13: Alice Bonny in Blackpool: the early 19th century

In 1886, an old inhabitant described to a reporter the village as he remembered it in 1806 when Alice was 18 years old and he was six. 

Mr Bagot remembered a village of 36 houses and 6 hotels – thatched cottages, labourers and fishermen, the dealer in toys, the shrimp dealer, the oyster shop, the butcher and the baker – and the village characters.  

There was the old woman known to everyone simply as Jemima, the yeoman Richard Walsh who for years bathed in the sea on Old Christmas Day, and George Cooke who was appointed the village's first postmaster by the government when he came back from America because he wouldn't fight against the British in the War of Independence.  Mr Bagot said he returned with "a little black girl, who had been born in slavery, she was baptised at Bispham church soon after her arrival, and named by her liberator, Polly Cook".  

In 1789 George Cooke began selling high class goods to the quality trade – he stocked his shop for the summer season with teas, cocoa, wines, liquors, chocolate, sugar, spices, sago, tapioca, together with jewelley "of the newest Fashions", and hosiery, millinery, perfumery, bathing caps … In short, everything a visitor of discernment could require.  He set up a Public Room with a Library of Books, and a billiard room with a "handsome table".  Alice Bonny and her sisters must have clamoured for a little pin money to spend at Mr Cooke's.  And Mr Bagot remembered "John Bonny, gentleman farmer and innkeeper, who lived on Bonny's road".

Blackpool continued to grow, but slowly.  The hoteliers were still reluctant to invest capital in offering more entertainments in the hope of attracting more visitors and, according to the Revd Thornber, some people were loathe to sell their land to provide more accommodation.  I wonder if he was thinking of John Bonny.  So, even though the more well-to-do had to take their holidays in Britain because Europe was closed to them by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, other resorts overtook Blackpool.

All the same, in 1813, Richard Ayton (in his A voyage round Great Britain, undertaken in the summer of the year 1813, and commencing from the Land's-End, Cornwall) was struck by the number of visitors

• he saw the beach at high water, "for the length of nearly a mile, darkened with thick clusters of people, full of motion, and continually splashing in and out of the water"

• "I could not help admiring the honest confidence with which both sexes, among the lower orders, bathed together, as if really, during this act of immersion, there was a temporary suspension of every feeling of dignity and decorum, which, for the most part, makes breeches and petticoats absolutely necessary."

He remarked on

• the "crowds of poor people from the manufacturing town" who came to Blackpool because they maintained that in August and September "there is physic in the sea"

• many came in carts, but some walked the 40 miles from Manchester in a single day, even if it was only to stay in Blackpool for 3 or 4 days

• they came at a spring tide when they said the water had the most strength

• "they bring their tea and sugar with them, and nine-pence a day each for their lodging" and they were crammed into the cottages – "five or six beds are crammed into each room, and five or six people into each bed" – sometimes they slept in shifts, because there weren't enough beds.  He was shown a small cottage and was told it took 50 sleepers per night

These visitors from the Lancashire mills put themselves through quite an intensive and gruelling cure after their long walk

The earliest act of the morning is a draught of salt-water, a quart, and sometimes two, which is followed, under the notion of fortifying the stomach, by an equal quantity of gin and beer.  This mixture swallowed, a man is properly prepared for the bath, in which he continues to paddle, either in or out of his clothes, for the remainder of the day

Ladies' dress 1813

At the more expensive end of the scale, Richard Ayton noted that "there are four or five boarding-houses for the politer part of the company, and even in these a system of packing is adopted".  He dined at one of them, 

in company with nearly a hundred persons, who must certainly have slept in families.  People live here, in every respect, on very familiar terms.  They meet regularly five times every day, in full concert, to eat together; and a general sense of friendliness and fellowship springs from this community of wholesome indulgences, that renders them little fastidious about the division of their rooms at night.

Meanwhile, Alice and her sisters and brothers grew up in the traditional world that their family had always known, surrounded by relatives, friends and acquaintances – people with long roots in the Fylde.  

Not far from her home was the farm of her grandfather William Bonny of the Hill.  

According to that slightly unreliable witness, the Revd Thornber, old Mr Bonny was an advertisement for Blackpool's healthy air.  He was amazingly hale and hearty into old age and "in his 80th year it was a task of little difficulty to walk to Preston and return on the same day, a distance of forty miles".  But Mr Bonny and his forebears were yeomen and he would have ridden to Preston, not walked – so it is probably a garbled tale.  Perhaps all we can assume is that William Bonny at the age of 79 could still ride to and from Preston in a day.

What was Alice Bonny like?

• her granddaughter Mary Hopkinson describes her as "calm, equable and more reticent" than her husband John, while sharing his "essential qualities of truth and kindness" – and comments that John was "decidedly autocratic" in the home

• she had very poor health by the time Mary knew her, so that she couldn't give any vivid description of her grandmother, but she remembered that her mother used to "speak with admiration of her uncomplaining patience and her great power of endurance".

Alice was the first of her siblings to be married.  She was 27 years old when she married John Dewhurst on 11 November 1815 at All Hallows' Church in Bispham, and went to live in Skipton. 

The Revd William Thornber's An Historical and Descriptive Account of Blackpool and its Neighbourhood (1837) can be found here

 https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/An_Historical_and_Descriptive_Account_of.html?id=4RAvnQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y 

Next:  14: The Bonnys of Blackpool after 1815

12: John Bonny & the Blackpool holiday trade

In its early days, bed and board could be had at Old Margery's for tenpence (10d) a night, which meant it was a higher grade of hostelry than the one operated at the Ginn, which cost 8d.  (12 pence = 1 shilling, & 20 shillings = £1)

When John Bonny took over Old Margery's on his marriage to Jennet Bickerstaffe, he couldn't compete with Mr Bailey for the genteel trade because Old Margery's wasn't on the sea front – which is why it became known as Bonny's-i'th'-Fields.  Instead he enlarged it with a view to moving into the middle-class family market, serving people who would probably arrive behind their own horses.  In 1787 he advertised his new hotel in the Manchester press:

Manchester Mercury, 22 May 1787 

Blackpool, May 1, 1787

John Bonney,

Begs Leave to inform his Friends and the Public,

That he has built a very large Dining Room, with Lodging Rooms for 20 Beds, in Addition to the House lately occupied by his Father-in-law, Mr Bickerstaff, which he has fitted up in a neat and commodious Manner, for the Reception of Families during the Bathing Season.  Every possible Attention will be paid to those who honour him with their Company.

