Following the discovery of the properties of chlorine for bleaching purposes and its use in a "bleaching powder", together with other chemical discoveries, the bleaching industry changed in the first half of the 19th Century from a semi-crofting industry to a factory based one.                                                      The new factories required lots of clean water and power, provided by large water wheels. The Bleaching process was now taking days rather than months.    

 

Until the early 19th century, Great Bolton and Little Bolton were two of the eighteen townships of the ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors. These townships were separated by the River Croal, Little Bolton on the north bank and Great Bolton on the south                                               

​

During the 19th century Moses Gate was home to Farnworth Paper Mills, and under Thomas Bonsor Crompton, it became one of the biggest paper producers in the whole country. At this time the river was so dirty from heavy industry that the water couldn’t be used for paper making and, as a result, ‘Crompton’s Lodges’ were built.

​

19th Century: The Wesleyan Methodist church suffered many secessions, but was the largest Nonconformist denomination in the 19th century. (<18th century)

 

Over 300 of the closed pubs of Bolton from the 19th century to today.

 

Several Bolton pubs had bowling greens at the start of the nineteenth century and the Gibraltar Rock seems to have been one of them.

 

Bolton pub The Hen and Chickens, on Deansgate, has been operating as a public house since the 1800s and is thought to be one of the oldest in the town centre.

 

1800 (27 Aug) Franklin Baker, Unitarian minister, was born in Birmingham, the eldest son and third of ten children of Thomas Baker, headmaster of the Lancasterian School, Birmingham, and his wife, Charlotte Mould.

Died 25 May 1867

 

1800 (17 Nov) Edmund Ashworth, cotton manufacturer and free-trade activist, born at Birtenshaw near Turton, Lancashire, the fifth of the eleven children of John Ashworth (1772–1855), farmer, land agent, and cotton spinner, and his wife, Isabel Thomasson (1772–1852).

Businessman and reformer

Cotton spinner, proprietor of Egerton Mill

Studied chemistry under John Dalton in Manchester

Chairman of Turton Local Board 1873-1880

Died 21 Mar 1881 Prince of Wales Hotel, Southport, Lancashire

 

Early 1800s. Dug in the early 1800’s, there is a series of underground canals beneath Farnworth which were used to transport coal to Worsley.

 

1800s Quarlton Vale Printworks, Edgworth, was established as a Calico Printing Works.

Work finally ceased in 1964.

The Vale is now a housing development

 

1800 Margaret, daughter of Edward Crompton of Acresfield married Count de Manneville. The marriage was not a happy one.

 

1800 Thomas Ridgway, a local industrialist, built Ridgmont House, situated off the Chorley Old Road.

At present it is the home to Horwich Masonry.

 

1800 Samuel Crompton’s portrait was commissioned and painted by Charles Allingham

 

1801 (1 Feb) Thomas Cole, artist, born in Bolton

Emigrated to USA in 1818

Died 11 Feb 1848

 

1801 The Ainsworths bought Smithills Hall for £26,000

 

1801 William Callant, was hanged in 1801 after he tried to spread agitation among men of the 17th Light Dragoons, then stationed in the town

 

1802 (3 Aug) Bolton-le-Moors Cavalry – one troop reformed

(also known as Bolton Volunteer Cavalry)

disbanded 1813

 

1802 (Dec) An action for damages was brought against Messrs Slater and Varley, nominally the defendants, but who, in fact, were backed and supported by a combination of almost all the bleachers in Lancashire. In consequence of this action, the patent right was set aside by the verdict of a jury and the decision of Lord Ellenborough, who used very strong language against the patentee. The grounds of this decision were, that the patent included a mode of bucking with quicklime and water, which was not a new invention. It was decided that, because one part of the patent was not new, therefore the whole must be set aside. Lime was indeed used previous to the patent of Mr Tennant; but it was employed in a quite different manner from his, and he would have allowed the bleachers to continue their peculiar method without any objection, because it would have been pro-ductive of no injury to his emolument.

 

1803 (13 Oct) John Orton, linen and woollen draper, born in Gunnerside, Yorkshire. Mayor of Bolton 1859-1860 (Liberal)

Died 13 Feb 1870.

