Chapter I: Samuel III. 18 (2)

If some memorable occurrences in local history may be termed ‘red lettered,’ the fearful visitations of this epidemic in 1832 and 1848 may be said to have been black, and very black lettered events indeed. The steady march of this dire disease from Asia over the continent of Europe towards our shores in 1831 created the utmost alarm of approaching danger, and led to precautionary measures being taken. Medical science however was at fault; contradictory advice was given; orders in council were issued and withdrawn; and people were at their wits’ end what steps to take. A rigid system of quarantine was at first enforced; and when the enemy did arrive it was ordered that each infected district or house was to be isolated and shut up within itself, and the inhabitants cut off from communication with other parts of the country; and ‘all articles of food or other necessaries were to be placed in front of the house, and received by the inhabitants after the person delivering them had retired.’ It was in fact the exploit over again of the gallant gentleman who proposed, as Milton says, to ‘pound up the crows by shutting his park gate.’ Clinging to the belief that the disease was imported and spread by contagion, few really remedial measures founded on the hypothesis of the low sanitary condition of the population—as bad drainage, ill-ventilated and overcrowded dwellings, offensive sewers, unwholesome water, and the thousand other kindred abominations which afflict the poor, were suggested. But feelings and sympathies were naturally with the patient and against the unchristian edict which said to him—‘Thou art sick, and we visit thee not; thou art in prison, and we come not unto thee’. Gradually too it dawned upon the minds of the authorities—as the result of observation and experience—that it was not so much from direct communication that persons were affected, as from bad sanitary conditions;—for persons were not consecutively affected who lived in the same house or slept in the same bed with the sick; and that children even suckled by mothers labouring under the disease escaped. On Wednesday, the 21st of March, 1832, there was a general fast for deliverance from the plague, as it was called, but it was pretty much the same as Æsop’s case of the carter who prayed Jupiter to get his cart wheel out of the rut; and the answer vouchsafed by Providence was similar—‘put your own shoulder to the wheel’, do what you can first to make the people clean and wholesome. We have no statistics or recorded facts to fall back upon, but so far as our knowledge and experience serves us we should say that the first victims in this neighbourhood were among men and women who led irregular lives, and who lived in dirty ill-ventilated homes, and in the decks and cabins of barges going long voyages, in which men slept and ate their meals; and persons on the banks of the Severn, who drank the polluted water of the river. A case occurred at Coalport, on the 21st of July, 1832, on board a barge on the Severn, which belonged to owner Jones; and it was thought prudent to sink the vessel to destroy the contagion. A man named Richard Evans also was taken with the cholera on board a Shrewsbury barge, and was removed to the “Big House,” as it was called, at the Calcutts, which had been hired and set apart by Mr. George Pritchard and others for the reception of victims. On the 23rd, Thomas Oakes, son of John Oakes, died on board Dillon Lloyd’s vessel, and during that month and the next the plague continued its ravages by the Severn. From an old diary we learn that a man named Goosetree, his wife, and three children, were seized on the 14th of August at the Coalport Manufactory, and died the same day; as also did a Mrs. Baugh and her mother.

The more ignorant of the people were suspicious of the doctors; Mr. Thursfield on the 23rd of July visited a house at Coalford, and offered a draught to a woman whom he suspected of shewing symptoms of the disease, but was beaten off by her daughter Kitty, who said her mother wanted food and not medicine. The doctor does not appear to have been popular judging from doggrel lines in circulation at the time—

‘The cholera morbus is begun
And Dr. Thursfield is the mon
To carry the cholera morbus on.’

