The final chapter…Mr Reach and me: Retracing steps of Victorian Saddleworth (Part 4)
This is the fourth, and final, article in a short series.
Nearly 200 years ago, London journalist Angus Reach toured manufacturing districts in the UK. His aim: to investigate and report on the conditions of the Victorian working classes. From 1849, his letter from Saddleworth is a mine of detail and reads almost like a novel, as he examines the area, then known for its production of woollen cloth. In this parallel narrative, I write my own experiences of the places he visited, across space and time, on the other side of the Industrial Revolution.
“In passing through the little village of Dubcross I observed a quaint tavern sign, illustrative of the ruling passion.”
In passing out of the little village of Dobcross, I do not observe any tavern sign…or even a tavern.
“On the board was inscribed, ‘Hark to Bounty – hark.’”
It’s a beautiful, sunny day in early March – so unlike that very first excursion I took to Grasscroft in the January snow. Today, I’ve wandered through the square at Dobcross, noting ‘The Swan’ inn, the old bank, the old co-op, and the enviable flower displays of the cottages. Now, I’m headed down the hill, to see if there’s any sign of another inn having been here. Mr Reach’s ‘Hark to Bounty’ sign has been a mystery that’s plagued me since I very first planned to write these articles. In researching the history of ‘The Swan’, I was unable to find any sign bearing that name, and I couldn’t think of another pub to exist in Dobcross. To thicken the plot, I came across a reference, quite some time ago now, in a very odd book, titled ‘The Old Inns of Old England. Volume II’, written in 1906. Under the wonderfully-named chapter ‘Queer Signs in Quaint Places’, the writer, Harper, mentions that ‘Hark to Nudger,’ is written on an inn sign ‘at Dobcross, near Manchester’. I was perplexed, because what on Earth is a ‘nudger’? I guessed that the sign Mr Reach mentions must have changed its inscription in the approximate fifty years between his account and Harper’s…but I still didn’t know where the pub was.
Halfway down the road, I stop and soak up information on a board outside Holy Trinity church. Free and easy-to-read historical info; it’s like a welcome drink of water to a parched throat! Snapping photos of the board, I pick up that another pub did indeed exist, further down the road. Hurriedly turning away to pursue my target, I stop as a person, a resident of Dobcross, greets me nearby. I stay on the pavement and speak to him from across the road. It turns out that he’s knowledgeable about the area’s history, sharing with me titbits of fact and rumour. During the periodic pauses in our conversation when cars and lorries barge loudly up the road between us, I inwardly gladden at this new parallel between myself and Mr Reach. Mr Reach’s whole mission is to speak to locals, learn their views, soak up their lives, and present it all to his naïve readership. Although I obviously don’t share that aim, speaking to another person who lives here gives me a renewed joy for the stories I’m learning and sharing about Saddleworth. It makes me remember that a place really can be as wide as you make it. Sometimes, the best stories are the local, close-to-the-bone tales. Plus…my informant confirms that the old inn down the road did indeed once have a ‘Hark to Bounty’ sign!
Finally pausing at the section of road where the inn once stood, it’s only now that I realise I’ve been staring ignorantly across at a street sign reading ‘Nudger Green’. The jigsaw pieces tumble inelegantly into place in my head and I laugh. ‘Hark to Nudger’! This is the final proof that Mr Reach was here, chuntering up this steep, steep hill in a horse and cart, leaning out of the window to scribe the words of a pub sign that evolved and evolved until it was no longer here. I only wonder at what point someone changed the sign from ‘Bounty’ to ‘Nudger’ and why they chose this odd word.
On the topic of words, I’ll stop to deposit this little fact: Angus Reach’s name is pronounced ‘re-ak’. His friend, the writer Samuel Makepeace Thackeray, got it wrong when they first met. Like I did, he rhymed it with ‘beach’. The story goes that Angus corrected him, and Mr Thackeray apologised for his mistake. The two then went on with their dinner, becoming friendly. I imagine they sat at a broad oak table in a parlour somewhere, giggling. Then later, Mr Thackery offered Angus dessert from a bowl of peaches. With mock sincerity, he posed the question: “Mr Re-ak, will you take a pe-ak?”.