 

1803 Erection of Bridge Street Wesleyan Chapel

 

1803 The population of Great and Little Bolton was more than 17,000

 

1803 Elizabeth Sharples Carlile, freethought lecturer and advocate of women's rights, was one of six children born to Ann and Richard Sharples, a counterpane manufacturer, in Bolton, Lancashire, probably late in 1803.                         Died 1852

 

1804 (1 Mar) John Horrocks died in London

 

1804 (21 Jul) Samuel Horrocks wife Alice died aged 38 years

 

1804 (30 Sep) Bridge Street Wesleyan Chapel was opened by the Rev S. Bradburn, its first minister

 

1804 Stephen Blair born at Wigton, Cumberland

Head of the bleaching firm Blair and Sumner

Mayor of Bolton 1845-1846

Died 4 Jul 1870

 

1804 Benjamin Hick's aptitude for mechanics and passion for drawing led to an apprenticeship in 1804 (age 14) as a draughtsman with Fenton, Murray and Wood at the Round Foundry in Holbeck. The company made steam engines, textile and other machinery; here he was entrusted with the installation of several large steam engines and offered a partnership when his apprenticeship expired. The offer was declined and Hick moved instead to Bolton in 1810

 

1804-1806 British cotton goods accounted for 42.3% of Britain’s exports. (<1794)

 

1805 (5 Oct) Thomas Fletcher, Chairman of Little Lever Local Board 1872-1879, born at a cottage by Mytham farm, Little Lever

Died 18 Nov 1893

 

1805 (11 Oct) Rev John Shepherd Birley M.A. born in Kirkham, Lancashire

Died 1 Jul 1883 of Moss Lee, Lancashire, England

 

1805 Elizabeth Hardcastle born

Died About 1890

 

1805 Rock Hall, at Moses Gate Country Park, Little Lever, “Rock Hall was built by Thomas Bonsor Crompton's father John, who was granted the lease in 1805. John never lived in the house as he died at about the time the house was completed in 1807. Later it was occupied by the managers of the paper mill. On Thomas Bonsor's death the mill passed to his nephew W.J. Rideout, then after his death in 1876, the mills were offered for auction.                                           It is now sadly closed, and being allowed to deteriorate 

 

1806 (6 Jun) William Makant, master bleacher, born in Eagley, Turton.

Proprietor of the Gilnow Bleach Works.

Mayor of Bolton 1857-59 (Liberal)

Died 21 Apr 1880

 

1806 Roger Dewhurst died

 

1806 Thomas Ballantyne, newspaper editor, born in Paisley

His first employment was as a weaver in Paisley. He then became editor of the Bolton Free Press, and was active in promoting radical causes

Died 30 Aug 1871.

 

1806 Gibraltar Rock dates back to 1806 when it was known as the Gibraltar Tavern.

 

1807 (16 Apr) Edward Samuel Horridge, born the fourth son and youngest child

Married Margaret, daughter of James Cross Esq. of Mortfield, Little Bolton

 

1807 (26 Sep) Peter Ainsworth died

Remains deposited in the vault at St George’s Church, Little Bolton

 

1807 Development by the Fourdriniers of a continuous paper-making machine.

The machine mechanized the wet end of the process and revolutionized the making of paper so that one machine could do the work of 32 operatives

 

1807 Rock Hall, built on an elevated site overlooking Farnworth Bridge Mill by John Crompton, father of Thomas Bonsor Crompton, was completed 

 

1807 Thomas Bancroft (born 1756) was appointed as king's preacher for Lancashire.

 

c.1807 Rowland Hall Heaton, a local joiner, builder and timber merchant, born.