A man named William Titley, whilst drinking, dancing, and singing this to a public house company, was taken with the disease, and died next day. William Fletcher, a carpenter, whilst employed in making the coffin intended for Titley, was seized, and died next day, and was buried in the coffin he had made for another. A few days after, on the 14th of September, Israel Weager, a barge block-maker, who wore dirty and greasy clothes, who was grimy and dirty also in his person, and worked in a wretched shed by the Robin Hood public house, was another taken about the same time who died. During the remainder of the same month, and those of October, November, and December, the cholera continued to find victims. Men drank hard to ward off the disease and sowed the seeds which brought it on. Men and women were taken ill, died, and were buried the same day; and some were probably buried before they were dead. One man, a well known cock-fighter at Broseley, was attacked with the disease, and so stupefied by brandy that he was supposed to be dead. He was taken to the cholera ground adjoining Jackfield church on the hill, and the rattle of the soil upon the coffin which accompanied the words “ashes to ashes” &c., roused him from his stupor, when the bystanders hearing a noise lifted the lid and the old cocker came forth. {253} We believe his name was William Roberts, judging from the diary before mentioned, and that the event occurred on the 14th of September; and that on the 1st of October his wife and two children died of the plague, and were buried the same day. At many places it was much worse than it was here. At Bilston, for instance, it raged so fiercely that forty-five victims died in one day; and not less than twenty for several days running; and their neighbours at Birmingham presented a waggon load of coffins, as being the most acceptable present they could make. It was bad enough here; church bells were tolling, hearses and cholera carts were in motion often, and at untimely hours, early and late, by torch light, or accompanied by the feeble light of a lantern; and a melancholy sadness settled upon all. Many journeys were made by the “cholera cart from the Workhouse” to Madeley church-yard, with just sufficient of the inmates of the house to convey the corpse to the hole dug for it. It must not be supposed however that the victims to this terrible plague were confined to the lower classes, many of the well-to-do were stricken and died: the sister of the present Lord Forester, we are informed by the diary referred to, died on the 23rd of July of cholera in London. At last the evil spent itself and subsided; it was a fearful curse, but it had the effect of convincing us that something more than fasts and well-seasoned sermons were needed to prevent or remove the epidemic: and so much was done by public attention being called to the effects bad sanitary conditions had on the physical causes of sickness and mortality, by Dr. Southwood Smith in 1838, and by evidence by Mr. Slaney, M.P., for Shrewsbury, who obtained a select committee to enquire into the circumstances affecting the health of the inhabitants of large towns, with a view to improved sanitary regulations for their benefit, in 1840, that the knowledge gained enabled medical men successfully to grapple with the epidemic when it again threatened to spread itself over the country in 1848.

THE SEVERN.

The Severn at present is of little service to the parishioners of Madeley, either as a source of food or a means of transit, compared with what it was in former times. Yet washing as it does the whole of the western side of the parish, from Marnwood brook to the brook which separates Madeley and Sutton parishes, it deserves notice. There was a time when it supplied a considerable portion of food to those living upon its banks; and when, whilst other parts of the country, less favoured, were labouring under the disadvantages of land conveyance, over roads scarcely passable, and by machines but imperfectly constructed, its navigation conferred superior privileges; both by the importation of hay, corn, groceries &c., and the exportation of mines and metals produced along the valley through which it runs. The river, inconsiderable in its origin, is indebted for its navigable importance to physical peculiarities of country that constitute its basins. An extensive water-shed of hills, whose azure tops court the clouds, brings down a large amount of rain to swell the volume of its stream. From its source to its estuary in the Bristol Channel it gathers as it rolls from rivers and brooks, which, after irrigating rich pasture lands along their banks, pour their waters into its channel. The Teme, augmented by the Clun, the Ony, the Corve, the Avon, and the Wye, having each performed similar pilgrimages through flower-dotted fields, also pay tribute of their waters. Here weaving its way through a carpet of the richest green it visits sheep-downs, cattle-pastures, orchards, hop-plantations, and hay-producing fields, as it sweeps along, conferring benefit upon the soil, increasing the fertility of fields, aiding in the development of mines, linking important wealth producing districts, bringing materials for manufacturing purposes together, and transporting their products to the sea.

This formerly more than now, so that Agriculture, and commerce felt its quickening influence and bore witness to its sway. Feeders, which capital with talismanic touch opened up by cuttings on the plain, aqueducts or embankments across the vale, tunnels, locks, and other contrivances among the hills to overcome inequalities of surface ran miles through inland districts to collect its traffic. The Shropshire, the Shrewsbury, and the Ellesmere Canals, united the Severn, the Mersey, and the Dee, and the rival ports, Liverpool and Bristol. Shrewsbury, Coalbrookdale, Coalport, Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Stourport, Worcester, and Gloucester, were centres from which its traffic flowed; iron crude and malleable, brick and tile, earthenware and pipes, were sent, the former in large quantities from wharfs at Coalbrookdale, and from others between Ironbridge and Coalport. The Shropshire trade was carried on by means of vessels from 40 to 78 and 80 tons burthen, drawing from three to four feet, which went down with the stream, and were drawn back by horses, or men or both. In consequence of the rapidity of the current over the fords not more than 20, 30, or 40 tons were usually carried up the river. About 20 voyages in the year were usually made by regular traders, but vessels carrying iron made more. The time occupied for full cargoes to get down to Gloucester was about 24 hours.

In 1756, there were at Madeley-Wood, 21 owners of vessels of 39 vessels. But many more than these came to the Meadow, and Coalport wharves. Hulbert, writing about half a century ago says: “standing upon Coalport bridge I have counted seventy barges standing at Coalport Wharf, some laden and others loading with coal and iron.” Madeley-Wood supplied fire-clay and fire-bricks for many years to the porcelain and other works at Worcester. Originally, when Fuller speaks of coals being exported by barges, and when during the Civil Wars the Parliamentary forces planted a garrison at Benthall to prevent the barges carrying coal down the river, vessels were drawn against the stream by strings of men linked to ropes by loops or bows, who were called bow-haulers. It was slavish work; and Richard Reynolds was so struck with the hardship and unfitness of the practice that he exerted himself to obtain an Act of Parliament for the construction of a road by the side of the river, now called the towing path, by which horses were substituted. Sometimes, when a favourable wind blew against the stream, vessels with all sails set would make good progress without further assistance; and it was a pleasing sight to see these and the larger ones, the trows, sailing along the valley. Had means been taken to improve the channel of the Severn, this noble river, navigable for 180 miles, may have been in a much more flourishing condition than at present.

