousy existed between the huntsmen. There was, therefore, great rivalry between the two villages. It is said of a gentleman now dead that on one occasion he saw the hounds coming in full cry in the direction of his own house, with reynard before them. He enquired whose hounds they were. “Patterdale,” was the reply. “Then I join you,” and good sport they had.

Years ago the Patterdale hounds had their abode at Hartsop, and they were afterwards removed to near Patterdale Hall, where they remained until about thirty years ago. In or about the year 1871 the two packs became one, and were placed together in the kennels at Grassthwaite How.

The last master of the hounds before amalgamation was John Gelderd, and his predecessors were John Grisdale and John Walton…

Given that the pack ‘had their abode’ at Hartsop Hall, I guess Robert Grisdale Senior was one of the huntsmen. Note that John Grisdale (his son) was one of the last masters of the Patterdale hounds before amalgamation with Matterdale in 1871.

Staying with the fox hunting stories, as I said the fourth child of Robert of Hartsop Hall was also confusingly called Robert; he was born in 1815, probably in the Hall. He grew to maturity when the Patterdale fox-hounds were based there. It seems he achieved some renown as a huntsman because in about 1880, long after he had moved to farm at Yoad Pott farm in Selside (which I will tell about), the Patterdale fox hunt came to Selside to cheer him up. A poem was written to ‘celebrate’ this rural event. It was republished in the Horse and Hound in 1940 and I thank a Canadian Grisdale for sending it to me:

 Tis of Selside famed fox chase I’m going to relate

In the year 1880 that well known date

When to cheer Robert Grisdale of fox hunting fame

To Yoadpot, the fox hounds from Patterdale came

Joe Bowman the huntsman, that glorious morn

Aroused the gay start with his shrill bugle horn

Far famed was our huntsman, far-famed was his pack

Nor beauty nor music nor speech did they lack

You’ll always find him just the same

At Grasmere sports you’ll hear his name

His Mardale Hunts will live in fame

Away my lads away.

So Robert Grisdale, born and brought up at Hartsop Hall, was far-famed as a huntsman and ‘far-famed was his pack’, ‘at Grasmere sports you’ll hear his name, his Mardale Hunts will live in fame’. How did the famed huntsman Robert Grisdale move away from the environs of Ullswater, where the family had been from at least the late 1400s, to ‘faraway’ Selside just north of the Westmorland county town of Kendal? (I mean faraway by English not Canadian standards.)

Lake District Fox Hunting

In 1846, aged thirty, Robert had married Jane Ward in Selside chapel. Jane’s father, Richard Ward, was at the time of Jane’s marriage a farmer at Forest Hall farm in Fawcett Forest, Westmorland, i.e. in Selside. Maybe with Richard Ward’s help Robert Grisdale as able to get the tenancy of Yoad Pot farm, where the Patterdale fox hounds visited him in 1880. Perhaps Robert and Jane’s marriage was a bit of a shotgun affair? They were married on 11 June 1846 and their first child Richard, named after Jane’s father, was born a few weeks later on 19 July 1846 at the Ward family farm, Forest Hall. Nine more children followed over the next twenty-four years.

Map showing Yoad Pot, a few miles NNE of Kendal (at the top)

I’m trying to stay with the direct ancestry of Canadian emigrant (or immigrant if you’re Canadian) Robert Edward Grisdale, because this Richard Grisdale was Robert Edward’s father. If I considered brothers and sisters of all these Grisdales we’d soon be all over the place and all over the world!

Richard Grisdale and Agnes Martindale

Richard and his many siblings grew up at Yoad Pott farm (now spelt Yoad Pot); but in 1867, aged 21, he married Agnes Martindale in Kendal parish church. Agnes’s father, as I mentioned at the start, was the yeoman tenant farmer of Benson Hall and this is where Richard and Agnes’s first son Robert Edward was born in 1867. Now we come full circle to where we began. It’s not a thing I usually do but I’ll repeat what I said earlier.

Shortly after Robert’s birth his father Richard somehow managed to get the tenancy of a 700 acre farm called Barrowfield in not too distant Underbarrow, just west of Kendal. More children were born there: Jane 1869, Thomas 1871 and John 1873. Richard was still in his twenties as his family grew and things looked promising. After all although all his ancestors had been farmers none had had a farm as large as 700 acres. But tragedy was soon to strike. In 1876 Richard Grisdale died aged just twenty-nine. The cause of Richard’s death I have yet to ascertain. So Agnes was left with four young children and certainly couldn’t stay at Barrowfield Farm any longer.

What was widow Agnes to do? She sent her eldest child, our Robert Edward, to live back to Benson Hall where he was born in Benson Hall with her brother Robert Sinkinson Martindale and his wife Agnes and their family. Here we find him in 1881. Agnes herself moved from Yoad Pott to the nearby resort town of Bowness-on-Windermere with her children Jane and Jane and opened a ‘lodging house’ in Craig Walk – what we might perhaps call today a ‘bed and breakfast’ or even a hotel. Son Thomas, who was born in 1871, went elsewhere, but he stayed in the area because he was still working as a ‘servant’ in Scalthwaiterigg in 1891.

But widow Agnes Grisdale (nee Martindale), Robert Grisdale’s mother, soon remarried. In 1882 she married carpenter William Abel Jeffrey in Windermere. William was nine years her junior. They continued to live in Craig Walk in Bowness with Jane and John Grisdale and had three children together before Agnes’s death in 1897.

The next we hear of Canadian immigrant Robert Edward is in May 1891 when he married Nancy Bewley in Skelsmergh  church near Scalthwaiterigg. Between 1892 and 1909 eight children were born in Bowness to Robert and Nancy, all of whom survived and made it to Canada. They were: Jennie 1892, Annie 1894, Agnes 1897, Robert Edward 1899, Thomas Bewley 1901, John/Jack 1904, Nancy 1906 and Jessie 1909. The Bewley family originally came from Beck Grains near Uldale in Cumberland (where Nancy was born), but by the later 1800s had moved slightly south to Low House Head on Dunmail Raise near Wythburn.

Robert Edward Grisdale as a Carter/Carrier in Westmorland

At the time of his marriage to Nancy Bewley in 1891 Robert was still working as ‘farm servant’ on his uncle Robert Martindale’s farm at Benson Hall in Scalthwaiterigg. We can probably therefore surmise that since the age of 8 when his father died Robert had been brought up with his uncle’s family. He no doubt met Nancy Bewley nearby because the Bewley family had recently moved to the area. But the young couple soon moved to Bowness-on-Windermere to live in Craig Walk, the same street where Robert’s remarried mother Agnes was living with William Jeffrey and Robert’s siblings and two (soon to be three) new half-sisters.

But very soon after Robert struck out on his own. He became a self-employed ‘carter and carrier’, a profession he would continue until his move to Canada in 1911. In 1901 the family were living in Craig Walk in Bowness but sometime thereafter they moved to 2 North Terrace in the same town where we find them on  2 April 1911, Robert being called a ‘general carrier’.

2 North Terrace, Bowness

But only a few weeks after the 1911 UK census had been taken on 10 May ‘Horseman’ Robert Grisdale was on board the British-built Canadian Pacific Railroad steamship Monmouth in Avonmouth (Bristol) bound for Montreal. How had this come about? The family story is that Robert had found it well-nigh impossible to support a family including a wife and eight children as a self-employed ‘carrier’. Bill Grisdale, one of Robert’s Canadian grandsons told a Canadian newspaper:

They were starving; my grandfather couldn’t look after the wife and kids. He had a livery stable, but the word is in the family that they just couldn’t live.