His Terms are,

Ladies and Gentlemen 2s 2d per Day each )

Children                 1s 6d ditto )   Table Beer included

Servants          1s 6d ditto )

Horses Hay and Grass per Night 8d

This was at a time when a poor clergyman might have an income of £100, and a poorer curate might only have £30 to £50.  The flat annual salary of a Naval Surgeon Fifth Rate was £60 and, in London, 6 guineas (£6 6s) could buy you either an ordinary 2nd hand square piano or a mahogany bureau.

Unfortunately, the only picture we have of Bonny's Hotel is a photograph taken at the end of its life, long after it had stopped being a hotel and just before its demolition in 1902.  The wide, low buildings on the right of the photograph were the original buildings – John Bonny's new three-storeyed, two-bayed extension is on the left.

In August 1788, the year that Alice Bonny was born, a Unitarian poet, writer and successful businessman called William Hutton (1723-1815) brought his wife and their 32 year old daughter Catherine from Birmingham to Blackpool to see if spending two or three months there would improve Mrs Hutton's health.  

William Hutton was a most unusual man, generally held to be the first person in modern times to walk the length of Hadrian's Wall (starting from Birmingham – a distance of 600 miles).  Miss Catherine Hutton, a intelligent and remarkable woman, expressed her views on Blackpool in letters to a friend (collected in Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century, Letters of Catherine Hutton 1891, which is available as an ebook and in print – don't miss the account of her meeting at the end of her life with the Ioway tribe, in whom she took a very kind interest, and the farewell bidden to her by their old war chief).  

Her father published A Description of Blackpool in Lancashire, Frequented for Sea Bathing the following year.  He sold his booklets at cost to the two major landlords – Mr Bailey and Mr Hudson, I suspect – to invest the profits in improving the resort and helping the needy.  They may have done this; four years later they still hadn't paid him for the copies he gave them.

William Hutton c1780

This is what William Hutton saw:

• a village of about 50 houses, scattered over a distance of a mile – only about 6 of them faced the sea (the inhabitants had always built their cottages facing south) 

• among them were recently-built hotels – he thought the "superior houses for the reception of company" were not more than 7 years old

• a sea coast forming a straight line for many miles, with crumbling cliffs that rose from 3 feet to 60 feet above the high water mark

• coastal erosion – the road from Blackpool to Bispham had narrowed to a width that he felt was only safe for one person to walk along, and he was amazed to see a waggon navigating the lane beside a drop of 60 feet

• land that rose gradually from the sea so that the only views were of the sea and shore – in the distance, the Northern fells and the mountains of Wales – out to sea, perhaps half a dozen vessels – around sunset there might be a glimpse of the Isle of Man

• "the air is probably as pure as air can be"

• The village had only spring for water and some families had to carry water from half a mile off, but he thought it the most pleasant he had ever tasted

• "I think there is neither hedge or tree in the whole neighbourhood.  This want may arise from two causes: wind and idleness" – a bank and a ditch were the usual boundary

• he often visited the local farmers for information "and found the people extremely civil and very communicative"

• "the approach to Blackpool is through good roads, which are safe and easy for the traveller"

Regrettably, this was not always the case – this happened less than 10 miles from Blackpool while Mrs and Miss Hutton were staying there

Leeds Intelligencer, 23 September 1788

Friday se'nnight died, near Kirkham, on her way to Blackpool, owing to a bruise she received, in being thrown out of a one horse chaise, Mrs Travis, wife of Mr John Travis of Manchester.

Unlike Scarborough, Brighton, Liverpool or Margate, Blackpool was still undeveloped as a resort and there wasn't much available for entertainment.  William Hutton suggested tennis, shuttlecock, cricket, shuffleboard and billiards could easily be added to the facilities.  He had found

• the chief amusement was riding or walking on the sands  

• "the sea at Blackpool retreats nearly half a mile at low water, leaving a bed of most beautiful and solid sand, perfectly adapted for a gentleman to sport an equipage.  This extensive ride continues near twenty miles.  Here the gentry, of both sexes, display their horsemanship"

• at low water, the beach would be full of people walking about and the curious gathering shells, while the local netters were out shrimping for the visitors' dinners, the carters gathering stones to make roads and walls, and the builders looking for pebbles to burn into lime

• next in popularity was "to figure on the parade" – this was a "pretty grass-walk on the verge of the sea bank, divided from the road with white rails".  The Parade was often crowded, being only 6 yards wide and 200 yards long, with an alcove at one end and "a vile pit" at the other.  (He suggested extending it to a mile long, replacing the pit with another alcove, and adding benches)

• however crowded the Parade might be, it was only acceptable to speak to people who were staying in the same boarding house as yourself – this was usual in other watering-places and was something that Mr Hutton deplored

• there were about 400 visitors when the Huttons arrived and the resort attracted not only the wealthy ("here is a full display of beauty, and of fashion ... folly flushed with money") but also the poor 

• he met a shoemaker of nearly 70 on his way down to the sea with a mug to get some sea water – he had come from Lancaster and had cured his blindness by drinking the water,  bathing his eyes and sometimes bathing

• the point of drinking the sea water was to vomit – the purging was held to be beneficial

• bathing was generally at the flood when there was nobody on the beach "and the sting-fish, which lurk in the sand at low water" could be avoided

• "A bell rings at the time of bathing, as a signal for the ladies.  Some use machines drawn by one horse, a few travel from their apartments in their water dress; but the majority clothe in the boxes which stand on the beach for their use.  If a gentleman is seen upon the parade, he forfeits a bottle of wine.  When the ladies retire, the bell rings for the gentlemen, who act a second part in the same scene"

Richard Ayton, who visited Blackpool in 1813 on his Voyage round Great Britain with the renowned artist William Daniell, was surprised to find that the "Bathers" who helped the ladies into the water were men – but "sober, discreet men" – because the "boisterousness" of the sea made their strength necessary to prevent accidents

• and bathing wasn't always safe – in September 1786 a Mr W Tidd had been swept out into a stormy sea and there was considerable delay in launching a boat.  At first they couldn't find a fisherman willing to take on the dangerous waters even for a purse of 30 guineas, and when 3 men launched a boat and brought him to shore, he had been in the water a good while and was thought to be dead.  He was revived after 40 minutes' work with hot brandy, warm flannels and volatiles to the nose and temples by the celebrated Manchester surgeon Richard Hall 

• "diminutive" bowling-greens 

• some archery butts 

• a little white cottage which was now a "newshouse"

• some sailing – as much as a flat shore would allow – but wading out in the shallow water was off-putting 

• "many of the company amuse themselves with 'fine ale at number three'" and some hotels offered dances to their guests

