Whalley Wanderings

Dorothy Hampson

When I began family history I thought that because of the scarcity of transport and poor roads, pre-eighteenth and nineteenth-century families would live and die in the same village. I wondered if, instead of just names and dates, something of the background of the individuals could shed a light on the way they lived and the problems they encountered. I decided to examine a branch of my maternal grandmother's family. The Whalleys of South Cheshire, attempting to place them in their contemporary setting.

I gathered direct documentation on the Whalleys from Parish and Civil Registers, Census Enumerators Books, 1841-91, Wills and Oral History. Working from these documented names and dates, I referred for context mainly to Ormerod's, "History of Cheshire" (l882 edition) E.Baines, "1824 Directory of Lancashire", T.Baines (no date), "Lancashire and Cheshire, and Pigot and Co's Directories" (1828-90 and 1834). I am aware that even official sources cannot be taken as unfailingly and totally accurate, and my interpretation is subjective.

Reversing the order of my initial research, this saga begins with mv earliest known ancestors. In 1699, at St. Mary's Church of Acton-by-Nantwich, John Whalley of Aston Juxta Mondem and Margaret Alcock were married. Their son - also John was christened and, fifty-nine years later, buried at Acton; as were his parents, John (senior) and Margaret. This satisfied my lazy preconception that in the pre-industrial period people were born, lived and died in the same village. John junior's son Richard was also baptised at Acton, however, judging from those baptismal entries in church registers that mention townships, Richard emerges as more migratory than his parents. He left Acton for Wrenbury when he married Elizabeth Burrey of Wrenbury in l783. His occupation on marriage was 'husbandman', the family was fairly often on the move, moving only three or four miles at a time through adjacent rural villages. From Wrenbury, where son Richard junior was baptised in 1785, the family moved to Chorley. By l810 they were in Faddiley and in l820 at Baddiley. Agriculture was the predominant occupation in each township. In Chorley out of thirty families, twenty-nine were agricultural and one was trade; in Baddiley out of fifty-two families, forty-two were in agriculture (Ormerod's, History of Cheshire Volume 3 page. 287/8).

Studies of population shifts indicate that eighteenth-century rural townships lacked the diversified economies needed to create jobs and support. increases in population (From Family History to Community History Editor. WTR Pryce 1994; page 33). Population tables in Ormerod include Aston, Chorley and Baddiley. In 1810, the mean household size ranged from 6.3 to 7 4 and families outnumbered houses in each township. Some families would therefore have to share accommodation and overcrowding seems likely. As Richard was a husbandman, overpopulation might have led him and his family to move in search of suitable land, work and housing. There were further strong reasons for moving. Acts of Parliament in 1803 led to enclosures of land in the Nantwich area. Riots occurred which were only put down by soldiers sent from Chester. The enclosures could have adversely affected Richard senior because on his death in 1820, his status had fallen from husbandman to labourer. Riots recurred in 1828. Bad weather and poor harvests blighted the 1830's (Hall's Nantwich re-print 1972 pp. 235 & 240).

Richard junior's movements are less clear but during the above hardships, his son William, born in 18l6, decided to move twelve miles or so north of Baddiley to Davenham where there were three empty houses. It was an agricultural area and William was a farmworker. A family, formerly of Marbury, near Wrenbury, was already living in Davenham. Perhaps William moved to Davenham to continue a romance because in 1839 he married a daughter of this Marbury family in Davenham.

They settled briefly in Middlewich - with a son born at Newall (sic) near Marbury before their marriage. William was an agricultural labourer. By 1841, William and family were living in the salt town of Winsford with their two eldest children and William's younger brother. Two years later William was no longer a farmworker, but a salt-boiler.