At home, buzzing from my findings, I peel back another few layers. Looking more closely at my photo of the notice board, I kick myself – I should’ve read it properly earlier: the Nudger was built in 1784 and closed in 1956. It was last owned by an Olympic swimming champion, Henry Taylor. The current houses at Nudger Green were first sold in around 1995. So, the name of the pub came first, not the name of the street. I then discover, wonderfully, that a ‘nudger’ is a type of long, finger-shaped bread, originating in Liverpool. Did someone make nudgers nearby? Was there once a bakery here, too, that I’ve yet to discover? The entire story would require material I simply don’t have access to, but as I type the last words of this wacky paragraph, I feel I’ve squeezed more than enough juice out of Mr Reach’s small Dobcross comment. I decide that that’s justified, because it’s the only mention Dobcross gets in his entire article – and in my opinion, it’s one of the prettiest places in Saddleworth. It deserves a proper share of attention.
“…I proceeded to a village called Delph, where there are only a very few mills, and round which is scattered a thick population of small farmers and hand-loom weavers.”
A week or so later, on a mild morning, I follow Lark Hill Road up from Dobcross, and survey Delph from the stretching backbone of Harrop Edge. The idea that there are fewer mills down there than in any other Saddleworth village just doesn’t strike true anymore. Knotted streets twist their way through the built-up valley, the corrugated roofs of mills and factories already visible. Embedded is a prominent stone chimney which rears its head like an old signal from centuries ago whose call was never answered.
“The cottages of many of these people are perched far up among the hills, on the very edge of the moors.”
I’ve passed few houses up here, and over on the opposite hills there aren’t many either. The concentration of human energy is down in the valley, in the buildings, clumped like slices of grey rocky-road. I guess that some of Mr Reach’s cottages are now demolished, and their survivors simply don’t stand out in the tight crowd that the village has become.
“…the houses are inferior, both in construction and cleanliness, to those nearer the mills…I found beds of no inviting appearance in the loom room; and broken windows were often patched with old hats and dirty clothes.”
Descending into the valley, I keep my eyes on the horizon. Though the cottages scattered across those neighbouring hills harbour desirable views, they’re isolated, unidentifiable, and inconsequential. That they appear within this landscape as the most prominent feature to Mr Reach and least prominent feature to me says a lot about the 200 years between us, and the huge cycles of growth and destruction Saddleworth has gradually seen.
“Among the hills dairy farms are, as I have said, very common…Milk of all kinds was sent down during the summer-time, in great quantities…(they) kept donkeys to carry it, to Staleybridge, Oldham, and other cotton towns, where the factory hands consumed it as fast as it could be sent in.”
Today, a few dairies exist in Delph, but in 1849 the farming here was more prominent. Workers lived hybrid lives, complimenting their weaving with farming instead of the vice versa, as in the time pre-industry. Indeed, Peter Fox and Michael Fox write “The ‘spinners, weavers and farmers’ were gradually divesting themselves of the last mentioned activity.”1. Pacing along the tarmac down here in the close valley, I imagine a donkey plodding beside me, laden with milk, flicking flies out of its little mane. I shake my own head – out of all my adventures in the footsteps of Mr Reach so far, I feel that Delph is the most unrecognisable.
“It was a glorious sunny afternoon, and amid the fields, and by the road side, the weavers with their wives and children were…stretching out their warps… to dry them in the genial air…The workpeople were very chatty and communicative.”
Knowing I won’t be locating Mr Reach’s cottages, I zigzag down towards the back of a mill which is layered up through the centuries. It’s an amalgamation of eras and efforts, culminating in a large, confusing set of buildings that stretches its many limbs along the river. I know at least part of it was called Rasping Mills, pulled down in 1834 and rebuilt again, and it would have been operating down here as Mr Reach rode high along the hilltop in the sun. Here, there’s a faint rumbling noise and a mysterious air. A fan slowly turns in a grate opposite me. Mr Reach and the dairy farmers above me chatter and congregate, and I feel myself to be their very antithesis as I slink down the river’s course alone.
“…(a) weaver, a very intelligent man…for he had travelled much, and been twice in America…”
Mr Reach strikes up conversation with this ‘very intelligent’ weaver. As they discuss Mr Weaver’s wages (averaging 10 shillings per week), I pass another mill. Mr Reach and Mr Weaver would have been able to hear the muffled hum of Shore Mill’s industry, underscoring their conversation. Now, it’s quiet; a listed building, a beautiful cottage. Reaching the end of the path, I sit on a bench near where the river bends away from the high street, and remember the full conversation between Mr Reach and Mr Weaver.