 

 

George Hoadley

By 1911 Robert was forty-three years old and he needed to find another way to support his family. What seems to have happened is that he was offered a chance by a Wetheral-born cousin called George Hoadley who had emigrated to Canada in 1890 and was now an established rancher outside Okotoks in Alberta. His ranch was called Wetheral, named after his place of birth in Cumberland, and he would go on to be a successful Alberta politician (see here).

The family story goes that Robert sold his carting business and George Hoadley paid for his passage to Canada in return for accompanying some horses to be brought from England to George’s ranch in Alberta – hence Robert description as ‘Horseman’ in the manifest of the steamship Monmouth. Remember Robert, like so many of his ancestors, was in some way a ‘horseman’.

So Robert went to Canada without his family and after he arrived in Montreal in late May 1911 he no doubt guided the horses by train to cousin George Hoadley’s ranch near Okotoks, where he started to work. But how to get his family to join him? Again the family story is that his brother John (who by now was living in York working as a ‘Ladies Tailor Costumer (sic) & Fur Dealer’) agreed to lend the money for the passage of his brother’s family to Canada.

The family in about 1910 before their emigration to Canada

And thus it was that in October 1911 Nancy Grisdale and her eight children made the trip from Bowness in Westmorland to the great imperial port of Liverpool and on the 6th of October boarded the steamship Corsican bound for Montreal, where they all safely arrived on 12 October after a journey of only six days. They gave their destination as Okotoks in Alberta.

Steamship Corsican in 1911

We’re on the final straight here. I won’t be presumptuous enough to tell the story of this Grisdale family in Canada. In 2011, the 100th anniversary of the family’s arrival, many of Robert and Nancy’s descendants gathered in Okotoks to celebrate. They wrote and published a book called Just Another Mile… from The Lake District to Okotoks and Beyond, telling many family stories. Referring to Nancy and the children’s arrival in Canada the books says:

From Montreal they travelled by train to Calgary Alberta arriving Oct. 16, 1911.  Robert had not yet received the letter telling him of their arrival date so when they go off the train in Calgary, he was not there to meet them.  It was later learned that Senator Patrick Burns had noticed Nancy and her brood of eight children.  He then treated them all to hot chocolate and saw them off on the correct train to Okotoks.  Again arriving in Okotoks Robert was not there to meet them.  Upon making enquiries as to where they could find him Nancy was told to follow the track as he could be found just another mile west.  The entire family with all their baggage walked up the track to the Hoadley Ranch.  Robert (Bob) Jr. would recall years later telling the story of how he and his brother Tom ran ahead of the rest to a big barn and as they ran around the corner of the barn they ran right into their father.  They said they would never forget the look on their father’s face.

The second Grisdale house in Okotoks

Hence the name of the book “Just Another Mile….”. A report in the Calgary Herald tells of how ‘the family suffered that first winter on the unforgiving prairies, with “hardly enough woollens to go around,” but how, like so many other tenacious pioneers back then, they stuck it out and established themselves as pillars of the community’. Robert’s grandson Ted (Edward), born in Okotoks in 1932, said that the family lived at the farm (George Hoadley’s) for a short period before eventually moving to Okotoks where Robert and Nancy lived and worked for the rest of their lives. He added:

He (Robert) did an awful lot, he had a shop where he made windows and doors and he did a lot of finishing stuff. He worked in the lumber yard for a time in Okotoks and had several different jobs.

And then:

When I was growing up, I couldn’t stand on a street corner in Okotoks without bumping into another Grisdale.

And here I will leave the family; anyone interested in finding out more about the family’s Canadian history can visit the family’s website: http://grisdale2011.wordpress.com/. I am grateful to the family for their help and many of the pictures.

The family in Alberta circa 1920

 

The Monmouth on which Robert Grisdale ‘Horseman’ travelled to Canada

Another view of Barrowfield Farm where Robert Edward spent his early tears

The Grisdales of Patterdale and Hartsop

Lying just south of Ullswater is the village of Patterdale, and just south of that you reach Hartsop, before climbing the long hill to Kirkstone Pass. Throughout the nineteenth century there was a large Grisdale yeoman farming family in Patterdale and Hartsop, whose descendants have spread all over the world. I have long wanted to say something about the family but didn’t know how to start. So I’ll start once again with William Wordsworth.

Written in March while resting on the bridge at the foot of Brothers Water

The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green fields sleep in the sun;
The oldest and the youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow has retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the hill;
The plowboy is whooping—anon—anon:
There’s joy in the mountains;
There’s life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!

William Wordsworth, 1802

Brothers Water

William and Dorothy Wordsworth visited Hartsop in April 1802.  Their experiences of visiting in spring are recorded in the poem above, ‘Written in March while resting on the bridge at the foot of Brothers Water’. As one critic commented, ‘William obviously decided that March rather than April was more appropriate for the theme of spring! Dorothy Wordsworth described the people at work around Hartsop, ploughing, harrowing and sowing and spreading manure on the fields using pitchforks.   She also made reference to the ‘hundreds of cattle in the vale’. They then walked on past Hartsop Hall where William composed another poem to describe the crags looking up from Dovedale:

Unimaginable sight!

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,

Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,

Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,

Molten together, and composing thus,

Each lost in each, that marvellous array.

Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge

Fantastic pomp of structure without name,

In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped.

Right in the midst. An object like a throne

Three years later, in November 1805, Dorothy Wordsworth once again walked over the Kirkstone Pass and down into Hartsop.  ‘She remarked on the beauty of the fields below Brothers Water.  “First seen like a lake, tinged by the reflection of yellow clouds.  I mistook them for the water; but soon we saw the lake itself gleaming with a steely brightness; then as we descended appeared the brown oaks, and the birches of lovely yellow and, when we came still nearer to the valley, the cottages and the lovely old Hall of Hartsop with its long roof and elegant chimneys”’

Hartsop Hall

As William and Dorothy looked around Brothers Water they would have seen only two farms lying just south of the lake: Hartsop Hall (which they walked past) and Caudale Beck Farm; this is likely where they saw ‘the oldest and the youngest’ at work. Both these farms belonged to members of the Grisdale family throughout much of the nineteenth century. When Wordsworth composed his poem the yeoman farmer at Caudale Beck Farm was without any doubt Thomas Grisdale (1746-1813) who arrived there probably in about 1774 when he married. It was his family no doubt that Wordsworth referred to as ‘the oldest and the youngest’ at work.

Thomas’s son Robert (1782-1861) would later become the farmer at the more imposing Hartsop Hall. His other sons John and George would also become yeoman farmers in an around Hartsop.

The Wordsworths were of course Romantics. A slightly different, and rather condescending, view of the hamlet of Hartsop itself, which lies at the northern end of Brothers’ Water, was given by the intrepid traveller Celia Fiennes when she passed through Hartsop in 1698. She described the farming tenements:

Here I came to villages of sad little huts made up of drye walls, only stones piled together and the roofs of some slatt; there seemed to be little or noe tunnells for their chimneys and have no morter or plaister within or without; for the most part I tooke them at first sight for a sort of houses or barns to fodder cattle in, not thinking them to be dwelling houses, they being scattering houses here one there another, in some places there be 20 or 30 together; it must needs be very cold dwellings but it shews the lazyness of the people; indeed here and there was a house plaster’d’, but there is sad entertainment – that sort of clap bread and butter and cheese and a cup of beer all one can have…

Caudale Beck farmhouse

About a century later in 1790 Joseph Budworth described Hartsop as he descended from Kirkstone Pass:

We see at the bottom of the road part of Bridder Water (Brothers Water), which looks as if embayed in mountains, with trees and copse woods on its margin, giving it the appearance of a fish pond in a large garden…  On entering the vale of Hartsop, we have a full command of Bridder Water, this small dale though not clothed with good grass, is prettily wooded, and is beneath a semi-circular mountain with misshapen interstices, forked like lightning, but which are effects of conveyers of torrents; hanging proudly over the valley, as if to deter any inhabitants from fixing there and I did but observe one house.