• a theatre – that is to say, the threshing floor of a barn had been cleared and rows of benches put out.  The more expensive benches were called the "pit" and a seat cost 2 shillings; the cheaper benches, the "gallery", cost 1 shilling.  He saw the travelling players arrive in their cart, and play to a half-full house – a full house was said to make £6

• in bad weather, cards and backgammon in the lodging house

As to the food, Mr Hutton said

• the highest price for boarding was: dinner and supper a shilling each, eight-pence for breakfast and tea, making 3s. 4d a day, exclusive of liquors (four meals) – I think this will have been Mr Bailey's establishment 

• another house charged half a crown (2s 6d, ie. 2 shillings and sixpence) for eating, people bringing their own tea, coffee, sugar, and liquors

• a third charged eighteen-pence (1s 6d) – its market was "very decent people, who wish retirement, and are unwilling to lose those advantages at night which they draw from the sea in the day.  There are also other boarding houses, much inferior, such as that occupied by my friend the shoemaker, whose prices I did not examine; lodging is included." 

• it looks as though Bonny's Hotel is slightly cheaper than the second one mentioned by Mr Hutton

He noted that visitors were mostly from Lancashire, and above all Manchester, and he thought the "accommodations, the civility, the easy price, and, above all, the fair prospect of health" would draw company – especially as "the inhabitants are remarkable for longevity".  This was often cited as a selling point for Blackpool, but sometimes even the famous Blackpool air could not help

Manchester Mercury, 7 September 1790

Thursday died, at Blackpool, much respected by her acquaintance, Mrs Susanna Collier, wife of Mr John Collier, Grocer, of Stockport, and one of those people called Quakers

Miss Hutton
1799

Miss Catherine Hutton was rather less keen on Blackpool.  She wrote to her friend Mrs André from the house called Lane Ends.  It had recently been taken over by Mr Hudson, who had been a waiter at the Hall at Buxton

Blackpool is situated on a level, dreary, moorish coast; the cliffs are of earth, and not very high.  It consists of a few houses, ranged in a line with the sea, and four of these are for the reception of company; one accommodating 30, one 60, one 80, and the other 100 persons

Her list includes Mr Bailey's, Mr Hull's, Mr Hudson's and Mr Forshaw's houses but not John Bonny's, which in 1787 had only 20 beds.

The company now consisted of about 70, and I never found myself in such a mob.  The people sat down to table behind their knives and forks, to be ready for their dinner; while my father, my mother, and myself, who did not choose to scramble, stood behind, till some one, more considerate than the rest, made room for us.  

These people are, in general, of a species called Boltoners; that is, rich, rough, honest manufacturers of the town of Bolton, whose coarseness of manners is proverbial even among their countrymen.  The other houses are frequented by better company; that is, Lancashire gentry, Liverpool merchants, and Manchester manufacturers.  I find that I have no equals but the lawyers; for those who are my equals in fortune are distinguished by their vulgarity, and those who are my equals in manners are above me in situation.  Fortunately for me, there is no lack of lawyers in Lancashire, Preston alone containing fifty; and there are always at Blackpool some whom I like, and with these I laugh at the rest ...

The general observations I have been enabled to make on the Lancastrians are that the Boltoners are sincere, good-humoured, and noisy; the Manchestrians reserved and purse-proud; the Liverpoolians free and open as the ocean on which they get their riches.  i know little of the gentry, but I believe them to be generous, hospitable, and rather given to intemperance.  All ranks and both sexes are more robust than the people of the south.

Catherine and her mother stayed in Blackpool for three months, and Mr Hutton collected them in October.  The stay hadn't helped her mother.  Instead of sea breezes, the wind came off the land bringing with it the smoke from turf fires, and her mother had to keep her room with a feverish cold.  And Mr Hutton found Blackpool a very different place in October – few people were to be seen, "except its solitary inhabitants, and few sounds heard, except from the winds and the sea."

So this was where Alice Bonny grew up.  For nine months of the year, the village was a quiet and isolated place – and then suddenly it was time for the Parade to be made ready for visitors, the barn cleared out for the actors, the coaches would begin to arrive with the summer's visitors and Blackpool would be engulfed in crowds of strangers.  It must have been very exciting for the local children.  

An enthusiastic rhyme about Blackpool extols the resort and its many health benefits

Of all the gay places of public resort,

At Chatham, or Scarbro', at Bath, or at Court,

There's none like sweet Blackpool, of which I can boast,

So charming the sands, so healthful the coast;-

Rheumatics, scorbutics, and scrofulous kind,

Hysterics and vapours, disorders of mind,

By drinking and bathing you're made quite anew,

As thousands have proved, and know to be true ...

The houses are many, and all of them stor'd,

Not one but is able to spread a good board.

At Bonny's, and Hull's, there's plenty of meat,

Their rooms, and their beds, are both cleanly and neat;

My friend, Mr Hudson, stands next in the row,

From Buxton he came, I would have you to know. 

The next house is Forshaw's, a building enlarg'd.

Good doings, no doubt, but you're sure to be charg'd.

The next house is Bailey's, so new and so neat,

Much pains he has taken to make it complete ...

Bailey's Hotel

See English Heritage's online booklet Blackpool's Seaside Heritage by Allan Brodie and Matthew Whitfield for much more information on Blackpool's history

Next:  13: Alice Bonny in Blackpool: the early 19th century

11: Alice Bonny of Blackpool (1788-1865) : mother of Alice Dewhurst

John Dewhurst's second wife Alice Bonny was born at her father's farm in Blackpool in 1788 to John Bonny and Jennet Bickerstaffe.  

Their little hamlet lay among the other small settlements in the parish of Bispham (pronounced Bisp'm) on the western edge of the Fylde, the wide, flat plain between the Irish Sea and the Bowland Fells.  She was baptised at All Hallows' church in the nearby village of Bispham on 12 November 1788.