“’Why, when corn is very dear we have next to no trade at all…The fabrics we make be mostly for the home market…and if the poor people have to spend all they earn to pay for their food and to keep the roofs over them, why, they can’t buy no good warm clothing.’”
Despite being crowned with hills and wreathed in countryside, Saddleworth wasn’t an easy place to live. Mr Weaver candidly refers to the way the price of food affected the sale of cloth. In 1846, two years before Mr Reach’s article, the crucial ‘Corn Laws’ were repealed in Britain. Since 1815, the Corn Laws had imposed tariffs on imported corn, and had banned it from entering the country until domestic corn reached a price of 80 shillings per quarter. They’d been hugely controversial for years. They caused raised prices and made it difficult for workers to afford food, whilst benefitting wealthy landowners. Right here in Manchester, the Anti-Corn Law League was founded in 1839. However, the struggle had been constant, with workers rallying against the Corn Laws as early as 1819 at the Peterloo massacre.
As Delph flickers peacefully around me, I remember an 1839 article from ‘The Northern Star’ that I read months ago. It describes a rowdy meeting at the ‘King’s Head’ pub in Dobcross (now ‘The Swan’ – which I passed only an hour ago). During this meeting, local Whig politicians want to vote to repeal the Corn Laws, and so do the workers, who show up in droves to make their voices known. The workers, however, also want an amendment to the proposed vote, for universal male suffrage: the right for working men to vote. After arguments, and blackmail, the Whigs come out on top and the meeting disperses as rowdily as it begun. It’s another 7 years until the Corn Laws are repealed, and a staggering 79 until universal male suffrage is achieved (not to mention female suffrage!). Even after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, food pricings were volatile and often high.
Suddenly, it feels like my position down here on this still morning is the more pleasant one. Mr Reach and Mr Weaver up on the hill have entered harshly realistic territory in their conversation. The workers in the pub in Dobcross have sat down with a long sigh. The clouds above have shifted to shroud them all in difficulty, whilst the sunlight takes its turn to beam down on to me and my bench. I am grateful that I live now and not then.
“…all the weavers hereabouts that hadn’t farms were forced to turn out and work at the railway tunnel under Stannidge. If it wasn’t for that I don’t know what would ha’ becoom of us.’”
“’…a great lot of the weavers had to go work along with t’ navvies on the rail-road.’”
And here in the narrative, I’d like to press pause. On the bank next to my bench, there’s a crispy leaf, a remnant of Autumn. Imagine now, that it’s picked up by the wind, swooped high above my head in an ensnaring embrace, and twirled off over the hill from Delph, eastwards beyond my sight. When the gale subdues, the leaf drifts slowly downwards and lands, soundless and soft. It’s on the tarmac of Diggle, next to my feet…two weeks earlier.
As we now press play on the narrative again, I’m stood on the bridge over the railway line at Station Road in Diggle – yes, two weeks earlier – staring into the gaping hole of Standedge rail tunnel. The yawning, black gap in the hillside stares back at me, oozing mystery and expectancy, and the absolute silence here is made even more silent by the knowledge that at any minute a train could hoot a warning and then rocket under my feet with all the noise of the world. Casting my eye to the right, I identify the tunnel that I’m really here to see. There are four Standedge tunnels. The first is the canal tunnel, opened in 1811, not visible from here, being underground. The second is the middle tunnel of the three that I can see, opened in 1848 – the one Mr Weaver worked on. The third is the tunnel on the far right, opened in 1871 so trains could travel both ways (the 1848 tunnel had proved to be a ‘bottleneck’ for rail traffic). The final is the huge mouth in front of me, two tracks leading inside, built in 1894 due to more demands for high capacity. It’s the only one still operational.
I think of all the arduous hours the weavers of Delph (forced out of their usual jobs) alongside the ‘navvies’ (excavation labourers), put into that 1848 tunnel, for it now to be completely hidden. Unlike many Victorian buildings, it’s not ornately displayed. Instead, bits of rock, tree, bramble and metal engulf that original tunnel, now dwarfed in size by its sibling on the left and overshadowed by its own neon yellow warning sign. The time spent creating inside the hillside is lost, the labour shrouded by the landscape itself. The weavers’ livelihood of two years is a shadow.