Like opposing interests for and against improvements in the channel, between which the battle of locks and weirs was fought, two opposing forces have been striving for mastery in the tideway of the channel. One contending for an estuary, the other for a delta. Draining a district six thousand square miles in extent, having a fall of two hundred and twenty feet in its descent from its source on Plynlymmon, (1,500 feet above the sea line), to its tideway in the Bristol Channel, and being fed by boisterous brooks and precipitous streams that cut their way through shales and clays and sand-rocks, it is not surprising that the Severn should bring down a vast amount of silt to raise its bed. To correct these irregularities along a portion of the river, improvements, projected by Sir William Cubitt, some years since, were completed at very considerable outlay, after an expenditure of £70,000 before the sanction of Parliament could be obtained. Above Stourport, where these improvements terminate, the river is still in a state of nature. Except some pedling attempts by means of earth, loose stones, or sinking some dilapidated boats along the side, nothing has been done to improve the channel. The scouring action of the stream constantly undermines the banks. These give way after every flood, and come down to choke the river, or to change the channel, and every newly-formed shoal sends the stream at right angles to its bed to make fresh attempts upon its banks. Fords that served our painted ancestors to make incursions beyond their boundaries, bends almost amounting to circles around which they paddled their canoes, impede navigation still. Attempts to overcome these natural obstacles to its navigation were made as early as 1784, when Mr. Jessop proposed to render the river navigable for vessels drawing four feet at all seasons of the year from Worcester to Coalbrookdale. He proposed to obtain a sufficient depth for that purpose at all seasons of the year by the erection of 13 or 14 weirs between those places; he also recommended that that depth should be obtained below Diglis by dredging and correcting the natural channel of the river, and the Stafford and Worcester Canal Company, joined by the iron manufacturers of Shropshire, applied in the year 1786 to parliament for powers to carry out Mr. Jessop’s recommendations, so far as they related to the portion of the river described in the title of the bill, as from Meadow-wharf, Coalbrookdale, to the deep water at Diglis, below the city of Worcester. The bill was lost owing to the objections on the part of the public to the erection of locks and weirs, and owing to the dislike of the carriers to pay toll at all seasons of the year. As it is, there are often three, four, and five months when barges cannot navigate the river with a freight equal to defray the expenses of working them; indeed, instances have occurred in which in only two months of the twelve the river could be advantageously worked. Besides the additional wear and tear, more strength is required to work the vessel, and it takes treble the time to convey 15 tons at low water as it does four times that weight at other times.

To improvements that affect only a portion of the river, and that the lower portion, the Shropshire traders very naturally took objection. They saw that for any benefit to be derived from navigating the lower portion of the Severn they would be taxed, without being able themselves to participate in it, and at a meeting of iron and coal masters, Severn carriers, and others, held at the Tontine Inn, Ironbridge, on the 2nd of December, 1836, for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of opposing the project of the Worcester Severn Navigation Company, for the introduction of locks and weirs upon the river, Richard Darby, Esq., in the chair, it was resolved,

“That having attentively considered the plan proposed by the
Worcester Severn Navigation Company, for effecting alterations in the
channel of that river, it is of opinion that, whilst the execution of
that plan affords no stable prospect of extensive advantage to the
public at large, its effects upon a variety, of important local
interests, and particularly upon the trading community of this
neighbourhood, will be in the highest degree injurious. That the
introduction of these works, even if Shropshire vessels were
permitted to pass them free of any impost, would be injurious to the
traders of this county, but that the exaction from that body of a
toll or tonage for such passage would inflict on them a burden of the
most unjust and oppressive character. That a petition or petitions
in opposition be accordingly at the proper stage presented, and
supported by evidence, according to the course of Parliamentary
proceeding, and that every exertion be used to obtain the support of
members of both houses to the prayer of such petitions.”