Blackpool & area in 1830
National Library of Scotland

The manors of Blackpool, Bispham, Marton and Layton had been owned by the Fleetwood family since 1550.  Towards the end of that century, the Fleetwoods began creating freeholds in the manors and local farmers bought up the land 

• the surname of Alice's maternal grandmother Jennet Warbrick seems to be a toponymic name, suggesting strongly that her family had lived in the area of Warbreck for generations 

• her paternal grandmother was Jane Bamber – a William Bamber bought land in Layton and Bispham from the Fleetwoods in 1576

• the registers of Bispham are patchy, but they show that there were Bickerstaffes among the yeomen of the parish from the 1590s and Bonnys by the mid-1600s

• by the mid-1600s, a John Bonny was a trustee of the local free school

• John Bonny, yeoman of "Warbreck gin" – ginn meant a road leading to the sea – died in 1660 

• an Edward Bonny was still a yeoman at Warbreck Gin in 1741, 60 years later – which I think is marked on the map of 1830 as Ginn

• on 9 May 1725, William son of John Bonny of the farm called The Hill at Warbreck was baptised (it's marked on the map above) – he was Alice's grandfather

Picture postcard of Foxhall farmhouse
see Tyldesley Family History 

The people of the parish had always been fishermen, labourers and farmers 

• their homes were low cottages made of clam, staff and daub – the Lancashire version of wattle and daub – usually thatched with rushes, with a few more substantial cruck-built houses for the better-off

• The gentry houses – Fox Hall and Layton Hall – had become farmhouses by the time that Alice was born 

• by far the most gentleman-like house of the neighbourhood by then was Raikes Hall, built in 1769 by William Boucher or Butcher.  He was a man of suddenly acquired fortune – according to the Revd William Thornber, the rather unreliable author of a history of Blackpool, the villagers speculated that he had got his riches by finding the treasure of three sisters lost in a shipwreck on one of his many visits to the seashore

This supposition seems perfectly reasonable when one considers this sort of advertisement from the Chester Courant of 27 November 1770, which begins 

Whereas there is great Reason to apprehend, that large Quantities of rich Silks, raw and thrown Silks, Gold and Silver Watches, Silver Plate, plated Goods, Thread and Silk Laces, Woollen Cloths, Jewellery and Haberdashery Wares, and other valuable Effects, have been taken from the Wreck of the Trevor, Wm. Totty, Master, bound for Dublin, and lost in the Storm on the 20th of October last, near Blackpool, in the County of Lancaster, and which are supposed to be concealed ...

and goes on to threaten "the utmost Severity of Law" against anyone concealing the cargo, offers rewards for finders and warns 

All Jewellers, Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, Watchmakers, and particularly Travelling Chapmen to be cautious in purchasing any Part of the said Cargoes as the Shippers are determined to spare no Pains or Expence to bring to Justice all Persons who shall be discovered offending against the Law in this Respect

Smuggling was common along this coast, with cargoes run in from the Isle of Man to be hidden among the sand dunes ready for dispersal inland.

Catholicism had remained strong in this remote part of Lancashire 

• Fox Hall, a small mansion built by the Royalist and Jacobite Tyldesley family, was known for its priest holes 

• Bispham had a large number of recusants but, in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, five Bickerstaffe men and one Rowland Bonney signed the Protestation Oath required by Parliament – "to live and die for the true Protestant religion, the liberties and rights of subjects and the privilege of Parliaments" at Bispham Church in February 1642

To the south of the cottages of Blackpool lay the dark peaty pool that gave the hamlet its name – and which was nearly dry by the time Alice was born – and the flat, sandy common land called Layton Hawes   

• every year, the gentry used to run their horses at a race meeting on the Hawes – gambling, drink & riotous fun – and before Fox Hall, which stood near the Hawes, became a farmhouse, it became an inn.  It was much patronised at the time of the races and, when sea-bathing began, for a while it was the only place to stay

• in the summer months there were lively fairs every other Sunday, with stalls, and plenty of drink, and bare-knuckle boxing matches – behaviour that called for intense disapproval from the clergymen who wrote the later histories

Then the medical fashion for sea-bathing and drinking the sea water began, and by the 1750s it had reached Blackpool.

At that time, a yeoman farmer named John Hebson and his wife Margaret ("Margery") lived at Blackpool

• they had the farm that had been bought by William Bamber in 1576

• as well as farming, they ran a beerhouse and, when visitors began to come for the sea-bathing, they diversified into offering accommodation for the season 

• their place became known as "Old Margery's" – it can be seen on the map below, marked by a black square between the words Old and Margery's

• John Hebson died in 1766 and Margery in 1767 and "Old Margery's" passed under John's Will to his great-niece Jennet Bickerstaffe.  Jennet (also called Jenny) was Alice's mother

• Old Margery's was run for Jennet by her father Robert Bickerstaffe until her marriage to John Bonny

• Robert Bickerstaffe, yeoman of the parish of Bispham and township of Layton, had married Jennet Warbrick, spinster of the same place, on 3 June 1758 at Bispham parish church

• Jennet was baptised a few months later, on 15 October – this time, the register makes it clear that Robert lived at Blackpool

From Yates' map of Lancashire, 1786

In those early days, accommodation in Blackpool was fairly basic.  Visitors of all classes had to stay where they could – packed into cottages, in the little hotel built by Mr Forshaw, in Fox Hall.  But trade was increasing and in 1781 it was worthwhile for some coach operators to lay on a service: 

Manchester Mercury, 19 June 1781

Manchester and Blackpool

COACH,

Sets out from Mr Dixon's, the Lower-Swan, Market-Street-Lane, Manchester, on Monday the 4th of June, 1781, and will continue to run from the same Inn every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at Two o'Clock in the Afternoon, by Way of Bolton, Chorley, Preston, and Kirkham to Blackpool; it arrives at Mr Cooper's, the Black Bull Inn, Preston, the same Evening; joins the Coach or Diligence to Lancaster, Kendal, Shap, Penrith, Carlisle, Dumfries, and most of the principal Places in Scotland, which sets off the Morning following, at five o'Clock.  This Coach sets off at seven o'Clock to Blackpool the same Morning, stays about two Hours, and returns to Preston the same Evening; joins the London and Manchester Coaches, and Liverpool Diligence, which sets off the Morning following, from Mr Cooper's, at six o'Clock.

INSIDE

Fare from Manchester to

Bolton 3s

Chorley 6s

Preston 8s 6d

Kirkham 11s

Blackpool 13s 6d

OUTSIDE

Fare from Manchester to

Bolton 2s

Chorley 4s

Preston 5s 6d

Kirkham 7s

Blackpool 8s 6d

The table of fares shows the difference in price between travelling inside the coach, or the top.  Passengers could be taken up on the way, and there was a luggage allowance:

Short Passengers taken up on the Road at Threepence per Mile.  Each Passenger allowed 14lb Weight of Luggage, all above to pay One Penny per Pound; and so in Proportion to any Part of the Road.

With the quality trade to Blackpool increasing, Lawrence Bailey set up a high-class establishment in a substantial three-storeyed Georgian house built for the purpose – most of Blackpool's trade came from Lancashire, especially Manchester, but here he's advertising in the Leeds press:

Leeds Intelligencer, 26 April 1785

Blackpool, April 25th, 1785

Mr BAILEY,

Takes the Liberty of acquainting the Public, That he has fitted up a commodious and genteel House in an eligible Situation, and that he hopes by his Accommodations and Attention, to merit the Encouragement and Support of such Ladies and Gentlemen as may be pleased to favor him with their Company. 

