Chapter XI: The Forest and Vale in Georgian Times, 1714 to 1837 (2)

The Sinnington hounds have long been famous in the North Riding, and their history goes back to the earliest days of fox-hunting in these parts. The Bilsdale being the only pack that claims an earlier origin. William Marshall, the agricultural writer (mentioned a few pages further on), hunted with the Sinnington pack for many years, and Jack Parker, huntsman of last century, was a very notable character whose witty anecdotes are still remembered. The silver-mounted horn illustrated here bearing the inscription "Sinnington Hunt 1750" is preserved at Pickering. Until about twenty-five years ago the pack was "trencher fed," the hounds being scattered about in twos and threes at the various farms and houses in the neighbourhood. The kennels are now at Kirby Moorside.

A curious "Dandy Horse" race was held at Pickering on June 22, 1813. Calvert describing it in his quaint way says: "On this day, Tuesday, June 22, 1813, Robert Kitching, Hungate, Pickering and S. Hutchinson of Helmsley, did bring off the wager they had laid of ten guineas apiece for their men to race from Pickering to Helmsley astride each of his master's dandy horse, which is a machine having two wheels in a line afixed with forks to a support beam upon which there resteth a saddle so high from the ground that the rider hath a grip on the ground, for it be by the pressure of the foot upon the ground that this new horse is shoved along, there be also a handle to hold by with a soft pad, this is for to rest the chest against as to gain a greater grip with the feet, the two Gladiators started fair away at ten of the clock, there been then come together from all parts upwards it was held of two thousand people, many on horseback arriving for to see this novel race from start to finish." However, when the opponents had covered about half the distance, one of them overstrained himself and gave up and the other admitted that "he was ommaist at the far end" so that the crowd assembled at Helmsley to see the finish waited in vain for the riders.

Although Pickering is several miles from the sea some of the more important people of the town were for many years closely interested in the whaling industry. It was about the year 1775, that Mr Nicholas Piper and some of his friends made a bold financial venture in the purchase of the _Henrietta_ which became in time one of the most successful Greenland whalers sailing from the port of Whitby. Some of the ship's logs and also an account book are preserved by Mr Loy at Keld Head Hall, and from them I have been able to obtain some interesting facts. For a year or two the ship yielded no profits, but in 1777 there was a sum of L640 to be divided between the partners in the enterprise. Gradually the profits increased until they produced an annual total of about L2000.

Some of the entries in the account book are curious. These are some of the items in the preliminary expenses:--

"Jowsey's Bill for harpoon stocks and seal clubs, L3 2 8 To ye master to get hands in Shetland, 21 0 0 To ye sailors to drink as customary ye first voyage, 1 1 0 A crimp shipping seamen, 0 6 0

Then in 1776 comes:--

"By ye crimp's bill Sept. ye 20th, 225 0 6

Each voyage meant an advantage to Pickering, for it supplied the salt pork for the sailors. These are some of the entries:--

"1776. Paid for piggs at Pickering, L65 5 0
1777. Do. do. 59 19 6
Tom Dobson for carriage of do., 1 11 0
Window broke by firing a signal gun for
sailing, 0 4 6
1778. Cheeses at Pickering, L 2 10 9
Paid for Piggs at Pickering, 55 14 5
Tom Dobson for carriage of piggs, 1 3 0
1779. James Gray's lodging ashore time of ye smallpox, 0 15 0
Paid for piggs at Pickering, 51 2 0
Paid at Saltergate for boys eating, etc., 0 4 6

This is at Hutton Buscel. The small window lighting the ingle-nook is invariably in this position in the oldest cottages, and the recess and the carved oak cupboard door are usually to be found in the wall as in the illustration. In this, as in most of the cottages, a kitchen range has taken the place of the open hearth. ]

One imagines that these boys were in charge of the pigs. But they must have been pork by that time for the next entry is:--

"To Tom Dobson for carriage of pork, L1 16 0

and another entry mentions that it was packed in barrels at Pickering.

"1780. Grundall Saltergate for lads eating, etc., L0 8 6

Then comes a gap of about eight years, several pages having been torn out.

"1789. Robt. Dobson for carriage of pork, L1 4 0 1792. Lads at Saltergate as they came home, 0 2 6 1793. A man coming to Pickering to bring news of ship--be ashore, 0 8 0

This apparently means that a man was sent to Pickering to tell the owners that the _Henrietta_ had arrived.

