Lees William, of Oldham, an old veteran, belonging to Chelsea Hospital, died December 12th 1788. Another Oldhamer who spent his strength for his country at a time when his country most needed it. All honour to him! During his life, and no doubt partly by his services England won some of its possessions and laid the foundation of that colonial empire on which the sun never sets:- Taylor, of Middleton, was stricken over the loins with a carrot that weighed 1lb. 6 ounces, of which wound he died. He was buried at Middleton, January 28th, 1788.
Whitaker, wife of Samuel Whitaker, chandler, of Oldham, died of a violent cancer in her breast, February 1st 1788. In St. Peter’s Chapel is a stained glass window to the memory of Samuel Whittaker, who died the 11th day of August, 1789, aged fifty-nine, and of Sarah, his wife, who died February 1st, 1788, aged fifty-two, and several of their children. A notice of Samuel Whittaker’s death will be found in its proper place. The spelling of Whittaker sometimes with one “t” serves to-day as a distinction between the various branches of the family in this district, although the difference in spelling originated probably in caprice. The original family probably derived its name from a farm in the neighbourhood of Thornham or Royton, called in very old deeds without date, Quitacre, indicating probably Scandinavian origin. Among the tenants at will of Thomas Radcliffe, of Foxdenton, in 1534, I find three families of Whitaker, viz., Henry Whiteaker, Ux nup Edri Whitacre, and Gafr(idus) Whitacre. In the reign of Elizabeth there was a John Whytacre, of Hollynwood. The Whittakers had risen into great respectability during last century, and allied themselves with other respectable families in Oldham. We find the Wittakers among the earlier Oldham cotton spinners. E. Butterworth has the following notes:- “Mr. Robert Whittaker, father of the late John Whittaker, Esq., of Higher Hurst, Ashton-under-Lyne, one of the most eminent cotton manufacturers of his day, erected a manufactory in New-road, or Manchester-street, in 1791. He commenced the cotton business with the possession of a small carding mill moved by horse-power, in a building adjacent to Bent Hall, and also as owner of a small number of spinning machines, worked in a room near his dwelling in Duke-street, Oldham.
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A few years afterwards, before 1808, he became possessed of the cotton mill at Higher Hurst, near Ashton-under-Lyne, and, being gifted, with unusual business tact and prudent habits, he rendered that manufactory one of the most extraordinary in the manufacturing district for its extent and arrangement. In 1840 he employed 1,000 hands, and he had been the means in a few years of converting a mere group of houses into a large and increasing village. Mr. John Whittaker died September 14, 1840. Conscious of his own experience of the suffering attendant on poverty, he generously provided in his will for the comfortable support of his aged superannuated operatives. The late Mr. Whittaker afforded a remarkable instance, amongst numerous others which are to be found in the manufacturing districts, of the results of self-progression when accompanied by prudence and perseverance”. The firm is now known as Oldham Whittaker and Sons, and has become an important factor in the local trade of Ashton. Other branches of the family of Whittaker or Whitaker are well known in the Oldham iron and cotton trades, an important branch of the Whitaker family having founded a large cotton manufactory in the United States of America. Bamford, Mary, relict of the late Andrew Bamford, innkeeper, Church-lane, Oldham, died February 2nd, 1788. Taylor, John, Cockhouse Fold, Oldham, died February 17th, 1788, aged 57 years. Adam Stock, of Stake Hill, was buried February 20th, 1788. The distress of his family is great, they being ill of the fever, and his wife ignorant of his death. The family of Stock has long been settled in Oldham and district. “Willius Stocke” was a tenant under Thomas Radcliffe, of Foxdenton, in the reign of Henry VIII. Mr. John Travis, of Royton, gentleman, died February 24th, 1788. Who does not remember the fine compliment paid to the clan Travis by Charles Dickens in his “Dodderham Worthy”, which appeared in one of the earlier numbers of Household Words many years ago? The compliment consists in his selecting the Travises as the impersonation of everything old. Heaven and Norry King-at-Arms only knew how many years before the flood the heirs of this grand old family were belted knights. The Travises were so astonishingly old that their woods might have been almost primaeval they looked so old. |