Between censuses, the family moved houses within Wharton and Winsford. By 1865 they had eleven children. Eight houses were being built in Winsford in 1871, a sign of economic and population growth. Salt-manufacturing was growing fast. Winsford's salt output rivalled that of Northwich by 1881. Salt workers had a reputation for independence and militancy. They earned around 23/- (úl. 15p) weekly compared with the agricultural labourers wage of about 14/- (70p). For a farm labourer, the change to salt-working brought an increased income but the work was sheer drudgery. Unbroken four-day workshifts were quite usual (Brian Didsbury, no date Cheshire Saltworkers, page 178). Strikes were commonplace. Salt-masters used foreign workers to replace the local men and break the strikes. William's health sufferred and by 1861 he and his wife ran a tiny shop at 382 Station Road, Wharton. I tried to find it but that particular house seems to have been demolished. William's son another William my great-grandfather, was born in Wharton in 1843. He became a salt-tipper. My mother, a granddaughter of William junior's has told me that salt-tippers loaded the salt into wheelbarrows then wheeled it - at a run - up sloping ramps to warehouses or barges. It was dangerous, heavy work. Sometimes men were injured by leaning too far when tipping the salt, falling with the wheelbarrow into the barges below.

My Mother says that William junior decided to leave Wharton / Winsford. He went twenty-five miles away, to live with relatives in Liverpool, hoping to find work which paid more money. Perhaps this coincided with salt strikes. He was also escaping life with ten siblings in Wharton. In Liverpool he worked with his uncle John Speed, as a porter on the docks. He lodged with his uncle and aunt, Amy Speed, nee Burrey. Amy had been born in Wrenbury. She was the granddaughter of William's great grandmother. In 1865 William married John and Amy's daughter, Sarah Speed, his second cousin .

From 1815 technology, inland navigation and steam trade with America and the railways stimulated rapid increases in Liverpool's population. It numbered 165,175 in 1831; by 1861 it was; 269,742 (T. Baines nd, page 293). Much of Merseyside's population was Welsh; a quarter was Irish-born and many worked with William in dockland. William was working with a radical workforce which contrasted with his own political inclinations. He was nicknamed "Tory Whalley".

Oral history of the period and the censuses show there was regular contact between the Liverpool and Wharton branches of the family - by visits, as well as postcards later. When William junior's father died in Wharton in 1871, he, Sarah and their two children left Liverpool for 28 Dearden Street, Wharton.. William junior resumed his former occupation of "salt-tipper". His father's job as a salt-boiler had needed great stamina. Salt-boilers worked in intense heat and steam. Fires were lit beneath large salt-pans. The salt-boiler had to maintain even boiling; and also either specifically fast or slow boils to produce either fine or coarse salt. The heat meant that the workmen drank a lot. They were perceived as heavy drinkers. What William senior drank is unknown, but he died of liver enlargement and Ascites - "dropsy".

When Sarah died in 1923, William junior went to live in Hunsterson with his daughter (my grandmother). In 1929, he too died and was buried at Winsford. Although my research is so limited, it suggests that there was much more movement than I had imagined. Family links were maintained when individuals moved away and, in William junior's case these appear to have influenced his decision to work in Liverpool; just as his father's death brought him home to Wharton.

I found that my eighteenth-century ancestors might not have moved far but they moved frequently. The context indicates that farming was precarious and mobility was necessary to find jobs and housing. Perhaps a literary example might be Gabriel Oak, the shepherd in Thomas Hardy's , Far From The Madding Crowd. Of course Hardy could convey Gabriel's complex emotional dilemmas in a manner impossible for family genealogists! By the nineteenth century rather longer migrations were undertaken as Whalleys moved from farming to industrial occupations. They had become part of the broader movement of people leaving the countryside ; becoming part of the Industrial Revolution. By placing my ancestors against the broader background, they have become real people to me instead of simply a list of names and dates.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baines, E. (1824) History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County Palatinate of Lancashire, volume 1 Paternoster Row, London

Baines, T. (no date) Lancashire and Cheshire, Past and Present, Paternoster Row, London

Barker, Emily, (1996) Family Memories, tape recording, library of D Hampson.

Didsbury, B (date and publisher not known) Essay on, Cheshire Saltworkers.

Ormerod, G. (1882) The History of Cheshire, Routledge and Sons, Ludgate Hill, London

Hall. J, (reprint in 1972 of 1883 edition) A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, E.J. Moreton, Didsbury, Manchester 20.

Pigot and Co's National Directories 1828-9 and 1834, (1995 facsimiles) Michael Winton, Newmarket Road, Norwich.

Pryce, W.T.R. (1996) From Family History to Community History, Cambridge University Press in association with the Open University.