I will come back to the Grisdales of Patterdale and Hartsop later, but first let’s go back a little, back one generation.

Robert Grisdale was born in Dockray in Matterdale in 1705, the seventh child of farmer Thomas Grisdale and his wife Mary Brownrigg, who had farmed both at Crookwath and Old Mills. Before that Thomas’s father, another Robert, had also farmed at Crookwath and his father, yet another Robert, came of course from the cradle of the Matterdale Grisdales, Dowthwaite Head.

Having no doubt worked on the family farm as a young man, Robert married Esther Gatesgarth from Johnby in St Andrew’s Church in Greystoke in 1735. Whether Robert had already moved from Matterdale when he married we don’t know, but by 1738 the family had moved and were the tenants of Boredale Head Farm (sometimes called Dale Head) in the remote valley of Boredale – midway between Martindale and Patterdale, to the east of Lake Ullswater.

Boredale Head farm

Robert and Esther weren’t the first Grisdales to move from the west of Ullswater, where we find Matterdale, to the lake’s eastern parishes of Patterdale and Martindale, and they wouldn’t be the last. But they were the family who were to stay longest in the area and are the ancestors of many Grisdales today in the UK, North America and Australia.

As they farmed the rocky soil in Boredale, Robert and Esther had four children: Robert 1738, John 1741, Elizabeth 1744 and Thomas 1746, all born at Boredale Head Farm and all christened in Martindale’s tiny chapel.

The number of descendants of these four children is truly enormous and they spread not only all over England (such as to Lancashire and Liverpool) but also around the world: to Canada and Australia and elsewhere. Here I will focus on just a few who first remained in Martindale but then moved to farm in Patterdale and Hartsop.

Boredale

The first son Robert (born in Boredale Head in 1738) married Elizabeth (Betty) Park in Grasmere in 1774. He became an Innkeeper in Hartsop (he and his family were already there in 1787 and he  most probably came in the 1770s) and died in Hartsop in 1817. One of his sons was called John Grisdale (1774-1854). He married Dorothy Harrison in Patterdale in 1805 and at some point took over the tenancy of Caudale Beck farm on the shore of Brothers Water in Hartsop. But when John died his son, also called John (born in about 1811), seems to have disappeared or died and thus couldn’t follow his father as the farmer at Caudale Beck.

Actually this John (1774) wasn’t the first of the family to farm at Caudale Beck in Hartsop. His uncle Thomas Grisdale (born in 1746 to Robert Grisdale and Esther Gatesgarth) was already the ‘yeoman’ farmer there in 1787 and had probably taken the tenancy in 1774 when he married local Patterdale girl Jane Atkinson. Eight Grisdale children were born at Caudale Beck Farm between 1775 and 1793, but not all survived. Thomas died at Caudale Beck in 1813. His son John (born 1775) married Dorothy Jackson in Patterdale in 1807 and went on to farm at Beckstones farm near Patterdale until his death in 1851. Thomas’s other son Robert, who was born at Caudale Beck in 1782 and had initially gone back to farm in Martindale but sometime in the 1810s he became the tenant farmer at the more imposing Hartsop Hall,  literally just across the field from Caudale Beck and adjoining the road as it starts its long climb to Kirkstone Pass. I wrote a little about this Robert Grisdale and one of his adventures here.

I know this array of John, Thomas and Robert Grisdales is bewildering, and I haven’t even mentioned the Georges, or the women! If anyone would like better explanations of the people involved and their relationships they can contact me or look at my Ancestry tree. I will probably write more about some individuals in the future.

Basically what we see here is various members of the family of Robert Grisdale and his wife Esther Gatesgarth first living and working on the family farm at Boredale Head in Martindale and then moving to in the 1770s to Patterdale and Hartsop, to farm at Caudale Beck, Beckstones and Hartsop Hall. Some of the family are still in the area.

Painting of Beckstones Farm, Patterdale

When the Wordsworths made their visits to Hartsop and observed the scene around Brothers Water the ploughboy whooping and ‘the oldest and the youngest at work’ on the shore of the lake were most likely the family of Thomas Grisdale of Caudale Beck farm.

Of course the Wordsworths were ‘Romantics’ and life in Hartsop was hard for the farmers and others. When James Clarke visited Hartsop in around 1787 he concentrated on the decline of the community at Glenridding north of Hartsop after the arrival of the lead miners. He writes:

It is unlikely that Hartsop witnessed the same influx of miners given the lack of miners’ cottages in the village.  Miners working in Hartsop appear to have walked from Patterdale each day.

A Hartsop cottage

One of this Grisdale family ended up a miner in the mines Clarke saw; I might tell his story another time.

One writer wrote this:

While the sight of tenants going about their work may have appeared romantic to visitors and poets, it is clear that farming was difficult in Hartsop.   It is clear that there was little good arable land.  A survey of Hartsop and the southern part of Patterdale made in 1839 recorded the existence of some 300 acres of arable land, although how much of this was regularly under the plough is not known.  A further 920 aces were classed as meadow by the survey made in 1839, although much of this is likely to have been of poor quality.  An earlier account of the meadow land belonging to Hartsop Hall Farm in 1823 (when Robert Grisdale was the farmer) described it as being of little worth, adding that the ‘the chief part of it wants draining, and the sheep pastures too dry and rocky’.

‘Making hay’ and janglings – the life of the curates of Matterdale

Many of the Matterdale Grisdales became priests. I’ve written about a few already, notably the Rev. Dr. Robert Grisdale, the founder of Matterdale school; John Grisdale, who was curate of Troutbeck in Westmorland; Solomon Grisdale who died in  mysterious circumstances; and Benjamin Grisdale who was with his friend General Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown, when the Americans finally won their independence. There are many more. At the upper end of the scale was the Rev. Dr. Browne Grisdale, who became the chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle. Then there was another Solomon who was curate of Steeple Morden in Cambridgeshire for many years, also Richard Grisdale the curate of Crook in Westmorland, and even Joseph Grisdale, the son of the first Solomon already mentioned, who became the schoolmaster and vicar of Wymondham in Norfolk. This is not an exhaustive list. But what about closer to home in Matterdale itself?

Here I’d like to tell just a little about the life of the curates of Matterdale church, particularly in the seventeenth century following the very unfortunate ‘restoration’ of King Charles the Second. At this time and later the curate of Matterdale Church was Thomas Grisdale. He was the incumbent for fifty-two years, from 1666 until his death in 1718.  What was the life of these curates like? What type of men were they? How and by whom were they paid?

The unfortunate restoration of King Charles in 1660

Perhaps it might be good to start with the words of one of England’s greatest historians, Thomas Macaulay. Referring to the seventeenth century, Macauley wrote:

The Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections, which in acquirements, in manners, and in social position, differed widely from each other. One section, trained for cities and courts, comprised men familiar with all ancient and modern learning . . . men of address, politeness, and knowledge of the world; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he had learned to write. The other section . . . was dispersed over the country, and consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. . .  The clergy [in these rural districts] were regarded as a plebeian class. … A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson. . . . Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. … It was a white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up like the children of the neighbouring peasantry. His boys followed the plough, and his girls went out to service.