He ends his advertisement with a prime inducement

On 17 May 1785, Jennet Bickerstaffe married John Bonny, husbandman of Bispham parish.  She was 27 and he was 24.  A few months later, on 13 November, their first child Jenney was baptised.

John Bonny was the son of William Bonny of the Hill and his wife Jane Bamber, and he was baptised at Bispham on 5 April 1761.  

They had 11 children, born between 1785 and 1804:

Jennet Bickerstaffe (1785-1831)

daughter of Robert Bickerstaffe and his wife Jennet Warbrick 

&

John Bonny (1761-1819)

son of William Bonny (1725-1816) & Jane Bamber

|

Jenney (1785)

Nancy (1787)

Alice (1788) who married John Dewhurst of Skipton

William (1791)

Robert (1792)

Betty (1794)

John (1796) who married Ann Dewhurst of Skipton

George (1798)

Edward (1799)

James (1801)

Richard (1804)

Next:  12: John Bonny & the Blackpool holiday trade

10: John Dewhurst of Skipton (1787-1864): the father of Alice Dewhurst

For the industrial history that follows, I've relied on Kenneth C Jackson's The Dewhursts of Skipton: a dynasty of cotton masters, 1789 to 1897, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 75 (2003)

See also information on the Dewhursts of Craven on Rootsweb by Robyn Lynn and David Freeman

John Dewhurst was born in Marton in Craven, a West Riding township in which there were two little villages – East Marton and West Marton.  He was baptised at St Peter's in East Marton on 1 April 1787.  His father’s farm was seven miles to the west of Skipton.  The little market town lay under the shelter of the 11th century castle – which had been built on a limestone outcrop to command the Aire Gap, the ancient way between York and Lancaster – and in a natural amphitheatre with hills to the north and east, Flasby Fell to the west and, to the south, the floodplain of the River Aire.  

Craven Lowlands by Gordon Hatton

The Dewhursts were farmers in the undulating country of the Craven Lowlands west of Skipton

• the name first appears in the parish registers of Marton in Craven and Thornton in Craven in the last years of Queen Elizabeth I.  A John Dewhurst was buried in Thornton in 1598 and a gentleman called Robert Dewhurst lived at Crickle Bridge east of East Marton – but whether John was descended from them, we don’t know 

• in the 1630s, the family of a William Dewhurst of Moorber near Coniston Cold appears in the Gargrave registers.  They lived at Moorber through the Civil Wars and the destitution and distress inflicted by the armies of both sides trampling crops and looting, while Parliamentarian troops besieged the Royalists holding the castle

K C Jackson suggests that William and John were from the same family.

Skipton and area. [OpenStreetMap]

John’s family tree can be traced with certainty from the middle of the 18th century.  It begins with his grandfather Isaac.

When Isaac Dewhurst died in 1769 he was a tenant farmer at Varley Field in the township of Horton in Craven in the parish of Gisburn

• he had been a widower since 1758 when his wife Susanna died, leaving him with children who were still young

• Susanna was buried in Bracewell churchyard on 12 June 1758

• the entry in the burial register is spelt phonetically – "Susan Dewarst wife of Isack"

Approaching Varley Field by Chris Heaton

Isaac was failing in health when he made his Will:

I, Isaac Dewhurst of Varley Field in the Township of Horton in the Parish of Gisburn and County of York Farmer being weak in Body but of sound mind memory and understanding and considering the certainty and uncertainty of Death as to the time thereof Doth this Sixteenth Day of January in the year 1769 make this my last Will and Testament

He died not long afterwards and was buried at Bracewell with Susannah on 29 January 1769  

• he left £10 apiece to his eldest son John and married daughter Mary Roberts, with the remainder to be divided equally between John, Mary, Isaac, William, Thomas and Hannah

• Thomas and Hannah were not yet 21 years old; John and a neighbour were to be their guardians until they came of age

• Hannah died unmarried in 1774

John Dewhurst took over the tenancy at Varley Field from his father.  He died there in 1798 leaving a widow but no children, and was buried at Bracewell on 6 August 1798.

The lives of the three youngest sons – and the lives of their children – were intertwined.

Isaac Dewhurst of Varley Field (d 1769) married Susanna (probably Shackleton) and had

• Isaac (1745-1823) married Catherine Parkinson and had
• Phineas
• William
• Isaac
• William (1747-1809) married Alice Smith and had
• Susannah
• Hannah
• Ann
• Thomas (1749-1820) married Ellen Thornber (1756-1839) and had
• John
• Nancy
• Isaac
• James
• Eleanor                                                    

Isaac (1745-1823) was baptised in 1745 when his father was farming at Kildwick, 4 miles south of Skipton

• he married Catherine Parkinson at Gargrave on 28 January 1771

• they farmed at Bonber near Bell Busk, which is just north of Coniston Cold

• they had a large family, among them 3 sons: Phineas, William and Isaac, who all became operative cotton spinners

St Michael's, Bracewell

William (1747-1809) was baptised at Bracewell in 1747 when his father was farming at nearby Stock 

• he married a widow, Mrs Alice Smith, in 1785

• when he died in June 1809 they were farming at Slack, less than a mile north-west of Varley Field

William and Alice had 3 daughters

• Susannah was born in 1786
• she married Anthony Hargreaves of Horton Pasture in 1810 – they remained in farming

• Hannah was born in 1789
• she married Robert Johnston, a draper with a shop in the Market Place at Skipton, in 1815
• in 1816 they were admitted as members of the Zion Independent (Congregational) Church in Skipton, apparently the first in the family to do so.  Soon Hannah’s cousin John Dewhurst and his wife would become members too – the Zion Independent Church would be an important part of the life of their daughter Alice

• Ann was born in 1791
• she married John Bonny of the parish of Bispham in Lancashire in 1826.  He was a farmer and a Blackpool entrepreneur – and the brother-in-law of her cousin John

Thomas Dewhurst (1749-1820) was baptised on 8 October 1749 at St Michael's, Bracewell when the family was living at Stock 

• he was 9 years old when his mother died, and not yet 21 at the death of his father

• he was about 33 years old when he married Ellen Thornber on 23 November 1782 at Gisburn parish church

Ellen Thornber (1756-1839) was then in her mid-twenties.  She was the fourth child of Henry & Ellen Thornber, born at High Ground farm, which lies a mile outside Hellifield, a village on the floodplain of the meandering River Ribble.  On 16 May 1756 she was baptised at the nearby village of Long Preston

• her father Henry Thornber (1723-83) was born in the parish of Gisburn, where his father Henry farmed at Greengates

• Henry married Ellen’s mother Ellen Bulcock on 5 November 1748 at St. Mary le Ghyll, Barnoldswick.  The interior of the church, with its Jacobean pews and 3-decker pulpit, can hardly have changed since

• Henry died the year after his daughter's wedding – he was farming at Cotes Hall in the parish of Barnoldswick at the time

• he was buried on 6 April 1783 at Gisburn, where his father and grandfather had been buried before him

St Peter's, East Marton

Thomas and Ellen settled in the parish of Marton in Craven.  Five of their children survived infancy – John, Nancy, Isaac, James and Eleanor.  All were baptised at the parish church of St Peter's.