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Their ancient manor house was crumbling to pieces; their servants were greybeards. They were of the old fallen faith, and even death itself lost its newness and noisomeness in their family vault, so old, ruinous, and gray beneath the gray ruins of Saint Severin’s Abbey, which was within the demesne of Rocksavage, the place of their long abidement. So much for romance! As a matter of fact, Travis, or Traves, or Trauis, or some such person came over from France with the Conqueror, and the name is said to have hung in Battle Abbey among a list of other names representing William’s companions when he won the fateful field of Hastings. How the Travises got into Lancashire Heaven only can tell. They appear to have settled near Manchester about the time that Queen Mary was burning the martyrs in 1555. John Bradford, the Manchester martyr was a personal friend of Travis, minister of Blackley. Baines says that ten or twelve letters from Bradford to Travis are published in Bishop Coverdale’s collection, and there is, I believe, an heirloom now in the possession of one of the Travis families in Oldham in the shape of a book presented by the martyr to his friend Travis, of Blackley. A branch of the Travis family settled at or near Royton. Archdeacon Travis, of Chester, who wrote letters in reply to Gibbon, and whose memorial tablet is in Chester Cathedral, is a member of this family. The Travises are mixed up with the local families of Royton and Shaw – the Holdens, the Cromptons, the Cleggs, the Milnes, the Cheethams, the Cockers, and others. The Rev. Benjamin Travis, B. A., nominated curate of Royton, Sept. 1, 1760, was son of Mr. G. Travis, of Heyside. The illustrious Deborah Travis, afterwards Mrs. Knyvett, was also of this family. Space prevents me doing due justice here to the claims of this family, but I must devote a chapter to its history when opportunity favours. The Mr. John Travis named was probably a relative of Archdeacon Travis. The Travises have been settled in Oldham for three-and-a-quarter centuries at least. Titus Bardsley, stonemason, of Bottom of Maggot-lane, died February 28th, 1788, age 77. Mary Mellor, relect of the late Samuel of Hargreaves. She died at Lees Hall, February 29th, 1788, age 72. Joshua Wild, formerly of Foomurt, and commonly called Foomurt Joss, died at Oldham Workhouse, March 3rd, 1788. Hannah Lees, daughter of the late Robert Lees, of Maggot-lane, died March 4th, 1788, age 18 years, of a consumption.
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Betty Bell, of the township of Chadderton, single woman, being taken in labour at Alkrington wood, instead of coming to Chadderton Workhouse to lay in, went to Jumbo, near Middleton, the residence of James Wisherwood, the father of her child, there she was delivered, and there she did and would lay in on the 25th of February, 1788. She afterwards married James Wisherwood. Anna Chadwick, wife of Austin Chadwick, died at Robert Lee’s, Maggot-lane, of a consumption. March 11th, 1788, age 24. Fire at Isaac Hardy’s, at Newroe, which burnt 6lbs. of cotton, 5 pairs of stockings, and set the cradle on fire, with a child in which was much burnt. It happened through the wife imprudently holding the candle under the cotton as it was drying, March 6th 1788. It was usual to saturate cotton with water when it had to be spun by hand in order to make it “lick”. The cotton was weighed out by the piece master to the spinner, who first slubbed it between the finger and the thumb into a thick sliver, and then spun it in the same way into weft. The cotton was usually spread on a flake after being saturated, and placed before the fire to dry. Accidents of the kind here described were of frequent occurrence under the old system of domestic cotton spinning. A fire of this nature was no light matter though when we consider that the price of cotton was 2s. to 3s. per pound, and the spinner, or spinster, would have to make the loss good. |
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William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
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