Thomas Macaulay

Among the priestly Grisdales we might include in the first section the Rev. Dr. Robert Grisdale, the vicar of rich St. Martins in the Field in London; the Rev. Dr. Browne Grisdale, the chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle and even his brother Benjamin Grisdale, a very well connected army chaplain. But all the rest squarely fall into Macaulay’s second segment, certainly including Thomas Grisdale the long-serving curate of Matterdale. They were to be sure ‘not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants’.

Of course there was a lot of blatant class snobbery coming from the landed gentry when they ever mentioned lowly curates like Thomas Grisdale. One story I like was told by W. J. Conybeare in his excellent The Church in the Mountains published in the Edinburgh Review in 1853. Conybeare was concerned with Wales, Cumberland and Westmorland, all poor ‘mountainous’ areas. He says that a ‘gentleman who resides in Westmoreland’ had written:

As a rule the clergy here are of a low order, and rarely associate with the gentry. In our own village, for instance, where the clergyman is not by any means a bad specimen, no servant is kept at his house, and several of his sons have been brought up to handicraft trades. We are very good friends, but he could not visit at my house. . . . His sister was waiting-maid to a friend of ours.

Conybeare adds wryly:

As an illustration of these statements, it may be worthwhile to mention that the writer of these pages, some years ago, when in a boat on one of the Cumberland lakes, observed upon the road which ran along the shore, a man and woman ride by on the same horse, the man in front, the woman behind. “There goes our priest and his wife,” said the boatman. On landing, soon after, the worthy couple were seen making hay together in a small field which the clergyman farmed.

Good on them!

Matterdale

Conybeare mentions another friend he had consulted ‘who was well acquainted with the diocese of Carlisle who estimated ‘the proportion of the hill-clergy in Westmoreland and Cumberland, who are “more or less intoxicated at one time or another, at parties, fairs, or markets “as one-sixth of the whole number.’ Another informant wrote that ‘several of the clergy’ in his neighbourhood were ‘notorious drunkards’.

‘The social position held by the clergy may be inferred from the above statements’, says Conybeare, adding that their status was in fact ‘precisely the same with that assigned to their predecessors by Mr. Macaulay’.

Conybeare goes to great length to explain the social, economic and political causes of this situation as well as to show how the prevailing view was unfair. I will quote just a little of this fine work:

We have said that Mr. Macaulay’s account of the rural Clergy of the reign of Charles II. would apply almost verbatim to the Mountain Clergy of the present century (ed. the nineteenth). We may add that this condition of things originates in the same cause which he assigns for it; namely, the inadequacy of the parochial endowments. But here we must guard against misconception.

Let it not for a moment be supposed that we consider poverty a degradation to the preacher of the Gospel. God forbid that wealth should be necessary to the ministry of a religion which made the poor of this world rich in faith — a religion whose apostles were Galilean fishermen. A clergy may be very ill-endowed, and yet, by a judicious system of organisation and discipline, and by a proper provision for its education, it may command not only the love of the poor, but the respect of the rich. The efficiency of the Scotch establishment during the last century and a half is a decisive proof of this.

But if we have a clergy taken from the poorer classes of society, and left in indigence, without education, without superintendence, without organisation, and without discipline, then it will inevitably become despised and despicable.  Not that a priesthood of vulgar paupers is in reality more contemptible than a hierarchy of well-bred Sybarites; for, in the sight of God, Leo X. was perhaps more despicable than Tetzel; but that the cultivated Epicurean will be able to veil his faults under a more decent disguise.

The careless and undevout members of an uneducated peasant clergy will retain the low tastes and coarse vices of the class from which they sprang; and the zealous (who at the best must be a minority) will disgust their more intelligent parishioners by an illiterate fanaticism. These may be followed by the ignorant, but will be ridiculed by the educated; those will be deservedly despised by rich and poor alike.

When men who are appointed by the State to be the religious guides and examples of the people thus forfeit both the respect of the wise and the esteem of the good, the object of their mission is defeated.

Matterdale Church

I have no idea what type of curate or man Thomas Grisdale was; he was, as I have said, the curate of mountainous Matterdale for fifty-two years, throughout Charles II’s reign and beyond. I do hope he occasionally got on a horse with his wife Elizabeth Grisdale (nee Noble), my own 6th great grandmother, and made a little hay. He may have liked the odd beer or two too.

But although Thomas was in all likelihood looked down on by the local gentry, it seems he was well regarded by his parishioners. Not only was he their curate for fifty-two years but somewhat after his death we find testimony to the fact that the people of Matterdale could and always had chosen their curates and were very happy with them.  The testimony in question was written by the ‘inhabitants’ of Matterdale between 1735 and 1747 to Bishop Fleming of Carlisle:

To the Right Reverend Father in God George Lord Bishop of Carlisle the Petition of the Inhabitants of the Chappelrie of Matterdale humbly showeth  That the Chappel of Matterdale is now Vacant that when the Revd Mr. Woof left us before he resigned the place some of the Inhabitants of our Chappelry waited on our Rector the Reverend Mr. Law at his house at Graystock and acquainted him that Mr. William Todhunter of Dacre would be very acceptable to us and hoped he would give him his nomination.

Greystoke Rectory

He told us he had given his Consent to the Rev. Mr. Rumney’s son Leonard as soon as Mr. Woof had resigned the place.  We drew a writing and with one consent subscribed it to certifie him we were agreed to Recomend to his approbation Mr. William Todhunter and requested of him to give his nomination as his Predecessor had always done to the Person we requested and we told him we believ’d we had a Right and that it was our Duty so to do, He Replied if we had any Right he did not want nor would he have it and that your Lordship was the Properest Judge and to you my Lord, we would refer it.

Wherefore my Lord we Begg you would give us leave to lay our case before you as Briefly as we can and that Mr. Grisdale was the Person we requested his nomination which is the antientest we believe that is at Rose Castle will testefie and Mr. Clerk that succeeded him was the Person the Inhabitants requested and Mr. Taylor that succeeded him was the Person we requested his Father yet Living can testefie and Mr. Walker that succeeded him is at this time Mr. Atkinson’s Curate at Kirkby Thore and will testefie he was the man we requested and Mr. Atkinson that succeeded him was the man we chose and his Lordship your Lordship’s predecessor put him in when our Chappel had been long vacant and Mr. Woof was the man the Major part of the Inhabitants subscribed with If the Revd Mr. Law can say this is not the very truth we’ll say no more and with submission, the reason why we should have something to say we think is because we endowed the Chappel with the salrie  my Lord our Ancestours raised forty pounds (a great sum for so poor a Chappelry when money was so scarce) and lent it at two shillings i’th pound and when the Interest of Money lowered that it would not make four pounds a year and when it was in danger of being lost we withdrew the money and agreed to pay two shillings sixpence out of every eight shillings rent Tenement which makes about four pounds ten shillings and which with our little Glebe and surplice dues is the salary at this day and some or other is and has been all ways willing to accept of it and we hope we may say we have not one man that had any Blemish in his life and conversation and that the service of Almighty God has been performed with as much Decencie and as good Order as in any Chappel in your Lordship’s Diocess, so we desire your Lordship would be pleased to take the matter into Consideration and do sincerely assure you my Lord that your Judgment and determination shall be final and for ever put an end to our onnhappy janglings and we shall still continue to pray.