The following gentlemen were appointed a committee:—Mr. Botfield, Mr. Mountford, Mr. John Horton, Mr. Richard Darby, Mr. Abraham Darby, Mr. Alfred Darby, Mr. Anstice, Mr. Hombersley, Mr. Rose, Mr. William Pugh, Mr. William James, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. George Pritchard, Mr. John Owen, Mr. Samuel Roden, Mr. John Burton, Mr. John Anstice, Mr. Francis Yates, Mr. John Dyer Doughty, Mr. Edward Edwards, Mr. Samuel Smith, Mr. George Chune. The agitation proved so far successful that a clause was inserted in the bill exempting the Shropshire traders coming down with full cargoes from toll. This exemption was subject to the qualification that if in descending the river they took in, or in ascending it they took out any goods whatever within the improved portions of the river, their whole cargoes should be subject to toll. This concession cost the Shropshire interest a long and expensive opposition before a committee of the House of Commons. At subsequent periods the Shropshire iron and coal masters and Severn traders have had similar battles to fight in order to maintain the exemption clause. The commissioners appointed by the act of 1842, who, in 1847, sought powers to erect the weir at Tewkesbury, claimed the repeal of the qualified exemption from toll granted to the Shropshire trade, on the ground that the system of dredging below Worcester had been ineffectual in maintaining an uniform depth of six feet of water. This was complained of as an act of injustice and bad faith on their part towards the Shropshire interest. The slight assistance which, in certain states of the river, they derived from the diminished force of the stream in ascending, was more than neutralised by the loss of aid on their downward voyage and by the detention of the locks. Again the Shropshire traders, through the indefatigable exertions of W. R. Anstice, Esq., were successful in maintaining the free navigation of the river, so far as they were concerned, and subject to conditions above stated.

Traffic upon the Severn, it as been said, costs less than on any other river in the kingdom; and at the present time, notwithstanding the facilities railways afford, the river is preferred for some kind of goods, as for the fine castings of Coalbrookdale, such as grates, which are still carried cheaper and better by means of barges, than by any other.

THE SEVERN AS A SOURCE OF FOOD.

So much importance has been attached to the Severn as the means both of supplying food and innocent recreation, that many Acts of parliament have at various times been passed for its protection. One sets forth that:

“The King our Sovereign lord James, &c., &c. Having certain
knowledge that in his stream and river of Severn and in other rivers,
streams, creeks, brooks, waters and ditches thereinto running or
descending, the spawn and brood of trout, salmon and salmon-effs and
other fish is yearly greatly destroyed by the inordinate and unlawful
taking of the same by the common fishers useing and occupying unsized
and unlawful nets and other engines,” &c., &c.

We have already said in our “History of Broseley” that—

The earlier acts of parliament were designed with a view to
discourage rod-and-line fishing, anglers, who, according to
Holinshead ranked third among the rogues and vagabonds, being subject
to a fine of £5; and although recent legislation has been intended to
encourage this harmless amusement, and to increase the growth of
fish, the best efforts of both legislators and conservators have been
frustrated hitherto by the Navigation Company, whose locks and weirs
turn back the most prolific breeding fish seeking their spawning
grounds. The first of these were erected in 1842; and four more have
since been added. By the 158th and 159th sections of the Severn
Navigation Act the Company were to construct fish passes; and
although attempts have been made at various times to do this, no
efficient means have been adopted. Not only salmon decreased since
their erection but shad, flounders, and lampreys, never now visit
this portion of the river. Formerly Owners of barges and their men,
when they were unemployed, could spend their time profitably in
fishing, and could half keep their families with what they caught.

Of the one hundred and fifteen tons of salmon taken in the Severn in 1877, 16,000 fish were supposed to have been taken in the lower or tidal portion of the river, and 1.800 in the upper or non tidal portions; but the latter proportion was larger that year than usual. Salmon in the Severn have been still further reduced by the too common practice of taking samlets, on their downward course to the sea, and we are glad to find that more stringent measures are being taken by the conservators and the water-bailiffs to prevent this. Amateur fishermen, gentlemen of intelligence, have not only contributed to this by their own acts but by encouraging others to do likewise under the pretence or excuse that they were not the young of salmon. It is a well ascertained fact, however, not only that they are young salmon, but that when grown to a proper size they come up the river they go down. We heard the Duke of Sutherland say, in his grounds at Dunrobin, where he rears hundreds of thousands of young salmon to turn into the Brora and other rivers, that he had marked their fins and found that they invariably came up the same river they go down, and the author of “Book of the Salmon,” says:—

“Take a salmon bred in the Shin, (one of the duke’s salmon rivers) in
Sutherland, and set it at liberty in the Tweed, at Berwick, and it
will not ascend the Tweed, but will if not slain in transitu, return
to its native river, the Shin, traversing hundreds of miles of ocean
to do so. Is this wonderful! No more wonderful than,—

“The swallow twittering from its straw-built shed,”

migrating, on the first appearance of winter from these shores, to
the warm atmosphere, yielding insect food, of Africa, and returning
to its natal locality in the spring, to live and give life in the
temperate summer of a temperate zone.”