"1799. Piggs at Pickering, L125 9 8 1801. Do., 181 8 8 1802. Do., 208 4 6 1815. Old Tom's expenses, turnpikes at Pickering, 0 6 6

In 1785 when the _Henrietta_ made her annual voyage to the northern seas she had on board William Scoresby who in five years' time was to become captain of the vessel. He was the son of a small farmer at Cropton and was born on the 3rd of May 1760. His parents wished him to keep to agricultural pursuits and after a very brief education at the village school he commenced this arduous form of labour at the age of nine. He kept to this work until he was twenty when he could no longer resist his longings for a broader sphere of work. To obtain this he went to Whitby and apprenticed himself to a ship-owner. He acquired a thorough knowledge of seamanship with great rapidity and in his second year of service at sea detected an error in the reckoning which would otherwise have caused the loss of the ship. For this, his only reward was the ill-will of the mate whose mistake he had exposed. He therefore joined the _Speedwell_ an ordnance ship carrying stores to Gibraltar but falling in with the Spanish fleet the _Speedwell_ was captured. Her men having been taken to Cadiz they were sent inland to San Lucar de Mayor. From that place, through being somewhat carelessly guarded, Scoresby and one of his companions were successful in making their escape. They reached England after various adventures and Scoresby having endured many hardships at sea settled down again to farm work at Cropton for two years. Although having only the very smallest means he was married at this time to Lady Mary Smith (she was born on Lady-day), the eldest daughter of Mr John Smith, a landed proprietor in a small way and a native of Cropton.

Having reached the position of skipper of the famous _Henrietta_, in 1790, when only thirty years of age, Scoresby was saved from the financial extremes to which he was likely to have been reduced, owing to his small income and the increasing expenses of his family. Having successfully commanded the _Henrietta_ for seven seasons and having augmented in this way the incomes of the half-dozen Pickeronians interested in the success of the ship, Captain Scoresby's reputation stood high in the Greenland trade. In 1798 he accepted the more advantageous offers of a London firm to command the _Dundee_. It was on his third voyage in that ship that, having called at Whitby as usual to say good-bye to his wife and children, Scoresby allowed his third child, William, to go on board the ship as she lay in the roads. When the time came for him to go ashore he was nowhere to be found, for having taken into his head the idea of going the voyage with his father the little fellow had hidden himself. The shouts for "Master William," however, brought him to the top of the companion at the last moment, but his father, understanding the boy's great desire to stay in the ship, decided to take him.

The voyage was notable on account of a very exciting incident on meeting with a foreign privateer. The _Dundee_ was armed with twelve guns and was manned by a crew of between fifty and sixty men, so that if brought to extremities the ship could have made a good defence. Scoresby, however, had every reason for avoiding a conflict, so keeping his ship in an apparently defenceless state, with all the ports closed, he sent the men to their quarters to prepare the guns for immediate action. No sign of excitement or commotion was allowed to appear on deck so that when the privateer came within shouting distance Scoresby walking the quarter deck and the helmsmen steering were the only living beings visible to the stranger. Suddenly, however, the six gun ports on each side of the _Dundee_ are raised and a row of untompioned cannon are seen pointing towards the enemy's broadside. The stratagem, according to the account given by the younger Scoresby,[1] was such a huge surprise for the enemy that he suddenly hauled off under full sail and not a shot was fired on either side.

[Footnote 1: Scoresby, the Rev. William, D.D., "My Father," p. 108.]

After this voyage young Scoresby went back to school again until 1803 when he became an apprentice on board the _Resolution_, a new ship of Whitby, commanded and partly owned by his father. For several years he made the Greenland voyage in the _Resolution_ and was chief officer when, in the year 1806, his father forced the ship through the pack ice, as far north as 81 deg. 3O'. This was for long the highest point reached by any vessel and the ship's cargo was completed in thirty-two days with twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, two bears and a narwhal. The elder Scoresby who was about six feet in height was a man of extraordinary muscular power. His many successful voyages reveal his first-class qualities as a seaman and navigator and his good judgment in emergencies seems to have been almost instinctive. Although he is described[1] as an Arctic navigator, exploration was only incidental to whale-catching, but his inventions of the ice-drill and the crow's-nest did much to make Arctic voyages more feasible.

[Footnote 1: "Dictionary of National Biography."]

The versatility of his son William was remarkable, for he may be described as master mariner, author and divine and even then his varied scientific knowledge is overlooked. During his latter years he was particularly interested in magnetism and in 1856 made his last voyage in order to carry out a series of systematic observations.

His life, written by his nephew R.E. Scoresby-Jackson, is of great interest and Cropton may well be proud that it gave Dr Scoresby to the world.