Rose Castle, the residence of the Bishops’s of Carlisle

The issue involved here was quite simple: the inhabitants of the chapelry of Matterdale had always chosen their own priest, because, as they say, they paid for him. ‘Mr. Grisdale’, i.e. Thomas Grisdale, ‘was the person we requested, his nomination is the antcientes (ancientest) we believe that is at Rose Castle (the residence of the Bishop’s of Carlisle) will testifie.’ They also chose or requested all Thomas Grisdale’s successors until Mr. Woof and say how this can be proved. Their curates had never been imposed on them against their will – until now.

Now the Revd Mr. Law, the rector of Greystoke, Matterdale’s mother church, was going to impose his own choice: Leonard Rumney, the son of a local vicar who was no doubt a friend of Mr. Law. Regarding the parishioners’ right to choose their own curate the Revd Law had replied that even if they had this right ‘he did not want nor would he have it’. He didn’t give a damn; he’d have his own man.

Actually neither Leonard Rumney nor William Todhunter was appointed.

Greystoke Church

Returning to the reason the parishioners had this right, they rightly said because their ancestors had endowed the Chappel with forty pounds to pay the curate’s salary, even though this was a ‘great sum for so poor a Chappelry when money was so scarce’. When this endowment had proved insufficient they had changed to paying yearly ‘two shillings sixpence out of every eight shillings rent Tenement which makes about four pounds ten shillings’ – there being thirty-six tenements of this value in Matterdale as we shall see.

Regarding the character and performance of the curates the people of Matterdale had chosen from Mr. Grisdale onwards, the Revd. J. Whitseside had this to say in his excellent 1901 article Matterdale Church and School:

We have been accustomed in late years to some severe strictures on the morals and manners of the old dale priests from critics who too hastily assumed that what was true of a few might be asserted of many. It is, therefore, refreshing to have the testimony of the people of Matterdale — “We have not had one man that had any blemish in his life and conversation.” The whole document is most honourable to the dalesmen, testifying both to their sturdy native independence and their willingness to submit to constituted authority in the Church.

I wrote about the origins of Matterdale church in a recent article (see here). What is abundantly clear is that from the very start in about 1566 when the first ‘chapelry of ease’ was allowed in Matterdale and certainly from 1580 when the chapel got full parochial rights i.e. the right to perform weddings, baptisms and burials, the inhabitants of the valley had always had to pay not only for the curate but for the church building as well.

A document that was in the church safe in Matterdale dated 1699 reads as below. Please do note that all the YEs and YTs for ‘the’ and ‘that’ do not mean people actually talked like this. The Y was just a letter signifying the sound TH; contrary to general opinion nobody ever said ‘Ye Olde Tavern’ or the like.

Whereas about ye eight year of Queen Elizabeth (1566) the Inhabitants of Matterdale did petition for having a church att ye said Matterdale which was granted in Bishop Best his time (1561-1570) with a pviso that they should maintain a Currate att it which ye said Inhabitants did pmise and Ingage to doe.

And in order thereto did make up about fforty pounds Church stock amongst them that ye use thereof might goe to ye Currate which was then Lent forth att two shillings the pound or more. But in ye time of King James the First (1603- 1625) when money came to a Lower use the said Inhabitants were forced to take ye said Church stock into their own hands And pay to ye Currate two shillings which hath so continued ever since.

Now we considering that often part of ye said Church stock is lost and we have it to make up again And often times we have much cost and trouble with sueing for yt which is in dainger to be lost And also when a Tenant dyes ye widow and younger children hath it to pay to ye heir forth of ye deceased man’s goodds And therefore we having ye said Church stock in our own hands doe agree and Covenant to lay it upon our own Lands so that every Tenement of eight shillings Rent shall yearly pay to ye Currate two shillings sixpence of Current English money as a known due forth of ye land accordingly, and to ye first Covenent.

And so every one yt hath more or less rent after yt rate and to continue from ansestor to heirs accordingly as is hereafter subscribed …. doe hereby bind ourselves our heires executors successors on our land as wittnesse our hands and sealls In ye eleavent year of ye Reigne of King William ye third over England &c. and in ye year of our Lord God 1699.

This document includes the signatures of thirty-six inhabitants and how much each is paying towards the upkeep of the curate Thomas Grisdale. It is interesting to note that seven of these thirty-six are other members of the Matterdale Grisdale clan.

James the first, another disastrous king

So since King James’ time, the initial forty pound endowment had been replaced by the two shillings and sixpence paid by each of the thirty six eligible tenement holders. And it seems that this was usually done. The Rev. J. Whiteside quotes the former president of the Cumberland and Westmorland antiquarian and archaeological society as saying: ‘The origin of these chapelries requires to be made known: their salaries are charges on the land, but the deeds creating the charges are at this date rarely forthcoming, and in some places the land owners, who are liable to them, are beginning to repudiate the payment on the ground that they are voluntary payments, were abolished with church-rates or other frivolous and shabby pretence.’ ‘‘A repudiation, says Whiteside, ‘which has not taken root in Matterdale’.

In summary, since 1566 or slightly thereafter, the inhabitants of Matterdale had not only paid the ‘priest wage’ as it was known but also chosen him themselves, subject to the approval of both the Rector of Greystoke and the Bishop of Carlisle – that is until the Revd Mr. Law came along.

In the seventeenth century the average rural priest-wage was very low indeed, generally between five and ten pounds per annum. As we have seen, at best Thomas Grisdale’s wage would have been four pounds ten shillings. How did he and his predecessors and followers survive? Here we have to look at what is called the parish ‘Glebe Terrier’ or just ‘Terrier’.

A seventeenth century Glebe Terrier

A glebe terrier is a term specific to the Church of England. It is a document, usually a written survey or inventory, which gives details of glebe, lands and property in the parish owned by the Church of England and held by a clergyman as part of the endowment of his benefice, and which provided the means by which the incumbent (rector, vicar or perpetual curate) could support himself and his church. Typically, glebe would comprise the vicarage or rectory, fields and the church building itself, its contents and its graveyard… “Terrier” is derived from the Latin terra, “earth”.

The glebe terrier would be drawn up at the time of each visitation, an official visit usually by the archdeacon. The Archdeacon would visit each parish annually, and the bishop visited outlying parts of his diocese every few years to maintain ecclesiastical authority and conduct confirmations.

Each church was entitled to a house and glebe. The glebe lands were either cultivated by the clergyman himself, or by tenants to whom he leased the land. In those cases where the parsonage was not well-endowed with glebe, the clergyman’s main source of income would come from the tithes.

In 1704, when Thomas Grisdale was still curate, such a Terrier was made of Matterdale by the Rector of Greystoke, the summary reads:

Imprimis. One dwelling house with a byer and a barn (sixteen yards in length) to be built at the charges of the hamlet, when they fall; the repair onely at the Charge of the Curate. Item, One Close by estimation two Acres: Item, the Chapple yard ; by estimation half an acre. The curate has right of common (and liberty to get peats and turff) both within the liberties of Weathermealock and Matterdale. Every tenement (whereof there are 36 in number) pays 2s 6d except one cottage called Park Gate which pays 2s onely. Total 4I 9s 6d. For every marriage is 1s 6d whereof !s is due to the rector of Graystock and 6d to the Curate.

Notice the thirty-six tenements in Matterdale (of a certain standing and value), the farmer of each one except one having to still pay the 2s 6d each year, thus giving the total of 4l 9s 6d. In addition we see that the curate might earn a bit more from marriages (though twice as much went to the rector) and had rights of common including getting peat and turf to burn in his ‘dwelling house with a byer and a barn’.