 

1808 (24 Aug) Matthew Fletcher (1731 or 1733 – 1808), a mine owner and mining engineer in Lancashire, England, died.                                                                                                          

 

1808 Great Moor Street /Mawdesley Street Congregational Church founded

 

1808 In 1808 John Hick left Fenton, Murray & Wood to take up the position of "book-keeper and traveller" for John Sturges and Co. at the Bowling Iron Works near Bradford

 

1809 Parliament awarded Edmund Cartwright the inventor of the power loom a £10,000 reward for his invention.

 

1809 Dr Samuel Taylor Chadwick, doctor, politician and philanthropist, born in Newcroft House, Urmston, Lancashire 

Died 3 May 1876 Peel House, Southport, Lancashire

 

1809 James Ormrod born

Died 1889

 

1809 The Hand and Banner, Deansgate was the venue for the inauguration of the Friendly Ironmongers Society.

 

1810 (30 May) John Frederic La Trobe Bateman, civil engineer, was born at Lower Wyke, near Halifax, the eldest son of John Bateman (1772–1851), an unsuccessful inventor, and his wife, Mary Agnes, daughter of Benjamin La Trobe, a Moravian missionary at Fairfield, near Ashton under Lyne.

Bateman carried out extensive water supply works in the UK, which included the system for Bolton.

Died 10 Jun 1889

 

1810 (27 Jun) Thomas Barnes (born 1747), Presbyterian minister and reformer, died at Ferneysides, Little Lever, near Bolton.                                                  He was buried on 2 July at Cross Street Chapel

 

1810 (5 Sep) Thomas Lever Rushton (1810-1883), banker, solicitor, industrialist, landowner, and Mayor of Bolton: 1848-50 (Conservative), born in Churchgate, Bolton the son of Thomas Rushton, solicitor and banker - a co-founder of Hardcastle, Cross & Co - Bolton's first commercial bank.                                  Died 8 Feb 1883.

 

1810 Andrew Peak, prominent industrialist and benefactor, born.

Died 1889

 

1810 Benjamin Hick (born 1790) moved to Bolton as manager of Rothwell’s Union Foundry

 

1810 Benjamin Hick moved to Bolton in 1810 to work for Smalley, Thwaites and Company] as manager of Rothwell's Union Foundry on Blackhorse Street.

​

1810 Holland's School on Manchester Road, in Farnworth; a plaque states that the building was erected in 1810, and rebuilt in 1868. Now a nursing home.

 

1811 (5 Feb) Thomas Bancroft (1756-1811), Church of England clergyman and schoolmaster, died

He was buried at Bolton parish church.

 

1811 (6 Mar) Richard Ainsworth laid the foundation stone of the Jubilee School.

 

1811 (16 Nov) John Bright, politician, was born at Green Bank, Rochdale, Lancashire, the second son of Jacob Bright (1775–1851) and Martha Bright, née Wood (1788/9–1830).                                                                           Invited by Richard Cobden, he addressed anti-corn law meetings in Bolton           Died 1889.

​

1811 (1 Dec) James Arrowsmith (1791-1870) married Alice Rothwell daughter of a saddler in Deansgate, on 1 December 1811 at Bolton Parish Church and took over the Cross Keys Inn (which later became the Derby Arms) on Churchgate.

 

1811 In 1811, William Hulton became High Sheriff of Lancashire

 

1811 Samuel Crompton toured the 650 cotton mills working within the 60mile radius of Bolton gathering evidence of how widely the spinning mule had been adopted. He would use this to petition parliament for compensation.

He found that:

• Of the spindles in use 155,880 were on Hargreave’s jenny, 310,516 were on Arwright’s water-frame, and 4,600,000 were on Crompton’s mule

• The capital invested in the cotton industry was worth nearly four million pounds

• 40 million pounds of cotton wool was spun annually

• Duty paid to H.M. Government was £350,000 per annum

• Around 80% of the cotton goods bleached in Lancashire were woven on Mule-spun cotton

• He concluded that around 700,000 people were directly or indirectly dependent on mule-spun yarn for their livelihood

In support, James Watt testified that two thirds of all the steam engines installed in spinning mills by his company were for running mules. The spinning mule, Crompton concluded, had become the mainstay of cotton spinning in Britain.

 

1812 (Feb-Mar) Some-time between the end of February and the beginning of March 1812 a small meeting of up to eight local weavers was held at the Gibraltar Rock pub. The meeting was joined by two weavers from Stockport who urged the Bolton men to take up an “oath of engagement.” Unemployment was high among weavers and this was being blamed on increasing industrialisation. In the end only one of the Bolton weavers, Samuel Kay, swore the oath in front of the Stockport men.