It is owing to this unconquerable instinct we are indebted for the few salmon we get in the upper Severn. At the spawning season they make their appearance in the estuary, and, so long as they meet with no insurmountable obstruction to their progress, will traverse miles for the deposition of their ova. Slight obstacles in the way will not deter them, and it is only after repeated failures they give up; they swim through rapids, leap from seven to ten feet high, and push on to their destination through powerful floods of descending water; and it is only at insurmountable barriers to their progress that they fall a prey to the rapacity of poachers, who have been known at one time to have taken cart loads with spears.

Since the above was in type Mr. Frank Buckland and Mr. S. Walpole, as Inspectors of Salmon fisheries, have issued their report, wherein we learn that the Severn is much polluted in its upper waters by refuse from mines, and in the middle and lower waters by the refuse from manufactories and town sewage; and that out of the 290 miles of spawning ground which the Severn possesses, only 75 are accessible to the fish. Mr. Willis Bund, the chairman of the Severn Board, supplied Mr. Buckland with the following figures as to the value of the Severn salmon fisheries. The figures show the value of the fish caught:

1869 £8,006 1870 13,000 1871 11,200 1872 8,000 1873 10,000 1874 10,500 1875 10,590 1876 14,560 1877 12,880 1878 8,978

As regards the future prospects of the Severn, Mr. Buckland confesses he does not feel quite happy, but adds that the exact cause of the non-increase of the produce of the river during recent years may possibly depend upon the peculiar conditions of the river between the first navigation weir and the sea. The fish having such a long estuary to traverse before they can get beyond the tidal nets are often unable to pass the lower weirs, and being obliged to fall back with the tide, run a _second chance_ of being caught by the nets. The fish taken in the Severn are usually very large. For the last five years the average has been over 14 lbs. each; last year a great many varying between 30 and 40 lbs. were captured, and some even exceeding the latter weight. The largest recorded, weighing 50 lb., was taken in a draft net on the 18th March, 1878, by Mr. Browning, of Longney, Gloucestershire. The fish spawn in the Severn as early as, if not earlier than, in any other river. During the past year, 1878, Mr. Buckland says fishing was not prosperous, and he gives the number of salmon taken as 12,450, and the weight as 86 tons, against the 16,000 fish, weighing 115 tons, given on a former page, as being the take in 1877. Mr. Buckland adds that the Severn is the largest salmon river in England, and he enumerates the weirs which greatly obstruct the lower part of the river.

Shad were formerly taken in considerable numbers at the fords, by bargemen chiefly, who caught more than they could consume, and sold them to others; and in a commercial point of view, in this portion of the river, they were even more important than salmon. They were caught at night, generally by moonlight, by men who stood at the fords, watching for them as they ascended the river. Their approach was marked by a phosphorescent light, or “loom” in the water. They were difficult to catch in the daytime, as they would either go over or under the net, and fix themselves with their heads in the bed of the river, tail upwards. When in proper condition they were well flavoured fish, and attained a large size, sometimes two and three feet in length.

The flounder was another fine fish, and was as abundant as any in the Severn, affording good sport to “bottom fishers,” with rod and line. Since the locks and weirs were made they have, like the shad, ceased altogether. Lampreys too, which formerly were considered even of more importance than salmon, and which also were caught in this part of the Severn, are fish which have altogether ceased to visit us since the erection of the first weir in 1842.

Again, the rich and oily flesh of the eel formed the staple diet of dwellers along the river banks; and even the well-to-do, whose roomy chimney corners were hung with salted swine flesh, and on whose tables fresh meat appeared only at intervals, esteemed eels a luxury. Eels, like shad, were migratory, and before locks and weirs were placed upon the river myriads of minute eels in spring made their way from the brackish waters of the estuary of the Severn, keeping close to the shore. They formed a dark dense mass, like a sunken rope, and were called Elvers, a word said to be of Saxon origin, and a corruption, it is supposed, of Eelfare, meaning to travel, as in wayfare, thoroughfare, and seafaring. In this state they were caught, bushels of them, and sold at a small sum, whilst the remainder were used for manure or pig-wash. Vast numbers of these eels, when left to their instinct, found their way into the upper Severn and its tributaries.

An Act of the 30th of Charles II. for the preservation of fishing in the river Severn, imposed a penalty on all persons taking elvers; an Act of George III., but repealed so much of the former, as related to the penalty on persons taking elvers for their own use only, and not for sale; whilst the Salmon Act of 1861, repealed the 30th of Charles II. altogether; and left no law to prevent the destruction of young eels, which was carried on in Gloucestershire in what was called the elver season on a large scale.

The Severn Board of conservators, under the powers granted by Mr. Mundella’s Fresh Water Fishing Act, (41 and 42 Vic. Cap. 39) passed a resolution in March, 1879, making it the duty of eel fishermen to pay a sum of ten shillings for an annual license to use their lines. Considerable opposition was offered to this on the part of the Ironbridge and other fishermen; a memorial was drawn up and signed at a meeting of these and others from Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury, and a deputation appointed to present it to the Severn Board of Conservators at their meeting at Shrewsbury.