Perhaps Thomas was more of an entrepreneur than his brothers, or perhaps he hadn't been able to get such a good farm tenancy, but by 1785 – a couple of years before his son John was born – Thomas was not only farming but had diversified into textiles

• in the 1770s, corn production had expanded in the Vale of York and in the face of this competition the farmers of Craven found they could get a better income from the high prices fetched by wool and meat.  Many of them moved from arable to pasture

• they then found they could expand their wool production as there was a market for it outside the local area

• by 1785, when he was 36 years old, Thomas was buying yarn to supply local handloom weavers and he was trading in wool

• one of his principal markets was Darlington, where there was a well-established woollen and worsted industry serviced by a successful bank

• so Thomas was riding regularly with his goods across the Pennines – a 55 mile journey if he went by Coverdale, or more like 65 miles if he went by Skipton and Blubberhouses

A handloom weaver, 1888

This was a time of change

• in the 1780s wool began to give way to cotton

• some of the water corn-mills were now underused or no longer needed, and could be converted to cotton-spinning mills

• the move from arable to pasture led to the amalgamation of farms – so fewer farm hands were needed

• so there were people available to work in the new cotton mills – men who already had skills in textiles because the cottage industry had always been a useful addition to family income

• the patents on Arkwright's spinning system had stopped being effective in 1785.  High profits were expected and there was a boom in factory building

• the Leeds & Liverpool Canal from Bingley to Skipton and Gargrave opened in 1773, a boost to trade.  Its way lies through Marton in Craven, not far from St Peter's.  

Arkwright Spinning Frame

In 1789 Thomas Dewhurst leased a building at Elslack, about 2½ miles from East Marton.  It was probably a former corn mill and he converted it into a water-powered cotton-spinning mill

• he probably had Arkwright-type spinning frames because his yarn is described as "twist" (that is, warp yarn) 

• it was very soon up and running and by early 1790 he was selling his yarn in Manchester and Blackburn – this was at the time when the young John Lomax was establishing himself as a cotton manufacturer in Manchester

• by May 1791, his wife Ellen's family had also moved into textiles – Thomas's brothers-in-law John, James and Thomas Thornber had a cotton mill at Runley Bridge at Settle

Ellen Henlock (1808-85)

We don't know what Thomas, Ellen or their children looked like – but we do have a portrait of Ellen's niece Ellen, daughter of James Thornber, because she married into the family of my grandfather Hugh Stubbs.  

So, on the offchance that Ellen Thornber junior bore a likeness to her aunt Ellen Dewhurst, here she is – Mrs Ellen Henlock of Great Ouseburn.

By 1800 Thomas Dewhurst was doing well and he bought himself a farm – the first property transaction by anyone of his family to be recorded in the West Riding Deeds Registry.  He and Ellen moved onto his new farm, which was at Pickhill (sometimes spelt Pighill) in the parish of Thornton in Craven, not far from his mill at Elslack

• at about this time, his business changed its name to Wilson & Dewhurst – he had gone into partnership, possibly with John Wilson, a cotton spinner at Embsay.  Probably Thomas was looking to raise extra capital and perhaps bring in extra technical skills.  The partnership didn’t last long, but John Wilson’s son later married Thomas’s daughter Eleanor 

• by 1803 Thomas had expanded from spinning and set up as a calico manufacturer – so he was either employing local handloom weavers or commissioning work from them – and his mill at Elslack was managed for him by his brother Isaac's son Isaac 

Thomas Dewhurst (1749-1820) & Ellen Thornber (1756-1839) had five children:

• John (1787-1864) married (1)  Ann Atkinson and (2) Alice Bonny

• Nancy (1789-1854) married Storey Watkinson

• Isaac (1791-1866) married Sarah Sawley

• James (1794-1820) married Elizabeth Shiers

• Eleanor (1801-51) married Henry Wilson

The sons all went into the business.  John was the first, being older than Isaac by four years.  

Mary Hopkinson could remember her grandfather John Dewhurst, who died when she was 7 years old, and she often talked about him with her mother Alice

So how did Mary describe her grandfather? 

• he was quick tempered, impulsive, outspoken and impetuous

• his "transient storms" didn't perturb his daughters Ellen and Alice, who understood him, being like him in temperament

• he was genial, courteous and just

• he was a man of integrity, highly regarded and trusted in the business world

• he loved the country life, especially hunting, and he was a first-rate horseman

On 27 August 1810, when John was 23 years old, he married Ann Atkinson of Skipton at Holy Trinity church in Skipton

• Ann was, he used to tell his children, "as handsome a woman as ever stepped"

• the following year their son Thomas Atkinson Dewhurst was born, and was baptised at Holy Trinity in July 1811

• but on 31 July 1814, Ann died at the age of 24 in childbed

• five days later, the day after Ann’s burial, her baby was christened Sarah Ann

• Ann’s name and the name of her little boy Thomas, who died "in a state of infancy", were added to the gravestone of her father George Atkinson.  With them is the name of Ann's sister Sarah Fairbourn, who died only days before Ann.  The gravestone now leans against the wall at the back of the church

So John was left a widower with a baby daughter before any of his sisters or brothers were even married.  

Napoleon contemplates defeat
31 March 1814

His life had been overturned and so had the world.  Britain had been on a war footing since John was a little boy, but Napoleon had been forced to abdicate in May 1814.  There would be new challenges to the economy and new opportunities for the family business.

On 5 February 1815, John's sister Nancy married Storey Watkinson, who farmed at Bradley, three miles south of Skipton.  Perhaps it was through Nancy that John met his second wife – she was the same age as Nancy and they might have been schoolfriends.  