 

1812 (25 Mar) A group of Luddites torched a Westhoughton Mill, owned by Wray & Duncroff, in one of the first major terrorist acts in Britain.                         Twelve people were arrested on the orders of William Hulton, the High Sheriff of Lancashire.  Four of them, James Smith, Thomas Kerfoot, John (or Job) Fletcher and Abraham Charlston, were sentenced to death for taking part in the attack. The Charlston family claimed Abraham was only twelve years old but he was not reprieved.                                                                                           They were publicly hanged outside Lancaster Castle on the 13 June 1812. It was reported that Abraham cried for his mother on the scaffold. By this time however (contrary to popular belief) the hanging of those under 18 was rare and for those under 16 in practice abolished. Five others arrested were transported to Australia.

 

1812 (25 Mar) On 25 March 1812 a group of Luddites burned Rowe and Dunscough's Westhoughton Mill, in one of the first terrorist acts in Britain. Twelve people were arrested on the orders of William Hulton, the High Sheriff of Lancashire. James Smith, Thomas Kerfoot, John (or Job) Fletcher and Abraham Charlston, were sentenced to death for their part in the attack. The Charlston family claimed that Abraham was only twelve years old; but he was not reprieved. The men were publicly hanged outside Lancaster Castle on 13 June 1812. It was reported that Abraham cried for his mother on the scaffold. By this time, however, hanging of those under 18 was rare and of those under 16, in practice, abolished. Nine others were transported to Australia. The riots are commemorated by a blue plaque on the White Lion public house opposite the mill site.

 

1812 (11 May) Spencer Perceval assassinated

Samuel Crompton’s friend John Pilkington tried to get him financial support at Parliament but the petition was not presented as the Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in the House of Commons on the day it should have been presented

 

1812 (13 Jun) James Smith, Thomas Kerfoot, John (or Job) Fletcher and Abraham Charlston, who were sentenced to death for taking part in the attack on a Westhoughton mill, owned by Wray & Duncroff, were publicly hanged outside Lancaster Castle. It was reported that Abraham cried for his mother on the scaffold. By this time however (contrary to popular belief) the hanging of those under 18 was rare and for those under 16 in practice abolished.

 

1812 (13 Jun) James Smith, Thomas Kerfoot, John (or Job) Fletcher and Abraham Charlston, were publicly hanged outside Lancaster Castle on 13 June 1812. for their part in the attack on Rowe and Dunscough's Westhoughton Mill.

 

1812 (5 Aug) Thomas Walmsley, Mayor of Bolton: 1869-71 (Conservative), born in Bickerstaffe, Lancashire, the son of Richard Walmsley, a farmer and blacksmith.                                                                                                Died 13 Sep 1890. 

 

Abt 1812 Harrison Blair, born in Bolton, Lancashire

Chairman of Kearsley Local Board 1865-1868

Died 1870

 

1812 By 1812 the Gibraltar Tavern was known as the Gibraltar Rock.

 

1812 The Bolton Union Workhouse on Fletcher Street was built.

 

1812 Matthew Murray (1765 – 1826) designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin cylinder Salamanca in 1812.

 

1812 In 1812 the firm Fenton, Murray and Wood supplied John Blenkinsop, manager of Brandling's Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, with the first twin-cylinder steam locomotive (Salamanca). This was the first commercially successful steam locomotive.

 

1812 James Knowles, colliery proprietor, born in Bolton

Mayor of Bolton 1855-1857 (Liberal)

Died 20 Jan 1886 Eagley Bank, Bolton

 

1813 (19 Jan) Cordelia Jane Cross born

 

1813 (26 Feb) Cordelia Jane Cross baptised at St George, Bolton, Lancashire

 

1813 (18 Mar) William Calder Marshall, Scottish sculptor, born in Edinburgh

The pediment of Bolton Town Hall showing the spirit of the city with Manufacturing & Commerce etc

Died 16 Jun 1894

 

1813 (1 May) Newspaper: The Bolton Herald is recognised as the first known newspaper in Bolton, it was first published on 1st May 1813, price 6.1/2d by J Hurtley at the Herald Office, Deansgate. Unfortunately, it did not survive very long, but we do not know the date of its demise.