A latter Terrier in 1776 gives slightly more details:

A perfect Terrier of all the Houses Lands Tenements and augmentations and yearly profits belonging to the Curacy of Matterdale in the parish of Graystock in the County of Cumberland and Diocese of Carlisle.

1.  A Thatch house Three lengths of Timber containing a Barn & a Byer with about two acres and a half of arable and meadow ground. Valued at about Two pound ten a year. This lays in Matterdale.

2. Two shillings and sixpence a Tenement which comes to Four pounds Ten shillings.

3. One fourth of an estate lying and being at Burton-in- Lonsdale in the parish of Thornton and County of York let at yearly rent of Ten pound. N.B. No Houses.

4. Brunt Sike Estate in the Hamlet of Howgill in the parish of Sedbecg and County of York containing a dwelling House Bam adjoining a Stable and Loft ov’ it with Twenty four acres of arable and Meadow Ground known by the names of Holme Little Close Hills — Gate House Close High Broom & Thoresgill Let at the yearly rent of fourteen pounds.

5. One half of Hause-foot Estate in the parish of Orton County of Westmorland with a Fine House with one half of the Barn Byer and Stables £7 l0s a year.

Given under our Hands this 4. day of June 1776.

William Wright Curate. Solomon Grisedale Chapelwarden.

Of course these other rents didn’t go to the curates of Matterdale.

Finally we should mention one other way the curate and his family could survive. The Rev. Whiteside tells us that the Matterdale curates were also entitled to ‘Whittlegate’. What is Whittlegate? In Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland, Daniel Scott wrote this in 1899:

The old customs peculiar to Cumberland and Westmorland of “Whittlegate” and “Chapel Wage” have long since passed out of the list of obligations imposed, although the rector of Brougham might still, if he wished, claim whittlegate at Hornby Hall every Sunday. The parsons of the indifferently educated class already alluded to had to be content with correspondingly small stipends, which were eked out by the granting of a certain number of meals in the course of twelve months at each farm or other house above the rank of cottage, with, in some parishes, a suit of clothes, a couple of pairs of shoes, and a pair of clogs. Clarke gives the following explanation of the origin of the term: —

“Whittlegate meant two or three weeks’ victuals at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled among themselves; so that the minister could go his course as regularly as the sun, and complete it annually. Few houses having more knives than one or two, the pastor was often obliged to buy his own knife or ‘whittle.’ Sometimes it was bought for him by the chapel wardens. He marched from house to house with his ‘whittle,’ seeking ‘fresh fields and pastures new,’ and as master of the herd, he had the elbow chair at the table head, which was often made of part of a hollow ash tree — a kind of seat then common.

The reader at Wythburn had for his salary three pounds yearly, a hempen sark or shirt, a whittlegate, and a goosegate, or right to depasture a flock of geese on Helvellyn. A story is still (1789) told in Wythburn of a minister who had but two sermons which he preached in turn. The walls of the chapel were at that time unplastered, and the sermons were usually placed in a hole in the wall behind the pulpit. One Sunday, before the service began, some mischievous person pushed the sermons so far into the hole that they could not be got out with the hand. When the time came for the sermon, the priest tried in vain to get them out. He then turned to the congregation, and told them what had happened. He could touch them, he said, with his forefinger, but could not get his thumb in to grasp them; ‘ But, however,’ said he, ‘ I can read you a chapter out of Job that’s worth both of them put together!'”

So this I hope might give just a flavour of the life of the Matterdale curates in the seventeenth century and beyond.

The origins of Matterdale Church

Until the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 the people of Matterdale didn’t have their own place of worship. If they wanted to or were obliged to go to church they had to trek all the way to the parish church in Greystoke, which, as we shall see, was not always easy.

‘The church of Matterdale is situated almost 1,000 feet above sea level, amid an amphitheatre of glorious hills, between the hamlets of Dockray and Matterdale End, in the ancient parish of Greystoke.’ Rev J. Whitelock, 1900.

In Matterdale church’s safe there was once a document written in 1699 which tells us of the first chapelry in Matterdale. It is a deed for the priest’s wages and includes the names of various citizens who pledge to contribute to these wages. This list includes numerous Grisdales; I will return to them on another occasion.  The deed starts as follows:

Whereas about ye eight year of Queen Elizabeth (1566) the Inhabitants of Matterdale did petition for having a church att ye said Matterdale which was granted in Bishop Best his time (1561-1570) with a pviso that they should maintain a Currate att it which ye said Inhabitants did pmise and Ingage to doe. And in order thereto did make up about fforty pounds Church stock amongst them that ye use thereof might goe to ye Currate which was then Lent forth att two shillings the pound or more…

Matterdale Church

So the people of Matterdale were allowed to build their first chapel in 1566 or shortly thereafter. Nothing of the original structure remains. The problem was that whereas they were granted the right to hold holy services they did not have the full parochial rights to perform baptisms, marriages and burials. For those the people still had to trek to Greystoke.

By 1580 the people had made various other suits to the Bishop of Carlisle, by now Bishop John Meye, asking for these parochial rights. Bishop Meye eventually answered their appeal on 30 October 1580, I have added paragraph breaks for ease of reading:

To all Christian people to whom these presents shall come, John by the providence of God Bishop of Carlisle sendeth greeting in our Lord everlasting.

Know ye that at the reasonable suit of the whole inhabitants of the Chapelry of Matterdale, complaining that by reason that their parish Church of Graystock is so far distant from them, and from the annoyances of snow or other foul weather in the winter season in that fellish part, they be often very sore troubled with carrying the dead corpses dying within the said Chapelry and the infants there born unto burial and christening to their said parish church of Graystock, sometimes the weather being so foul and stormy that they be driven to let their dead bodies remain unburied longer time than is convenient, or else to abide that annoyance and danger in carrying them to burial as is not reasonable, and therefore have divers times made humble suit for remedy of their sad inconvenience and griefs;

Matterdale

We the said Bishop, with the consent of Mr. Edward Hansbie bachelor of divinity and parson of the said church of Graystock, have given and granted unto all the inhabitants wch now be, or wch from henceforth shall be of the Chapelry aforesaid, full authority to cause to be baptised and christened in the chapel of Matterdale all and singular the infants which shall at any time hereafter be born within the said Chapelry, and all women who within the same shall bring forth any child, to go to the said chapel, and to have prayers said for her deliverance set forth by public authority, which commonly hath been called the purification of women; and that it may also be lawful unto the said inhabitants from time to time hereafter to cause their marriages to be celebrated within the same chapel; both the said persons which shall be married or the one of them being an inhabitant and dweller within the same chapelry; and such persons as shall from time to time happen to die or depart this world within the said Chapelry, to bury them within the same Chapel or Churchyard of the same: giving and granting unto the said Chapel the right to receive infants to baptism, women to be purified, persons to be married in the said Chapel, and all manner of persons dying within the said Chapelry, to whom the laws of this realm do not deny Christian burial, to be buried in the said Chapel or Churchyard;

Beseeching the Almighty, that as we do not doubt but that he hath already sanctified and hallowed the said Chapel and Churchyard through the prayers of the faithful made therein and the preaching of his most blessed word; so it may please him to grant unto all those which shall be baptised within the said Chapel, that they may receive remission of sins, perfect regeneration, and be made heirs of the kingdom of heaven; and to sanctify the marriage of all such as shall be married in the same Chapel; and to such as shall be buried in the said Chapel or Churchyard to grant resurrection unto life everlasting.

