Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion;
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes
(Troilus & Cressida)
There seems to be as much mystery about the authorship of these annals as there once was about the authorship of the famous Letters of Junius. The fact of these annals being found among the Butterworth MSS. at the Lyceum leads people to suppose that they were written by the elder Butterworth. The handwriting is by no means dissimilar to his. The orthography is hardly up to his average standard, but the occasional limping rhymes and philosophical reflections are exactly in the style of James Butterworth in his younger days. One entry alone out of the thousands of entries made would lead to a suspicion that they are not James Butterworth's, and this contains a reflection, which I need not repeat here, on James Butterworth's character. Another entry in Edwin Butterworth's history, of 1848, which reads as follows, may help to fix the authorship on some one else (page 183):-"A local chronicler, Mr. William Rowbottom, speaks as if never in the memory of the oldest person living was there so much feasting, frolicking, and drinking as at these Wakes" (1802). The annals for this year, substantially, though not verbally, agree with this statement, and the quotation given by E. Butterworth is, therefore, so like the entries found among these annals as to lead to a very strong suspicion that they were written by William Rowbottom, and not James Butterworth. Under these circumstances I decline for the present the responsibility of fixing the authorship of these annals, though I incline to the belief that they were written by William Rowbottom, of Burnley-lane.
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The Rowbottoms are an ancient and respectable family in Oldham, and more than a century past were resident at Hunt-lane. Whether the annalist was a member of this family or not I do not at present know, but if William Rowbottom wrote these chronicles he has made his name immortal. He has certainly written the best local "Memorabilia" ever written of any town in Lancashire. He must have been a man of rather defective education. His writing, as Dogberry would say, came by nature, as he "splinters the dictionary" at almost every page. Higson speaks of him as an "Annalist". Beyond this we know nothing of his occupation except indeed it was to "chronicle small beer". Higson says he departed this life on the 7th of September, 1830, and this is about the time when his "Annals" ceased. Some few entries, which will be commented on in their proper place, may throw light on his family connections. He wrote of the most important events in the most important period of English history just as they appeared to him. From some entries we might infer that he was a Church and King man; from others that he was a Jacobin. His sympathies were always with the poor, and occasionally he shows antipathy against the rich. At the same time he often speaks well of the local aristocracy, and sometimes compliments their wisdom and liberality in unmeasured terms. |
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I have often enquired if Rowbottom was kept in memory by the "oldest inhabitant", but have received no satisfactory reply. One old man wondered if it was "Billy o'Mickels" I was talking about. Another thought it was "Owd Rowbottom, ut were a bit of a hedge lawyer", while another remembered an old man, at Burnley-lane, who used to waylay people for information with book in his "hont". These good people remembered a mass of things, but nothing distinctly, and so far I have been unable to glean any information to prove the author's identity.
The growth of industrial towns like Oldham must always be an interesting study both to the historian and to those who read history. When Carlyle's great Sphinx riddle was proposed in 1842; when respectable, but it might be, mistaken, men from many of the manufacturing towns of Lancashire were sent to prison and to the hulks for advocating what seem at this day very moderate measures of reform; when ruin and starvation stared the working man full in the face, Oldham solved the riddle by finding its people something to do, and from that time the condition of its inhabitants, with temporary interruptions, has gradually improved. I am not sure whether Oldham has not solved another Sphinx riddle since then in its limited liability companies. Mr. James Anthony Froude tells us somewhere that you may test the real worth of any people by the feeling which they entertain for their forefathers. With the Romans, reverence for ancestors was part of the national religion." To show the part that a town like Oldham has taken in the making of England, not only with its industrial productions, but, when needed, with its "blood and steel", is I take it, no mean pursuit. During that tremendous period when England was founding its great colonial empire, it will be seen that Oldham was ready with its recruits, and would seem to have contributed its quota to almost every battle that was fought. Every particle of its local history is, therefore, like a grain of gold. It may be that the Oldham "roll-call" furnished no names of great admirals, or generals, or even officers of very superior position, but we know that the English Army at that time had the finest "rank and file" in the world. It has been said of Napoleon that he once confessed his belief that with such men, led by French officers, he could have conquered the world. And we shall see how largely Oldham supplied both army and navy with its thew and sinew. There was scarcely a house in Oldham which did not send its man. It was then that this town earned its title of "brave Owdham". Its very idylls smell of gunpowder and glory.
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It is perhaps this bellicose spirit, turned to other purpose, which has given Oldham its pre-eminence in its industrial pursuits. Had it not been that Oldham has, within recent years, become one of the most important industrial towns in the kingdom, I might not have cared to take the trouble to write out these annals, but even this would not have detracted from their value. Certainly, to know the price of onions in 1787; or that somebody's cow hanged herself in 1788; or that a quoiting match was played at Northmoor in 1790; and that somebody's henroost was robbed in 1792, may not be deemed weighty matters of historical lore, and yet they may be the pegs on which hang the fickle thread of many a family history. People might snigh up their noses If they like at such records, yet this is my apology for reproducing them here. Among these trifles matters of mighty importance will often be found recorded in these "chronicles" – the changes in our native industries, the effects of peace and war, the sumptuousness of the rich and the sorrows and sufferings of the poor, merry Christmasses and doleful New years, obituaries, weather records, fluctuations of trade, prices of provisions, values of property, work and wages, and, as auctioneers say, other items "too numerous to mention". At the time when these "chronicles" began (1787), Oldham was looked on as little more than a village. Cotton spinning was still followed as a domestic industry. When that ended, in 1830, the factory system had been established, and Oldham had become a wealthy and prosperous town. At a time when everybody in Oldham knew every neighbour and almost every family incident, these "chronicles" portray the inner and outer life of the township, descending sometimes to particulars which seem not only too trivial, but too ludicrous, for the notice of the serious historian. Many of these particulars will, no doubt, cause a smile at the expense of the ancient Oldhamer, and yet, at the same time, some of these "simple annals" will, if I mistake not, create feelings of an altogether different kind. As an introduction to these annals, a description of Oldham – given in one of the unpublished papers of Edwin Butterworth – may not be out of place. He says: "The extent of Oldham, anterior to the operation of the great causes of its modern growth, should be minutely elucidated. A plan of Oldham as it appeared about 1756, is given in the first history of Oldham, and my friend, Mr. John O'Niel, a zealous originator of the Oldham Sunday schools, informs me that Mr. Henry Mills, deceased, one of the intelligent of the last century, had in his possession a plan representing the hollow at Holebottom (i.e. Hall Bottom) as shielded by a thick wood. Now it is filled with dwellings. |
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William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
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