Mr. Yale who presented the memorial said: One complaint was in regard
to the license put upon the rod-and-line. It was only 1s., it was
true, and that was not much, but it involved a principle which they
thought might be carried further at some future day, and to a very
oppressive extent. The greatest grievance, however, was the
imposition of licenses upon the use of night lines. He did not
believe that the scarcity of fish was owing to the anglers or to the
netters, for it was a matter of experience that when men were allowed
to go and catch as many as they thought proper there were plenty of
fish, but it was not so now. He used to think it a very bad day if
he could not catch 20 lbs. of fish, and now, perhaps he would not
take 10 ozs. That was not caused by the rod-and-line, or by the use
of nets, upon which it is now sought to place these restrictions. He
believed, as Mr. George had told him the other day, that the scarcity
of fish was owing to the pollutions, and not to the taking of fish.

SAMUEL SANDALS, made a statement to the effect that he worked all the
hours he could at his usual work and spent the rest in fishing, and
he thought it very hard to put a license upon the night lines. As to
the trout taken with night lines, it was very rare indeed that they
could take a trout in that way, except in the spring when the water
was muddy: he believed the ducks destroyed “a sight” of the spawn on
the fords.

Mr. WATTON said he did not for a moment dispute what the last speaker
had said with respect to his not catching trout on night lines.
There might possibly be some very good local reasons for his
non-success, but, speaking from his own observation, he knew well
enough that the night lines were the destruction of the trout. They
were laid zig-zag fashion for a great distance down the river, and
swept every trout off the fords at night, and they were most
destructive engines.

Mr. H. SHAW said he quite agreed with what Mr. Watton had said, and
he could bring evidence to prove that an immense quantity of trout
was taken upon night lines, and a very large number of small fish
were destroyed in baiting the lines. To take these baits stones were
rooted up and the young salmon were frequently disturbed and got
devoured by large fish. No less than 3,000 or 4,000 bait were caught
each day in and around Shrewsbury to supply the night lines, and that
must be a very serious drawback to the stock of fish in the river.

The CHAIRMAN said it seemed to him that the gentlemen who had
attended the meeting of the Board objected to the principle of
issuing licenses, and if it was so, so far as he understood the
matter, that Board could do nothing.

Petitions were also presented to the Home Secretary; one from the fishermen themselves and another from the inhabitants. Of course these were from fishermen’s point of view. Those who are anxious that fish in the river should be increased, who think the protective provisions of the Act favour such increase, and who follow fishing more by way of sport and pastime, take very different views; they naturally look upon professional fishermen, men who lay night lines, and fish as a means of obtaining a livelihood, as enemies of legitimate sport. The object of protection is a laudable one, namely, that the means of innocent recreation, and the food of the people, may be increased; and eels are, there is no question, a more important article of food, so far as the people on the banks of the Severn are concerned, than Salmon, and that ten times over. Salmon can never be multiplied so as to come within the reach of the people generally. Eels, on the contrary, are an article of food with the poor, the middle classes, and the rich themselves. Moreover, they will bear comparison with any well-flavoured fish the Severn produces.

It is chiefly for eel fishing, by means of night lines, but sometimes also for fly-fishing for trout and other fish, that the coracle, that ancient British vessel, is still retained on the Severn. The men go down with the stream to lay their lines, and then carry their coracles over their heads and shoulders; so that looking at them from behind they look like huge beetles walking along the road.

Of fish unaffected by the obstructions enumerated may be mentioned the river’s pride—

“The crimson spotted trout
And beauty of the stream.”

But it must be sought for higher up or lower down the river, generally at the fords, and the embouchers of streams which come down to join the Severn, as Cound and Linley brooks. In deeper parts of the river too, near these places, good sized chub are found. But the chub is not much esteemed, although a fine fish, and, according to Izaak Walton, “proves excellent meat.” It grows to a large size, and may be caught in holes near Sweyney, where the bushes overhang such holes. Pike too are found here, but are more common about Buildwas and Cressage.

That handsome fish the roach, known by the dusky bluish green on head and back, with lighter shades on sides, its silvery white belly, and dorsal and caudal fins tinged with red, is also to be caught.

Dace, grayling, and perch, are met with, the latter congregating in holes of the river, or seen herding together hunting its prey. As Drayton says of—

“The dainty gudgeon, loche, the minnow, and the bleak,
Since they are little, I little need but speak.”

The former makes up for its small size by the daintiness of “meat.” Its favourite haunts are the swift flowing portions of the river, with pebbly and sandy bottoms. It is a ground feeder, greedy, and rushes at once to seek its prey, if you stir up the bed of the river. The bleak is about the size of the gudgeon, and is a quick biter.