Making my way off the bridge, I wind around to the other side of the tunnels, so that I am opposite where I stood. Here, I can gaze down the empty rails, and the empty paths where old rails once lay. Sealed off with dark green gates, the old tunnels beneath me are just as sullen as the sandy, barren paths that protrude from their mouths. The paths slither away underneath the bridge, running parallel to the functioning railway line…and I realise something. A few months ago, I wrote about Saddleworth’s bridleways, once railway lines, and if it’s not a fact you already know, it’s hard to tell that those woodland paths were once miles of track. But here at Standedge, things look different. These naked paths, where the old rails were, are right next to the dull shine of still-operational rails. I cast my eyes back and forth, back and forth between them, and despite the peace and quiet it’s like alarm bells are ringing in my head; I can see the passage of time in front of me, clear as day. It’s as if the operational line is just sat waiting to pass on into becoming its muddy, flooded, desolate relative next door. The two sets of lines don’t even look that different…
Swiftly, I’m torn away from my morbid musing as an actual train dashes under the bridge and throws itself into the jaws of the 1894 tunnel. I blink, and it’s gone. Swallowed without a trace of an echo. I’m reminded that of course these tunnels have all been immensely useful over the years – of course, the weavers’ work amounted to more than a shadow! – but…this place is sleepy, and not even the flash of a train seems to be able to wake it for long.
“these…classes are generally decently off, and live wholesome and tolerably agreeable lives.”
Back in Delph, two weeks later, the crisp leaf still on the bank next to me, I rise and head off to see one final mill. Ahead, in the direction of Heights Church, little cottages collate, interspersed with flocks of sheep, looking from here like clots of cotton wool. Was Mr Weaver’s cottage up there? It’s so hard to know. I reach my destination, and look across the road. Eagle Court – an unimposing, private settlement of housing. Once, part of this was Eagle Mill, established in 1700, rebuilt in 1844. Friends and neighbours of Mr Weaver worked here. It utterly blends in. There’s no reason to stop and stare, there’s no acceptable way of nosing anyway, and with a furrow of my brow I realise… there’s nowhere else I need to go.
“But there are districts, principally in the neighbourhood of the large towns, where competition keeps the wages miserably low, and where hard labour brings in but a hard and scanty subsistence. Some districts of this kind I shall touch upon in my next letter.”
Turning, I walk back the length of Delph High Street. I dodge ambitious lorries and the queue of masked faces trailing out of the Co-op. Mr Reach puts down his quill or pencil in an unsensational manner. He turns his mind to his next piece of work. As I walk home, I wish the final words of his article would swim in my head, so I could be all poetic about them, – but they don’t.
Now sitting at my laptop and having typed them out above, I remember… his words don’t pretend to be something they’re not. They’re not dramatic or memorable – they’re just a segue into his next investigation. Mr Reach knows the extent of his experience in Saddleworth is only a snapshot. A couple of days at random, the cottages of workers at random, the weather at random. For this reason, the closest thing to a conclusion he writes is that the people here “live wholesome and tolerably agreeable lives”. Mr Reach can’t summarise this place based on one visit, and, appropriately, he doesn’t try to. He wants to write what’s ‘real’.
“…I must take the opportunity of saying that the country is much indebted to the Morning Chronicle for the expose of distress and injustice experienced by our working classes.” – W.B. Huddersfield, Nov 27th
At various points in tracking him, the reality of Mr Reach’s account has hit me. However, sitting editing one morning, I do something that I probably should’ve done months ago. I zoom out. Physically pinching the screen, I watch as the whole broadsheet page of the Morning Chronicle grows into view. My gut drops with the realisation that I may have missed something important. Luckily, Mr Reach’s article takes up the majority of the spread, but it’s flocked with little articles focusing on such things as a hospital, an orphans’ school, and the regular morning walk of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Then I notice there’s a blink-and-you-miss-it section following our main article, stocked with notes written by readers. All are in praise of the exposé undertaken by Mr Reach and his colleagues. Most of the notes also reference enclosed donations to specific workers mentioned in the articles.