 

1813 (25 Jul) Lieutenant Robert Knowles was killed in action at the Pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees during the Napoleonic Wars.

A marble memorial tablet recording his exploits is displayed in the entrance of Bolton Parish Church

He was the uncle of James Knowles, Mayor of Bolton 1855-1857

 

1813 Bolton-le-Moors Cavalry (also known as Bolton Volunteer Cavalry) disbanded

 

1813 The first newspaper, the Bolton Herald, was established

 

1813 Nelson Square, a small health office opened – no in patients at this stage (see 1838)

 

1814 (21 Dec) William Gray (1814 – 1895) English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1857 to 1874, born.             Died 6 Feb 1895

 

1814 Bolton’s first hospital was Bolton Dispensary, founded by public subscription in a house in Mawdsley Street.

 

1814 The partnership of Isaac Dobson and Peter Rothwell, machine makers, built mules in Blackhorse Street.

 

1814 In 1814 James Whitehead married Ellen Swift (1795-1875) whose family firm owned an iron foundry in St George’s Street, and also made a lot of brass, in both senses of the word, manufacturing mill machinery.

 

1814 Bethel church, Belmont founded

 

1814 Benjamin Hick married

With his wife had two sons who he trained to be engineers

 

1814-1815 James Ormrod (Abt 1769-1825) purchased Hill Farm Estate, Harwood, Lancashire.

 

1815 (2 Jul) John Hick born in Bolton, Lancashire

MP for Bolton 1868-1874

Died 2 Feb 1894

 

From being able to earn 33s 3d in 1795, a weaver's wage fell to 24s in 1794, and 14s in 1815.

 

1815 Dissolution of the partnership between Isaac Dobson and Peter Rothwell, of Bolton-le-Moors, in the County of Lancaster, as Machine Makers, under the firm of Dobson and Rothwell

 

1815-1818 Horwich Moor was enclosed between 1815 and 1818

 

1816 One of two sons, Joseph Ridgway, a benefactor to Horwich, took over residence of Ridgmont House on the death of his father Thomas Ridgway, a local industrialist.

​

1816 In 1816 Joshua Routledge (1773–1829)  had a prosperous ironmonger (hardware) business at 26 Deansgate in Bolton.

 

1816 Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, an Australian industrialist, born in Bolton

Responsible for improving the refrigeration of meat.

 

c. 1816 Private Constantine Wrigley, born in Bolton, Lancashire

Eldest son of Constantine Wrigley, landlord of the Hen and Chickens, Deansgate, Bolton, Lancashire. A tobacconist prior to enlistment. Enlisted 27 Jan 1836.

Shown as a corporal on the casualty roll. His regimental number is 496. His Crimea medal was claimed 28 Mar 1856.

Killed in the Charge of the Light Brigade 24 Oct 1854.

 

1817 (10 Mar) On 10 March 1817, about 5,000 people met in St Peters Field in central Manchester, aiming to march to London to set their grievances before the Prince Regent. Each person carried a rug or blanket, leading them to be named Blanketeers. The march was quickly suppressed, but Manchester Tories worried that they lacked protection from the hostile masses. This fear spurred a petition with more than 100 signatures to "the Borough reeves and Constables of Manchester and Salford" demanding a meeting to establish a yeomanry corps.

 

1817 (2 Jun) George Henry Corliss, American inventor, mechanical engineer and inventor of the Corliss steam engine, born in Easton, New York

Died 21 Feb 1888

 

1817 David Ricardo's book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was first published.

 

1817 It was arranged for James Slade (1783–1860) to exchange his Teversham living for the position of vicar of Bolton le Moors, then a large parish in the Diocese of Chester with a fast-growing population living in appalling conditions with only one town centre parish church.

 

1817-1856 James Slade (1783–1860), generally remembered as Canon Slade, was the Vicar of St Peter's Church, Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, England from 1817 to 1856.

 

1818 (11 Feb) Bolton Gas Company was formed.

 

1818 (11 Feb) Bolton Gas Company established.