From the peculiarities of its watershed the Severn is subject to sudden and unlooked for

FLOODS.

To quote from our “History of Broseley”:—

In modern times these can to some extent be guarded against, as the
news of any sudden extraordinary rise in the upper basin may be
communicated to those living lower down. Formerly this could not be
done; a flood would then travel faster than a letter, and coming down
upon the villagers suddenly, perhaps in the night time, people would
find the enemy had entered their households unawares. It was no
unusual thing to see haystacks, cattle, timber, furniture, and, in
one instance, we have heard old people tell of a child in a cradle,
floating down the stream. Many of these floods are matters of
tradition; others being associated with special events have been
recorded. Shakespeare has commemorated one called “Buckingham’s
Flood,” in his Richard III., thus:—

“The news I have to tell your majesty
Is,—that, by sudden floods and fall of waters
Buckingham’s army is dispersed and scatter’d
And he himself wandered away alone,
No man knows whither.”

Proclaimed a traitor, and forsaken by his army, he concealed himself
in the woods on the banks of the Severn and was betrayed and taken in
Banister’s Coppice, near Belswardine.

The newspapers of 1785 record a sudden rise in the Severn and its
disastrous results. It appears that on the 17th of December, 1794,
the season was so mild that fruit-trees were in blossom, whilst early
in January, 1795, so much ice filled the Severn after a rapid thaw as
to do great damage. The river rose at Coalbrookdale 25¼ inches
higher than it did in November, 1770. The rise in the night was so
rapid that a number of the inhabitants were obliged to fly from their
tenements, leaving their goods at the mercy of the floods. The
publicans were great sufferers, the barrels being floated and the
bungs giving way. In the Swan and White Hart, Ironbridge, the water
was several feet deep. Two houses were washed away below the bridge,
but the bridge itself stood the pressure, although Buildwas bridge
blew up, the river having risen above the keystone in the centre of
the main arch. Crowds visited the locality to see the flood and the
ruins it had made.

On the Coalbrookdale Warehouse, and on a house by the side of the
brook, the height of these floods are to be seen recorded. At
Worcester, a little above the bridge, a brass plate has the following
inscription:—“On the 12th February, 1795, the Flood rose to the lower
edge of this plate.” The lower edge measures just three feet from
the pavement level. Another plate at the archway opposite the
Cathedral bears the following:—“On the 18th November, 1770, the Flood
rose to the lower edge of this Brass Plate, being ten inches higher
than the Flood which happened on December 23rd, 1672.” This measures
seven feet from the ground immediately underneath.

There are three other marks which have been cut out the stonework on
the wall adjacent to the archway referred to, which are as follows:—

“Feb. 8th, 1852.
Nov. 15th, 1852.
Aug. 5th, 1839.”

The one in February measures from the ground six feet two inches;
November, 1852, eight feet two inches; and the one August 5th, 1839,
six feet two inches.

COALBROOKDALE.

As an important part of the parish of Madeley, still more as a locality famous on account of its fine castings and other productions, Coalbrookdale is deserving of a much further notice than has incidentally been given on previous pages in speaking of the Darbys and Reynoldses. There are few people perhaps in the kingdom who have not heard or who do not know something of Coalbrookdale; and there are none, probably, who pass through it by rail who do not peer through the windows of the carriage to catch a passing glimpse of its more prominent features. These may be readily grouped, for the benefit of those who have not seen them, but who may read this book, as follows. In the trough of the valley lie the works, stretching along in the direction of the stream, formerly of more importance to the operations carried on in the various workshops than it is at present. Upon the slope of the hill on the south-eastern side the Church, the palatial looking Literary and Scientific Institute, built for the benefit of the workmen, meet the eye, and the more humble looking Methodist chapel. On both sides are goodly looking houses and villa-like residences, where dwell the men of directing minds; whilst here and there are thin sprinklings of workmen’s cottages—few in number compared with the hands employed. A few strips of grass land intervene, whilst above are wooded ridges with pleasant walks, and to the west some curiously rounded knolls, between which the Wellington and Craven Arms branch railway runs, sending down a siding for the accommodation of the works.

