The following is a true statement of the price of some of the necessarys of life, viz: Fine flour 5s. 4d. to 5s. 8d., meal 4s. 4d. to 4s. 10d., American flour 6s., malt 3s. to 3s. 3d. per peck. Hops 3s. 6d., butter 1s. 3d., treacle 7d., candles 9d., beff 8d., mutton 8d., onions 3½ d., cheese 9d. per pond. Pottatoes 1s. 8d. for 20lb. Hay, very good, 10d., and straw 4d. a stone. Brown sugar 10d. a pond. Brown or white soap 9½ d. Rice 4½ d. to 5d. per pond. A bounty was being offered at this time by the British Government on the importation of cereals. This bounty was equal to the sum by which the article was less in value than the following prices:
American flour, which came to this country in barrels it will be noted, fetched a higher price than home grown and home ground flour. The quality was much better than native flour that housewives were content to pay some 8d. per peck more. What should we think if we had to pay such prices for provisions to-day, though in the this district our earning are over five time more that they were then, on average 20s. 6d. against 3s. 11¼ d. per head? Exalent fine wheather and as been so for some time. January 25th – A moderate fall of snow this morning, and a gentle frost ensued. January 29th – James Ogden, comonly cald Gina o’th’Busk, entered this day. And John Ogden, cotton manufacturer, of Top-o’th’-Moor, died a few days since.
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January 28th – A lamentable misfortune happened at Manchester last night about seven o’clock. A large factory was discovered to be in flames; the people were at work, and as the fire began on the lower part they wich were in the higher rooms, and unfortunately locked up, were precluded from all posability of escape except jumping out at the windows, six storys high, wich several, both men and women, tho dreadfull in the extreme in its appearances, actually performed. Some light on the pavement with little injury, while others were so bruised that, being carried to the Infirmary, emediately expired. Upon the most minute enquiry, it appears that about twenty unfortunate beings perished in the flames; and on the night of the 29th another factory in Manchester got on fire, and a young woman perished in the flames.
Mr. Axon, in his “Manchester Annals”, gives the date of the first fire as the 27th. It was a cotton mill belonging to Messrs. Littlewood and Kirby. The mill stood on the banks of the Medlock. Twenty-three persons are stated by Mr. Axon to have lost their lives. January 31st – This month is concluded, and as been one of the finest Januarys ever remembered for warm and pleasant. February – At the conclusion of Manchester Sessions, last month, the Hygate men, for riot at Oldham rush-bearing, Monday, received sentence of six-months’ imprisonment in Lancaster Castle. The matter was, shortly, this:- An affray took place betwixt the Chaderton men and the Hygate men, when the former retreated into the Red Lyon Inn, and the Hygaters broke the door and windows, for wich offence six of them where sentenced to Lancaster, as above. February 2nd – No material altercation in the price of provisions for several weeks. February 4th – Sir. Thomas Dalrimple Hesketh, Bart., of Rufford, High Sheriff for this county. Baines says:- Rufford Hall (new) was erected in 1798 by Sir Thomas Dalrymple Hesketh, bart., grandfather of Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, fifth baronet, whose seat it now (1870) is. The old hall has a history dating some centuries back. |
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ANNALS OF OLDHAM No. XXVII 1801 February 6th – This morning as usual is very fine, and all sorts of vegetation making its apearance, especially nettles and cresses, and grass is in a very forward state. Even the weather is so warm that it resembles a fine April, and it is an absolute fact that in several places the toads are ruding, and this heavenly morning was ushered in with the melodious notes of the red robin, throstle, hedge sparrow, and the lark. If no frost comes to chill vegetation &c., it will be one of the forwards springs ever remembered. RUDDING The popular notion of the substance called toad-rud is evidently what is known in science as frog spawn. I have copied from the Rev. J. G. Wood the following notes:- “The chief interest of the frog lies in the curious changes which it undergoes before it attains its perfect condition. Everyone is familiar with the huge masses of transparent jelly-like substance, profusely and regularly dotted with black spots, which lie in the shallows of a river, or in standing pools. Each of these little black spots is the egg of a frog, and is surrounded with a globular, gelatinous envelope, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. According to gipsy lore, rheumatism may be cured by plunging into a bath filled with frog spawn. On comparing these huge masses with the dimensions of the parent frog, the observer is disposed to think that so bulky a substance must be the aggregated work of a host of frogs. Such, however, is not the case, although the mass of spawn is forty or fifty times larger than the creature that laid it. The process is as follows: The eggs are always laid under water, and when first deposited are covered with a very slight, but firm, membranous envelope, so as to take up very little space. No sooner, however, are they left to develop than the envelope begins to absorb water with astonishing rapidity, and in a short time the eggs are enclosed in the centre of their jelly-like globes, and thus kept well apart from each other. In process of time certain various changes take place in the egg, and at the proper period the form of the young frog becomes apparent. In this state it is a black, grub-like creature, with a large head and a flattened tail. By degrees it gains strength, and at last fairly breaks its way through the egg and is launched upon a world of dangers, under the various names of tadpole, pollywog, toe-biter, or horsenail.”
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“Toad-rud” was an expression used in Lancashire in old time to indicate low origin, especially of people who affected to be somebody or something they were not. The rudding of toads, or rather frogs, was taken by old people to be one of the harbingers of spring. Do I not remember an old spring ditty –
Who remembers the rest? February 7th – Roberey and murder. Early this morning was found robed and murdered James Plat, of Lees. He was returning from Manchester, and meet with his unhappy fate near Doll-stile, Oldham. Several persons have been taken up on suspicion, but the perpetrators of this deed have yet escaped. This crime was committed in the midst of what is now the busiest part of Oldham. An old Holebottomer remembers a stone in a boundary wall and a mark in the kerbstone near where this murder is said to have taken place, to denote the scene of the murder. He says there was no house on that side of the road when he was a boy, between Rhodes factory, which stood near where the late Mr. Henry Thomson’s livery stables are and the Wild Dayrell, then known as the Duke of York, and kept by Sam Moss. Old Sam kept a wheelwright’s shop as well as the hostelry, and he is said to have literally kept the hostelry because it never kept him. On the other side of the road there was no house between the Friendship and Abel Fielding’s, at the top of Doll-stile, and the murder took place nearly opposite the Grapes Inn, in Yorkshire-street, on the other side of the road, a few yards lower down. Where the shops now stand was an open meadow stretching up as far as Horsedge Hall, called George Wright’s meadow, in which the boys of the neighbourhood played football. The wall in which the stone was placed bounded George Wright’s meadow (George Wright was the Oldham huntsman, and kept the Hare and Hounds), and the spot was considered a lonely place in those days. James Platt was a small spinner or manufacturer residing at Lees. He had been to Manchester market, and on his way back had called at the Old Mess House, where he displayed his money which he had that day received from his customers. After leaving the house and going some eighty yards down the street, he was set upon by some ruffian whose name was never discovered, and robbed of his money and brutally murdered. James Platt left two sons, John Platt and Lees Platt, and a daughter or daughters; their descendants are still resident in Lees, Oldham and the district. At Oldham meal 4s. 4d. to 4s. 8d; American flour 5s. 9d; barley 3s. 4d. No fine English flour to be sold. Government having prohibited the making of any; there is a sort of flour which is called Billy Ground Down, which was roof flour. |
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William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
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