 

1818 (20 Jul) Monday: The largest mill in Bolton - The Royal George factory, belonging to Messrs Ormrod & Hardcastle in Weston Street was burnt down

 

1818 (Jul) Bolton’s first commercial bank was established by five Bolton businessmen: Thomas Hardcastle, James Cross, James Ormrod, Robert Barlow

and Thomas Rushton. The bank traded as Hardcastle, Cross, Ormrod, Barlow & Rushton, but was also known as Bolton Bank.

 

CHRONOLOGY OF THE BOLTON BANK

1818-1878 Bolton Bank - John Hardcastle, James Cross, Peter Ormrod, Robert Barlow and Thomas Lever Rushton                                                                 The Bolton Bank was one of the few English provincial banks which did not go bust. It flourished for 60 years between 1818 until 1878,

1878 Taken over by - Manchester and Salford Bank

1890 Became - Williams Deacons and Manchester and Salford Bank Ltd.

1901 Became - Williams Deacons Bank Ltd

1970 Became - Williams & Glyn's Bank Ltd in 1970

1985 Taken over by - Royal Bank of Scotland

 

1818 (14 Aug) Richard Ainsworth’s eldest daughter Sarah (1795-1861) married Henry A Annesley (1791-1818), the second son of the 1st Earl Mountnorris (>27 Aug)

 

1818 (27 Aug) Henry A Annesley drowned on his honeymoon in Blackpool.

Sarah never remarried.

There is a memorial in stained glass to him in the south window of Smithills Chapel.

 

1818 Mawdsley Street Congregational Schools founded 1818

 

1818 Bolton Savings Bank established                                                                     

 

1818 One of the most notorious Government spies was a Bolton man called Waddington.                                                                                           One day in 1818 he was walking down a street in town when he was recognised by a young schoolteacher who cried out: "Oh thou black-face".           In reply Waddington produced a gun and shot the young man through the thigh. Waddington was subsequently bailed and disappeared, while the schoolteacher was indicted and convicted for riot at Salford Assizes.

 

1818 The first company formed for lighting the town with gas, the Bolton Gas Light and Coke Co, was formed

 

1818 The pillory was last used

 

1818 The Bolton Gas Light and Coke Company was first formed in 1818 and a small site works was built on nearby Forge Street, which later became Gas Street. The site at Gas Street went on to become the main gas works in Bolton.

 

1818 In 1818 a series of meetings were held at the premises of Robert Barlow, a wine and spirits merchant on Water Street. As a result, Bolton’s first bank – Hardcastle, Cross & Co - was set up in Mr Barlow’s premises, although by 1822 it was trading from a building in Market Street.

 

1818 In 1818 the Royal Sovereign Mill burnt down but this was common for cotton mills as floors were wooden and gas lights were used. The main fire hazard was 'fluffy cotton' that at times became almost explosive. One cotton mill worker commented how a six-story mill could burn down in an hour and when a "taper was used to ignite the gas lightening, the 'dain' would ignite and fire would spread along a line of looms." However, in this case it was suspected that the Royal Sovereign was burnt down by an act of arson because of social unrest in that period

 

1818 Royal Sovereign mill burnt down.

 

1819 (1 May) Bolton’s streets were first lit by gaslamp

 

1819 (31 May) Walter Whitman, American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist, born at West Hills, Town of Huntingdon, Long Island, New York, USA.

Died 26 Mar 1892

The Eagle Street College was an informal group established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street, Bolton, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman.

 

1819 (16 Aug) On the 16th of August 1819 the huge open area around what's now St Peter's Square, Manchester, played host to an outrage against over 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters; an event which became known as The Peterloo Massacre.                                                    An estimated 18 people, including four women and a child, died from sabre cuts and trampling. Nearly 700 men, women and children received extremely serious injuries. All in the name of liberty and freedom from poverty.                             The Massacre occurred during a period of immense political tension and mass protests. Fewer than 2% of the population had the vote, and hunger was rife with the disastrous corn laws making bread unaffordable.