These are the chief features which strike the eye, and which would come out into prominence in photographic views taken to shew what Coalbrookdale now is. The buildings are comparatively of modern construction, but quaint half-timbered houses, rejoicing in the whitewash livery of former times, suggest a phase of Coalbrookdale history much anterior to that other buildings indicate. It is not difficult indeed to depict the earlier stages of the progress the little valley has passed through from its first primitive aspect to the present; there are, for instance, in some of its many windings green nooks and pleasant corners where nature yet reigns, and where lovers of a quiet ramble may feast their eyes and indulge their imaginations, undisturbed by the hammering, and whirl of wheels, lower down. Such a spot is that to which the visitor is led by following the stream above the pool, crossed by a footbridge. To the left of the path is Dale House, Sunnyside, the Friends Meeting House, and the road to Little Wenlock. Little is seen of the brook on the right of the path, but its presence on the margin of the slope is made known beneath over-hanging bushes by prattlings over stones, and a waterfall from some ledges of rock. Following it higher up it is found to be partially fed by droppings from rocks dyed by mineral colours of varying hue, and to present curious petrifactions, rarely permitted however to attain any great proportions. The place is variously called _La Mole_ and Lum Hole, and speculations have been indulged in as to each derivation. The former would, of course, suggest a French origin. Lum is Welsh, and signifies a point, as in Pumlummon, now ordinarily called Plinlimmon, or the hill with five points. It is quite certain that the valley here terminates in a point, but whether this has anything to do with it or not we cannot say. All we say of it is that it is a quiet little sylvan retreat, with wooded heights, green slopes, and precipitous yellow rocks, at the foot of which the stream is treasured up and forms a glassy lakelet. But this stream, in which six centuries since “Lovekin” the fisherman set his baited lines, long ago was made to do other service than that of soothing the listening ear, or paying tribute of its trout to the abbot of Wenlock. The choice of the situation for manufacturing operations was no doubt due to woods like these, which supplied the needed fuel; but much more to the motive power furnished by the stream, for turning the great wheels required to produce the blast, and work the ponderous hammers which shaped the metal.

Brave and strong as these Dale men were, their muscles were too weak for the work demanded. As Vulcan found he needed stronger journeymen than those of flesh and blood to forge the thunderbolts of Jove, so an imperative necessity, a growing demand, led men here to seek a more compelling force to blow their leathern bellows, to lift their huge forge hammers, than animal force could supply. Woods were no longer estimated by _pannage_ yielded for swine, but by the fuel supplied for reducing the stubborn ore to pigs of another kind. Brooks were pounded up, streams were turned back upon themselves, and their treasured waters husbanded as a capital of force to be disposed of as occasion required. Dryads now fled the woods and Naiads the streams,—as beams and shafts and cranks were reared or creaked beneath the labours they performed.

The presence of coal and iron ore could not have been inducements for the first ironworkers to settle here; neither tradition nor facts warrant the supposition that either were ever found in the valley. The first syllable of the name is deceptive, and the probability is that it was neither _Coal_ nor _Cole_-brook originally, although coal appears to have been brought here for use more than five centuries ago from places just outside. Wood fuel seems to have been growing scarce as far back as the first quarter of the fourteenth century, judging from an application on the part of a Walter de Caldbrook to the Prior of Wenlock, to whom the manor belonged, for a license to have a man to dig coals in “Le Brockholes” for one year. It is not unlikely that this Walter de Caldbrook had a forge or smithy in the Dale; a situation chosen on account of the stream, which served to furnish him with motive power for his machinery. This seems all the more probable from the fact that distinct mention of such smithy is made in Henry the Eighth’s time, and that it is called “Smithy Place,” and “Caldbrooke Smithy,” {277} in the deed or grant by which the manor was conveyed by the King to Robert Brook, signed at Westminster and dated July 23, 1544. (See page 59). The fact too that this smithy was still called Caldbrook Smithy strengthens the suppositious, both as to the name and as to the fact that the Caldbrookes used the Brockholes coal for their smithy in the Dale. For smith’s work coal has always been preferred to wood; but the word smithy did not then strictly mean what it now does; that is a smith’s shop; but a place where iron was made in blooms. Thus the “Smithies,” near Willey, at present so called, was a place where there were small iron-making forges, as heaps of slag there now testify; which forges were blown with leathern bellows, by means of water power, a man having to tread them to increase the pressure.

Again, the word “Place,” which is a Saxon term for locality, situation, or a particular portion of space, itself indicates an establishment on a scale greater than a modern smithy. The words in the deed are “Smithy Place and New House.” And again, “the rights and privileges attached to the whole of the place and buildings that go under the name of The Smithy Place, and Newhouse, called Caldbrooke Smithy, with its privileges” &c. This Newhouse long ago, no doubt, had become an old house. At any rate we know of no house answering to this description at present, unless it is the half-timbered house near the Lower Forge; and if so this house must be about 100 years older than the one which has the date upon it at the forge higher up, shewing it to have been built a century later, or in 1642: and both forges no doubt were then in existence. The latter would be about the period when the flame of Civil War was bursting forth in various parts of the kingdom, and when Richard Baxter, whose old house still stands at Eaton Constantine, was witnessing the battle of Edgehill and others. This old house is such a fair specimen of the half-timbered structures of two centuries and a half or three centuries ago that we add a representation.

There are a number of square iron plates at the Lower Forge supposed to have been hearth-plates, with the following dates and initials:—