It was a tumultuous year – hardly more than three weeks had passed since Nancy's wedding when the news came from France that Napoleon had left Elba and his troops were flocking to him once more.  On 20 June the news reached Britain of Wellington's victory at Waterloo.  Perhaps John hardly noticed.  He was planning a second marriage and maybe one of his reasons was providing his little daughter with a mother.  But by now little Sarah Ann might already have been ailing.  She scarcely reached her first birthday – she was buried on 27 July.  

John had lost his wife, son and now his daughter.  It was a newly bereaved young man who married again on 11 November 1815.

John's new wife was Alice Bonny of the Lancashire parish of Bispham, where she lived with her family in a little coastal village which had been known for some years for its healthy sea-bathing.  It was growing into a pleasant little holiday resort – its name was Blackpool.

Next:  11: Alice Bonny of Blackpool (1788-1865) : mother of Alice Dewhurst

9: What was John Hopkinson like?

His childhood activities show he was

• intelligent, practical & active

• determined – he made a good attempt at running away from school – and hard working – spending his holidays with the workmen

• deeply committed to his religion and well taught by his pastor

• strong-willed and loving truth & justice – and his upbringing clearly curbed the passionate temper of his early childhood

We have a physical description of him in old age

• a very pink face with masses of beautiful white hair

• we can see from photographs that his eyes must have been blue

• a booming voice

After his death, his daughter-in-law Evelyn – the widow of his son John – described how he had supported her, writing of

• his "warm love and understanding"

• "such warmth of heart, such tender sympathy"

• "a great teacher" 

• the "patient tenderness" with which he taught the young

And Ellen Ewing describes him as "by nature, more unselfish" than his wife Alice.

These are qualities which he must had from his early days.

Meanwhile, in that part of the West Riding of Yorkshire known since ancient times as Craven …

Next:  10: John Dewhurst of Skipton (1787-1864): the father of Alice Dewhurst

8: John Hopkinson goes to school: 1829-1840

John's granddaughter Mary gives us three stories from his early years, recorded by him in his notebook:

When he was about 5, he was sent out with Nurse and his sisters for a morning walk.  He was dressed in

The Yellow Boy by Sir Henry Raeburn
National Galleries of Scotland 

"very clean nankeen frock and trowsers" with very strict instructions to keep them clean and tidy

• at this point, the fashion for skeleton suits (high-waisted trousers buttoned onto a short jacket, as shown in the 'Basket of Cherries' below) was beginning to go and, from now until the 1860s, boys aged between about three and seven wore tunics over trousers like Walter Ross, portrayed by Sir Henry Raeburn in 'The Yellow Boy' of 1822.  The tunics might be loose and worn with a belt, or they might have a fitted waistband; there were a variety of styles

• John's suit was made of nankeen – pale yellow or buff-coloured cotton

• they must have been walking along Upper Brook Street, past scattered houses and villas and alongside open fields.  The fields weren't fenced or walled but enclosed by earth banks, behind which were deep wide ditches that filled with water after it had rained

• John ran ahead of the others – and the top of one of the banks was so inviting that he climbed it – only to topple over and fall into the water.  (I can't quite make out whether it was into one of the ditches or into the pond at the corner of Plymouth Grove and Upper Brook Street)  

• luckily one of his sisters saw him disappear and Nurse ran up and fished him out.  There was, he wrote, plenty of water to drown in

• even after 70 years he could still feel how uncomfortable he was in his clinging wet, dripping, draggled, dirty clothes – and "the internal and mental anguish" as he thought anxiously, "What would Mother say?"  She scolded him, just as he feared, and she sent him to bed for the rest of the day with no dinner

• his 8 year old sister Mary came up secretly to bring him something to eat.  He was very hungry but he wouldn't take the food – he preferred, he wrote, "loyally to endure the just sentence."

When he was five or six, he had a fight with Miss Stothart the governess

• she was a tall, gaunt woman with "no notion of children" – rather an odd choice for the job, we might think – and she had taken a toy from John's two year old sister Alice.  (This picture gives us an example of a little girl of the time)

  

  Children in 1828:
  'Basket of Cherries' by E W Gill

• John called Miss Stothart a thief and she took him bodily out of the room and into the passage at the bottom of the stairs.  There she held the struggling boy and unwisely dared him to say it again – so, of course, he had no choice.  "You are a thief, Miss Stothart," he said with utter conviction

• he couldn't remember what the consequence was, but years later one of his sisters wrote in a letter that when he was a little boy, "he loved truth and justice".

John was clearly a strong-willed and passionate child

• his eldest sister Ellen used to tell the story of how, when he was about 5 or 6, he was such a furious temper that he shouted out to her, "I will kill you!  I will kill you!" 

• Ellen, with great presence of mind, picked up the carving knife and said, "Do it, John."  It stopped him short and Ellen couldn't remember any outburst after that

In 1829 he was sent to a "ladies' school" – a genteel version of a dame school, I think – in Bloomsbury, Rusholme Road.  (I find on old maps that Bloomsbury was the name given to the western end of Rusholme Road beginning at Oxford Street.  I find, for example, the notice of an auction of very upmarket furniture to be held in 1844 at No 118 Bloomsbury "a few doors from Oxford Street")  

When he was 7½ and at the ladies' school, on 8 September 1831 Manchester celebrated the coronation of King William IV and Queen Adelaide with a grand procession.  John saw it go by from an upper window of a shop in Downing Street, which led to Ardwick Green – Alice must have obtained places for the family there

• all the windows on the route were packed with people and it was a pity that the weather was bad.  It had started with heavy rain and it drizzled most of the morning, so that many of the tens of thousands of Sunday School children in Manchester and Salford couldn't turn out

• John will have seen the Sunday Schools go by with their flags, and the 8th Hussars and the 18th Light Infantry – who would stop and fire a celebratory volley on Ardwick Green – and there were also bands, town dignitaries, the firemen with their fire engine, the freemasons, the Friendly Societies and all the trades, from tailors to organ-builders

• the trades had assembled at their club-houses before taking their places and their carriages must have been the best sight of all – the tin-plate workers had a man in a suit of scale armour, the farriers had a forge and four men at full work, the stone masons had a man working on a block of marble ... Messrs Fairbairn & Lillie, millwrights, had a waggon carrying an ancient mill and a modern steam engine and Mr Nathan Gough's men had a waggon bearing a steam engine at work, turning an organ playing national airs ...

• from his earliest days John took a deep interest in the work of artisans – perhaps this was one of the sights that first caught his attention.