Greystoke Church

These in no wise to prejudice or hinder the right of the parish church of Graystock aforesaid, nor the estate of the said Mr. Hansbie now parson of the same, or his successors parsons there, in any the tithes, rights, obligations, duties, commodities, or emoluments, due unto the said parish Church or to the said Edward Hansbie his successors parsons of the same out of the said Chapelry, or the inhabitants of the same, or any of them from time to time there dwelling; the right interest and estate of which Church and the said Edward Hansbie and his successors parsons there, we do reserve and save by these presents.

Provided always that the inhabitants of the said Chapelry shall at their own proper costs and charges (as hath been before used) find and maintain a good and able priest to be resident within the said Chapelry, to minister divine service, and holy sacraments, as shall be allowed by the said Bishop and our successors; and shall provide unto him such convenient dwelling and habitation within the same Chapelry, and give him such wages for his relief and maintenance, to the worthyness of his estate and calling, as shall be thought meet and convenient unto us the said Bishop and our successors bishops of Carlisle; and shall also elect, with the consent of the minister there from time to time, an honest person to be the parish clerk of the same Chapel, and shall give to him convenient wages for keeping the said Church and things belonging to the same in good order, and doing other duties which pertain to the office of a clerk; and shall yearly elect and chuse by the consent of the said minister, the churchwardens and some sidesmen, to do the duties which unto their office doth belong; and shall repair, maintain and uphold the said Chapel and walls of the yard thereof, with all needful and convenient reparations whatsoever and shall from time to time see and provide that the said Chapel and Churchyard be used with that seemly and reverend manner as becometh the house and place dedicated to the service of God; and finally, shall from time to time, and at all times hereafter receive and obey all such injunctions, general and particular, which shall from thenceforth be given by us the said Bishop and our successors, for the service of God and good order to be maintained within the said Chapel and Chapelry.

Under which conditions we do dedicate the said Chapel and Churchyard to the use aforesaid and none otherwise.

In witness whereof we have to these presents put the seal of our bishoprick.

Given the 30th day of October in the year of our Lord God a thousand five hundred and eighty, and in the 23nd year of the reign of our most gracious sovereign Lady Elizabeth by the grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland, defender of the faith &c. and of our consecration the fourth.

Snow in Matterdale

I particularly like the part which explains why the people of Matterdale wanted their own parish church and not just a simple chapel. It was because Greystoke was ‘so far distant from them, and from the annoyances of snow or other foul weather in the winter season in that fellish part, they be often very sore troubled with carrying the dead corpses dying within the said Chapelry and the infants there born unto burial and christening to their said parish church of Graystock, sometimes the weather being so foul and stormy that they be driven to let their dead bodies remain unburied longer time than is convenient, or else to abide that annoyance and danger in carrying them to burial as is not reasonable… ’

We don’t know the names of the very first Matterdale parish clerks who the people of the valley had promised to pay. One of the incumbents in the first half of the seventeenth century was an ‘old John Griesdall of Hollas, clerk’ who died in 1682. Two of this John’s nephews also became curates: John in Troutbeck in Westmorland (see here) and Thomas in Matterdale itself.

As the Rev J. Whiteside wrote in ‘Matterdale Church and School’ in 1900, which is the main source for this article: ‘One of the incumbents in the year 1703 had to make his humble apology to the rector of Greystoke.’ In the Greystoke register we find this entry:

1703 Memorand:— May 22nd Anno Dicto, came Mr. Thomas Grisedall Curate of Matterdale upon the account of publishing ye Bands of Marriage between Isaac Brownrigge and Bridgett Sutton both of Matterdale in the Chappell of Matterdale aforesayd and thereupon marrying them ye sayd Isaac and Bridget at ye sayd Chappell for which irregularity the sayd Mr. Grisedall both made his submission and gave his promise under his hand never to doe ye like againe.

Teste Thomas Grisedal. Matt: Soulby, John Hodgson.

Whiteside rightly asks: ‘Wherein did the irregularity consist?’ To which he answers:

Bishop Best about 1570… had granted a petition of the inhabitants  to cause their marriages from time to time hereafter to be celebrated within the same Chapel ” of Matterdale. It may be that, though the bishop gave permission, it had not been acted on, and the legality of Mr. Grisedal’s action had escaped notice. The registers show that Matt : Soulby was the curate, and John Hodgson the parish clerk of Greystoke.

This seems a very strange answer to me as the curates of Matterdale had been performing marriages in Matterdale church for over a hundred years.

In any case Thomas Grisdale, who had first been made a priest in 1666, remained curate of Matterdale until 1718 when he died. He had married widow Elizabeth Grisdale (nee Noble) in Greystoke Church in 1675; this Elizabeth is my own 6th great grandmother.

Rose Castle, the residence of the Bishops’s of Carlisle

 

 

Some early Matterdale and Essex Grisdales

The Grisdale diaspora from Matterdale went on for centuries. We know of lots of cases in the seventeenth century and the pace hotted up in the following two hundred years. Yet it is also clear that quite a few family members left the valley in the 1500s. The only problem is that it’s almost impossible to precisely follow most of them. But there is one interesting exception; it concerns two (and possibly three) Grisdale brothers who left Dowthwaite Head in Matterdale in the later 1500s to become farmers in faraway Essex. This is what I know of them.

The church in Horndon on the Hill, Essex

In late 1604 a legal memorandum was written concerning the recent death and wishes of a husbandsman called Edward Grisdale who lived in the small Essex village of Horndon on the Hill. Shortly thereafter in the same place a John Grisdale made his will, which was written in Latin. Horndon is about twenty miles northeast of London and a very long way from Matterdale in Cumberland, yet it seems pretty clear that Edward and John were brothers and did indeed come from Matterdale and in particular from Dowthwaite Head, the ‘cradle’ of the family.

The 1604 memorandum is dated 11 November ‘in the second year of the reign of Kinge James’, that is in the reign of King James 1 of England (and sixth of Scotland), the successor of Queen Elizabeth. Edward said he was ‘in his bed’ but ‘of good and perfect memory’. He revokes all previous wills and makes his wife Elizabeth his executor. He was then asked if he didn’t want his brother Christopher to also be an executor 9note I’ve changed the spelling of Christopher to the modern one):

And being demanded if he wanted not his brother Christopher to be joynte executor with her, he said not in the presence of the saide Christopher. And then being moved by the said Elizabeth to have the saide Christopher to be joint executor with her, he answered he would not, but willed her to choose some other if she would. And being demanded what he would give his brother Christopher, he said in the presence of the saide Christopher, that he hath had his portion, I will give him no more. And said that he did owe him four score pounds and (?) forty shillings which the saide Christopher should have paid him for this last Michaelmas…

There was obviously a bit of tension between the two brothers: Edward and Christopher. The memorandum says more about the debt owed by Christopher to Edward and when it should have been paid. Edward was asked if he would forgive the debt of his brother ‘considering that he was greatly in his debt otherwise’, but Edward refused saying that Christopher must pay it all.  Then he was asked what he would give Christopher’s children. Edward said that they should get twenty pounds each which they should receive when they reached the age of fifteen. But he didn’t quite trust Christopher because although his bequest to Christopher’s children was to be held by their father until they reached fifteen he added that if Christopher didn’t handle it properly it should rather be held by his wife for ‘the best advantage of the saide children’. The rest of his estate Edward gave to his wife Elizabeth who had the duty to pay various debts of Edward himself.