 

 

1819 (16 Aug) On 16 August 1819, Major Trafford and Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange, the overall military commander in Manchester, were sent notes by the chairman of the Lancashire and Cheshire Magistrates, local coalowner William Hulton, urging them to dispatch troops to a public meeting on voting reform being addressed by the orator Henry Hunt.                                                             Sir, as chairman of the select committee of magistrates, I request you to proceed immediately to no. 6 Mount Street, where the magistrates are assembled. They consider the Civil Power wholly inadequate to preserve the peace. I have the honour, & c. Wm. Hulton.                                                                       The notes were handed to two horsemen standing by. The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry were stationed just a short distance away in Portland Street, and so received their note first. Trafford dispatched 116 officers and men of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry who immediately drew their swords and galloped towards St Peter's Field. One trooper, in a frantic attempt to catch up, knocked down a woman in Cooper Street, causing the death of her child when he was thrown from her arms; two-year-old William Fildes was the first casualty of Peterloo. Special constables were already present at the meeting, but no troops.    Sixty cavalrymen of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, a local factory owner, arrived at the house from where the magistrates were watching; some reports allege that they were drunk. Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be removed; it was by then about 1:40 pm. Major Trafford himself appears not to have been present for the disastrous attack on the assembled crowd that followed.

The route towards the hustings between the special constables was narrow, and as the inexperienced horses were thrust further and further into the crowd they reared and plunged as people tried to get out of their way. The arrest warrant had been given to the Deputy Constable, Joseph Nadin, who followed behind the yeomanry. As the cavalry pushed towards the speakers' stand they became stuck in the crowd, and in panic started to hack about them with their sabres. On his arrival at the stand Nadin arrested Hunt, Johnson and a number of others including John Tyas, the reporter from The Times. According to Tyas the yeomanry's progress through the crowd had provoked a hail of bricks and stones, and caused them to lose "all command of temper". Their mission to execute the arrest warrant having been achieved, they then set about destroying the banners and flags carried by the crowd.                                                              From his vantage point William Hulton perceived the unfolding events as an assault on the yeomanry, and on L'Estrange's arrival at 1:50 pm, at the head of his hussars, he ordered them into the field to disperse the crowd with the words: "Good God, Sir, don't you see they are attacking the Yeomanry; disperse the meeting!" The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. At first the crowd had some difficulty in dispersing, as the main exit route into Peter Street was blocked by the 88th Infantry Regiment, standing with bayonets fixed. One officer of the 15th Hussars was heard trying to restrain the by now out of control Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, who were "cutting at every one they could reach": "For shame! For shame! Gentlemen: forbear, forbear! The people cannot get away!" Within ten minutes the crowd was dispersed, at the cost of at least 11 dead and over 600 injured

 

1819 Walt Whitman (1819-92) was born on Long Island and grew up in Brooklyn, New York.                                                                              He had little formal education and moved through various temporary occupations, including journalism, before publishing the first edition of his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, in 1855. Written in a simple style and dispensing with traditional poetic devices, these poems represent an early form of free verse. Whitman spent the rest of his life revising and expanding this volume, producing nine editions in total. The third edition of 1860 contained the 'Calamus' group of poems, which has often been taken as evidence of his homosexuality, although the poet denied this and instead emphasised its meaning as a celebration of the natural affection of man for man or 'comradely love'. His work as a whole celebrated America, democracy, and the lives of the ordinary working people. Despite his own efforts at publicity, however, Whitman's work was largely ignored by the general public in America until the 1870s, when favourable reviews of his poetry appeared in England written by respected men of letters such as William Rossetti and John Addington Symonds.                         Whitman died at his home in Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey, in 1892.

 

1819 Peterloo Massacre

 

1819 Jeremiah Marsden born, the son of a weaver and the grandson of a blacksmith

He was duly apprenticed to an ironfounder and later became owner of the Britannia Ironworks in Goodwin Street and Folds Road. ( see 27 May 1820)

 

1819 Bolton Parish Church Sunday School built by Canon Slade.

When it opened it had 1,499 scholars and 110 teachers and was the largest Sunday School in Bolton

It stood where the Bolton News Offices now are.

 

1819 BGC supplied gas lighting and household gas.

 

1819 Gas lighting and household gas supplies arrived in Bolton in 1819 supplied by BGC, (??becoming the Bolton Gas Light and Coke Company in 1820??) taken over by the Corporation in 1872. The gas industry was nationalised in 1949 and privatised by the Thatcher government.

 

1819 Parish Church School built on corner of Silverwell Street and Churchgate.