At about the age of 8, boys graduated from tunics.  They began to wear short jackets, usually short and single-breasted, with trousers, which were generally narrowly cut

• in this practical outfit, John  began the next stage of his education at the boys' school at the

  

  Fairfield Moravian Church by S Parish
  CC BY-SA 2.0

  Moravian Settlement at Fairfield, which stood in the countryside some four miles to the east of his home

• Moravians were the earliest Protestants and their Settlement in Fairfield was opened in 1785.  It functioned as a self-contained village and, as education was an important part of their culture, they were known for their schools.  It isn't clear from Mary Hopkinson's account whether John was a boarder there or not

• he stayed at the Moravian School for two years  

At about this time, the family moved to Upper Brook Street, perhaps towards the southern end where short terraces of houses with gardens laid behind them made way for villas set in their own grounds.  There they lived 6 or 7 years.

In 1834, when he was 10, he left the Moravian School to become a boarder at Greenwood's School at Warley near Halifax, about 25 miles from home.  I think this must be the school advertising the new term here in the Leeds Mercury of 27 June 1835:

The Rev B Greenwood, A.B., begs to return his most cordial Thanks to his numerous Friends for their Patronage of his Establishment during a Number of Years.  He hopes that the Improvement of his Accommodations for Pupils will secure to his Academy a Continuance of that Support which it will be his Study and Ambition to merit. 

Terms for Board and Education from £20 to £26 per Annum, according to the age of the Pupil.

The School Re-opens on Monday, July 20th.

Spring Garden Academy, Warley, near Halifax

Spring Garden School later became Warley Grammar School – according to Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion it was on Burnley Road, Sowerby Bridge

• John had bright memories of receiving a Simnel cake from home, of a visit from his sister Ellen, then aged about 17 or 18, and of a journey to Bolton Abbey

• but when his finger was broken, it was set crooked and his mother went to see Dr Robertson (it isn't clear if this was the doctor or a master)

• and this can't have been a happy time for John, because he ran away from school and managed to reach Todmorden, about 10 miles off, before he was caught  

So it isn't surprising to find that after 18 months his mother removed him.  

In 1836, when he was 12, she sent him to Thomson's School at Bradford.  This was, according to White's Directory of 1837, at Westbrook House in Horton Road and was run by the Rev Andrew Weir Thomson.  As far as I can tell, this is the Westbrook House in Great Horton, a couple of miles south-west of Bradford. This advertisement in the York Herald of 4 January 1834 shows that Mr Thomson had started his school only a couple of years before John's arrival:

Boarding School Establishment

West-Brook House, Bradford

The Rev Andrew W Thomson will resume his Public Duties 

on Monday, 13th January next

Terms

Board and Tuition ... 35 Guineas per annum

Washing ... 2 Ditto ditto

Entrance, One Guinea

Drawing, Music, French, &c. on the usual Terms

Vacations at Midsummer and Christmas, One Month each.

A Quarter's Notice previously to leaving School.

Reference is kindly permitted to the Rev T Taylor,

Messrs Milligan and Forbes, Bradford; to William Tetley,

Esq., Asenby Lodge; and Mr Henry Masterman, Stationer, Thirsk.

Dec 23, 1833

It was in the Midsummer vacation of 1838 that John recorded in his notebook the great celebration in Manchester of another coronation – that of the young Queen Victoria, who was not quite 5 years older than John himself.  Another huge procession took place, the streets were packed, every window and doorway jammed and there were stages built wherever they could be fitted.  Among the 50,000 Sunday School children in the procession were those of the Rusholme Road Chapel.  It was a splendid occasion – interrupted by the chaos caused by a sudden and luckily brief thunderstorm.  

At Christmas 1838 he left the Rev Thomson's school.  He was nearly 15 and had reached the final stage of growing up – he must by now have been wearing a coat with tails, as the men did

• in January 1839, his mother sent to him to Mr Dougal's school at Chorlton Hall, which I think must have been the nearby Chorlton Hall in Chorlton-upon-Medlock.  A few years later it was being run as an early business school for young gentlemen, where they could learn practical skills such as mechanical drawing – I wonder whether this had started in John's time there

• by now he was spending most of his holidays with the bricklayers, joiners and other trades on the building sites springing up around his home, and he'd recorded in his notebook that work on the Manchester and Leeds Railway had begun.  

Manchester was now a phenomenon, one of the wonders of the modern world, the place where industrialisation could be seen going full pelt – and a place that horrified people.  The town astounded visitors with the noise, the smoke, the contrast between the huge factories, the vast workshops, the splendid stone buildings and the hovels and cellars, the squalor and wretchedness of the urban poor.  

The family was now living in Lloyd Street, Greenheys in the south-western part of the township of Chorlton-upon-Medlock.  It was semi-rural, if not actually rural, but building sites were never far away as Manchester extended ever further.  

Life for the Hopkinson family was about to change because the first of them was to leave home 

• Ellen was to marry George Ibberson Tubbs, a 26 year old Congregational minister, born in Mildenhall, Suffolk

• we don't know how Ellen met George.  Perhaps he was related to somebody she knew in Manchester or perhaps, like the Rev James Griffin, he came to Manchester to take services or preach in one of the chapels

• Ellen was married on 21 February 1839 in the Rusholme Road Chapel, Mr Griffin officiating

• Ellen had now passed her 21st birthday and come into the income left her by her father

• it's interesting that the space left for father's name in the register was left blank by Mr Griffin and Ellen's name is given simply as Ellen Hopkinson, missing out her middle name Lomax, but we can see her irregular birth did not prevent her making a very respectable marriage and becoming a minister's wife

• Ellen and George left Manchester for Warminster in Wiltshire, where he was a minister, and it was there that the first three children of their large family were born.  

In February 1840, John had his 16th birthday.  In the early part of the year he had a mild attack of smallpox, but luckily it left no scars.  He had reached the end of his schooldays and the beginning of his working life:  

• he became a Sunday School teacher at the Rusholme Road Chapel.  (His sisters were all Sunday School teachers there – James Griffin describes them as "among the most beloved and devoted teachers in the school") and

• on 30 May 1840 he was bound for 5 years as a "gentleman apprentice" to Messrs Wren & Bennett, Millwrights and Engineers

• this meant that a £100 premium was paid and he would receive no wages

So we can see that his mother Alice – who had taken up his part with Dr Robinson after his finger was set crooked, and who had let him spend his vacations out and about with the workmen – let him follow his talents and aptitude when it came to choosing his path in life.  She didn't insist, as some might have done, that he spent his vacations at his books and that he became a lawyer or a doctor.  She was devoted to her children and deeply interested in their concerns and she backed John's choice.

Next:  9: What was John Hopkinson like?