Now as well as the fact that Edward’s name is explicitly and clearly spelt as Grisdale, we also know that he had a brother called Christopher who was present in Essex when Edward made his wishes known.

Shortly after Edward’s death John Grisdale also made his Latin will in Horndon. He first mentions the names of two knights: Sir John Bennett and Sir John Gibson, both of whom were lawyers and later judges of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. That John’s will (and Edward’s) was presented in this court tells of a certain level of wealth and standing.

John Grisdale’s Will, 1605

John appoints two people as his executors: his wife Elizabeth Grisdale and his brother Christopher Grisdale. So it is clear that John and Edward were brothers; they both lived in Horndon in Essex and they both had a brother called Christopher. So here we have three brothers, two of whom definitely lived in Essex as most likely the third did too.

In John’s 1605 will we also find the added information that he was born in the reign of Queen Mary. Now Queen Mary was of course the only daughter of Henry the Eighth and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Known rightly to history as Bloody Mary, she was the queen of England from 1553 to 1558, before being replaced by her half-sister Elizabeth.

There is probably a lot more in John’s will that as yet I am unable to decipher, but here the interest is from where these Grisdale brothers came, and when.

The name Grisdale itself clearly points to a Cumberland origin. But we can say more. The brothers’ names certainly indicate that they came from Matterdale and indeed from Dowthwaite Head Farm.

In the 1500s we find repeated mentions in the records of at least one Christopher Grisdale as well as Edwards and Johns.

In 1560 Thomas son of Christopher Grisdale of ‘Matterdale’ was baptized in Greystoke Church (Matterdale Church had yet to be founded). In 1564 the wife of a Christopher Grisdale ‘of the Head of Dowthwaite of Matterdale’ was buried. In 1565 Janet ‘wife of Xopher Grisdale of Dowthwaite’ wrote her will mentioning sons John and Thomas. In 1568 this Janet Grisdale ‘wife of Xopher Grysdell of Dowthwaite Head;’ was buried.  In 1571 a Christopher Grisdale and Agnes Greenhow ‘both of Matterdale’ were married in Greystoke. In 1575 Elizabeth ‘daughter of Xopher Grysdell of Dowthwaite Head’ was buried. Finally in 1597 Christopher Grisdale a son of Edward Grisdale of Dowthwaite Head died and left a will.

Bloody Queen Mary

Now we could be dealing with one Christopher here or two. I tend to think that all these mentions concern one person. If so then he was probably born in the 1520s or early 1530s (to have had a son Thomas in 1560 and probably others earlier). This might mean that Christopher ‘senior’ was the father of the three Essex brothers Edward, John and Christopher. John’s mother would no doubt have been Christopher senior’s first unnamed wife who died in Dowthwaite Head in 1564; remember John said he was born in Queen Mary’s reign, i.e. between 1553 and 1558. Janet, Christopher’s supposed second wife, died the next year in 1565, and the ‘sons’ John and Thomas she mentions in her will must, I think, have been her stepsons: the John we have mentioned and the Thomas born in 1560. I would guess that Edward who died in Essex in 1604 was also the son of Christopher and his first wife and was therefore born sometime in the 1550s or 1560s.

There is more suggestive name evidence. In 1561 the wife of ‘Edward Grisdale junior of Matterdale’ was buried in Greystoke as were two of his children in 1563 and 1569. Edward was said to be of Dowthwaite Head. If there was an Edward junior there must have been an Edward senior, possibly still alive at the time (i.e. in 1561). Now we know that the Christopher senior who died in 1597 was the son of an Edward Grisdale, and this Christopher was probably born in the 1520s or early 1530s  Thus it is quite possible that Edward junior was the brother of Christopher Grisdale senior (the putative father all the three Essex brothers: Christopher, Edward and John.

Dowthwaitehead Farm

If we place Edward junior’s birth in Dowthwaite Head in about the 1520 or early 1530s; and if his father was also called Edward (as seems reasonable) then he (Edward senior) would have been born in the late 1400s or very early 1500s, which would likely make him either the brother or even the son of the John Grisdale I sometimes refer to as ‘the first Matterdale Grisdale’ (see here).

I could go on about other possible relationships between the early Grisdales of Dowthwaite Head, including more on John, Richard and Robert Grisdales (Grysdells). But let’s return to the name Christopher. It’s a name that not only appears in the sixteenth century but also in the seventeenth. There is a ‘deed of administration’ dated 1616 for the death of a Christopher Grisdale in Matterdale, although I have yet to obtain a copy. I think this is most likely the ‘Essex’ brother so mistrusted by his brother Edward. Later, after the Matterdale parish records start in 1634, we find one or two other Christopher Grisdales, but I will leave them for another time.

Given the gaps in the records it is not possible to determine all the exact relationships, nevertheless it is more than likely that these later Matterdale Christopher Grisdales were either directly descended from, or at least very closely related to, the Christopher Grisdale who was having children in Dowthwaite in the 1560s and to the Essex Christopher whom I believe returned from Essex to Matterdale, had he in fact ever left.

Matterdale Church

Matterdale Church was founded in 1581 after the request of the people of the valley to the Bishop of Carlisle saying that the snow and other bad weather often prevented them getting to Greystoke.

In fact they had had to trek miles to Greystoke Church, which is where we find nearly all the early mentions of the Grisdales of Matterdale. After Matterdale Church was built the people of the valley would usually go there for the baptisms of their children or to be buried. The problem is that the early clerks of Matterdale (who included at least one Grisdale) either didn’t record these events or the records have been lost. The earliest extant Matterdale parish records only start in 1634, so we are left with a huge lacuna. This is a shame as if we had these records we could join up so many dots.

The earliest mention of a Grisdale of Matterdale in the Greystoke parish register is for the burial of the ‘wife of Edward Grysdell junior of Matterdale’ in 1561 which I mentioned previously. Before that either baptisms were not recorded or the Dowthwaite Head Grisdales (and others) had been deterred by the distance and the weather from making the trip. (Remember too it was only around this time that the churches and clergymen of the recently ‘protestant’ Church of England were compelled to keep records.) It was during this period (in the 1550s to 1560s) that the three Essex Grisdale brothers, Edward, John and Christopher, were most likely born, and hence the lack of records for their births.

Greystoke Church

It is interesting to conjecture why and how the three brothers (or at least two) had moved from Matterdale to Essex. I don’t think they just ventured there ‘on spec’. More likely there was a connection between the Barony of Greystoke (in which the Grisdale were free tenants) and Horndon in Essex. Maybe one day I’ll discover this link.

When might the brothers have moved? If they were born in the 1550s it is most likely that they already established adults when they did so. So perhaps the move took place in the late 1570s or 1580s, if not later.

In 1581 the Cumberland militia was again called out to guard against the repeated incursions of the Scots. They mustered at Penrith. Here we find nine Matterdale Grisdale ‘bowmen’ of military age: John, William, Christopher, Robert, Edward, Richard and three named Thomas.

Notice an Edward, a John and a Christopher. This Christopher might have been the older Christopher (the putative father of the Essex brothers), but I think he would have been too old to have been much use against the Scots. Much more likely this Christopher (and possibly the Edward and John too) was the one we find in Essex about twenty years later.

Returning to Essex, if seems that Edward and John didn’t have children but their brother Christopher did. I think we see the descendants of some of these children in the seventeenth century Matterdale records. But besides the genealogical interest it is also interesting to find at least one example of where some of the very early Grisdales of Matterdale went.