“Sir – Enclosed is a cheque for 5l…to the old maiden woman engaged in garter-making, mentioned in your journal of 20th……to the ‘stalwart’ man, with one side of this body dead…to the poor girl struggling to free herself from a life of vice…” – E.D. and S. N. Athlone, Nov 26th
I feel overwhelmed, subsuming pity upon pity from these readers. The previous article they mention (written by Mr Reach and his colleagues) overflow with people in dire conditions. Reading the descriptions today, the people seem quasi-fictional, caricatures of the deserving poor, immortalised by their distress and nothing more. But they are real, and they face hardships which still exist today.
“You have withdrawn the veil that has long hidden from the world at large an awful gangrene…the disease itself is festering and corrupting…the very vitality of this great nation.” – X. Z. Nov 27th
Rigorously, I search through publications of the Morning Chronicle that succeed our Saddleworth one, but I can find no donations to the weavers or mill workers we’ve met. Although disappointing historically, it does make sense. Mr Reach depicts the Saddleworthians as stalwart, independent, and living in relative “comfort”. Their carefully-led lives and proximity to nature are seen by his readers as semi-ideal, pastoral attractions. Rural life isn’t seen as part of the “disease…festering and corrupting” the country, and, when comparing it to life in urban poverty, I think this view is fair enough. Arguably, the readership chose more needing recipients of their money.
Of course, not everyone appreciated the exposé. In extra research, I discover The Economist, founded just seven years earlier, said the Morning Chronicle was “…unthinkingly increasing the enormous funds already profusely destined to charitable purposes, adding to the number of virtual paupers, and encouraging a reliance on public sympathy for help instead on self-exertion.”. Cutting words. Interestingly, both papers supported the repeal of the Corn Laws: the Morning Chronicle sought to lower food prices; The Economist sought to allow free trade.
“He feared that it was but natural that the power mule would supplant the hand mule, just as the hand mule had supplanted the spinning wheel.” – Mr Reach, on the words of a weaver
And here is the quote I’d like to finish on.
It was but natural that the power mule would supplant the hand mule. Back in my first article, I described Saddleworth as a palimpsest: a layered fumble of buildings, hills, borders, and history. It exists in a state of questions and answers lying about the landscape. Time piled upon time. A bare blanket of hill is now crusted with crescents and avenues. The walls of a formidable mill, throbbing with production, are now the untroubled stones of a home. Industry continues as numerous factories thrive in the area, breathing with technology developed from those original models, centuries ago. The Victorians witnessed every mode they encountered get supplanted by the next. I’ve dug into the differences that two hundred years have made, but the differences wrought by a mere five years were unbelievable, then. The unquenchable desperation for progress shot through the decades like a pursued fox. No wonder this weaver seems able to pinpoint his own location in history.
Mr Reach’s time here was but a passing flare on a sunny day. His words seared into the eyes of his readers for a morning, before their immediacy died off again, consumed by the next area he visits. My words will die off too, possibly as soon as this pandemic ‘ends’ and we all enter a new headspace. It’s not a bad thing. Each time-stamped experience of a place only makes it richer and wider to explore. Without getting delusions of grandeur, it’ll be great if someone writes over me in 200 years’ time!
Angus Reach looks out of the window on the train to Huddersfield. The future is at the forefront of his mind. He’s just churned out another batch of words and posted them down to the publishers for Thursday’s paper. I look out of the window at home. My mind is clogged. I’ve just churned out another batch of words and am realising that there’s no standout way for me to bring them to a close. However, I do think there’s one thing that we both know… Saddleworth continues to layer.
Featured image: Delph, 1915. Credit: Peter Fox.
1 Peter Fox and Michael Fox, Victorian Saddleworth (Saddleworth Museum) p. 4. www.saddleworthmuseum.co.uk/product/book-set-victorian-saddleworth-and-on-to-the-time-of-george-v/
2 This image is held by the British Museum, and has been released for use by the British Museum under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. The image can be found here on the British Museum’s website.
For access to Angus Reach’s original article, go onto www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ and in the search tab, enter key words such as ‘Morning Chronicle, 1849, Labour and the Poor, the Manufacturing Districts, Saddleworth, November’
Author: Megan Bruton
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