The memory of the _Henrietta_ is not likely to be forgotten so easily as that of the Scoresbys, for gateposts made from whale jaws are common near the coast of north eastern Yorkshire, and one on the road from Pickering to Scarborough, between the villages of Hutton Buscel and East Ayton, bears the name of the famous ship.

A contemporary of the Scoresbys was John Jackson, R.A. He was the son of a tailor of Lastingham and was born at that very remote village on the 31st May 1778. As a boy he showed a predilection for portrait-painting in the sketches he made of his companions, although his father discouraged his efforts in that direction, not wishing to lose his boy's services as an apprentice to the tailoring business. When he was about nineteen he had the good fortune to be introduced to Lord Mulgrave who brought him to the notice of the Earl of Carlisle and soon after we find him studying the great collection of pictures at Castle Howard.

Jackson's first attempt at a painting in oils was a copy of a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds lent to him by Sir George Beaumont. Lastingham was unable to supply him with proper materials, but he managed to obtain some very rough paints and brushes from the village house-painter and glazier, and with these crude materials made such an admirable copy that Sir George or Lord Mulgrave or both together advised him to go to London, promising him L50 a year during the time that he was working as a student. From this time his progress was rapid. In 1804 he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time, in 1815 he was elected an associate and in 1817 he received the full honours of the Academy. Although he was a Wesleyan Methodist, Jackson was broad-minded in his religious opinions, for he made a copy of Correggio's "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane" (with the figures increased to life size) for Lastingham parish church. The picture is now on the north side of the apse but its original position was above the communion table and in order to give the picture sufficient space and light the apse of Transitional Norman date was very roughly treated. Jackson contributed L50 towards the alterations, but the restoration at a later date has fortunately wiped out these disfigurements.

Another boy destined to become a tailor was Francis Nicholson who was born at Pickering in 1753. His father, who was a weaver, gave young Francis a good education in Pickering, and wisely abandoning the tailoring idea the boy was sent to Scarborough for instruction from an artist. After three years he returned to Pickering and occupied himself in painting portraits and pictures of horses, dogs and game for local patrons. Then followed a period of study in London, where Nicholson made great progress and eventually began to devote himself to water colours, for which in his long life he was justly famous, well deserving the name generally given to him as the "Father of water colour painting."

William Marshall, the agricultural expert and writer to whom we owe the establishment of the Board of Agriculture was baptised at Sinnington on 28th July 1745. He was in his own words "born a farmer" and used to say that he could trace his blood through the veins of agriculturists for upwards of four hundred years. After fourteen years in the West Indies, he undertook, at the age of twenty-nine, the management of a farm near Croydon in Surrey. It was there, in 1778, that he wrote his first book. He showed the manuscript to Dr Johnson who objected to certain passages sanctioning work on Sundays in harvest time, so Marshall omitted them. His greatest work was "A General Survey, from personal experience, observation and enquiry, of the Rural Economy of England."

The country was divided into six agricultural divisions, the northern one being represented by Yorkshire in two volumes. In the first of these, the preface is dated from Pickering, December 21st, 1787, and the second chapter is devoted to an exceedingly interesting account of the broad valley to which Marshall gives the title "The Vale of Pickering." When he died in 1818 he was raising a building at Pickering for a College of Agriculture on the lines he had laid down in a book published in 1799.

His proposal for the establishment of a "Board of Agriculture, or more generally of Rural Affairs" was carried out by Parliament in 1793, and so valuable were his books considered that in 1803 most of them were translated into French and published in Paris under the title of "La Maison rustique anglaise." The inscription on Marshall's monument in the north aisle of Pickering church which states that "he was indefatigable in the study of rural economy" and that "he was an excellent mechanic, had a considerable knowledge of most branches of science, particularly of philology, botany and chemistry" is not an over statement of his merits.

In the year 1800 the little farm at Gallow Hill near Brompton was taken by one Thomas Hutchinson whose sister Mary kept house for him. She was almost the same age and had been a schoolfellow of the poet Wordsworth at Penrith and had kept up her friendship with his family since that time, having visited them at Racedown and Dove Cottage, while the Wordsworths had stayed at the Hutchinson's farm at Sockburn-on-Tees. There was nothing sudden or romantic therefore in the marriage which took place at Brompton in 1802. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy went down from London to the pretty Yorkshire village in September, and stayed at the little farmhouse, whose parlour windows looked across the Vale of Pickering to the steep wolds on the southern side. The house, as far as I can discover, has not been altered in the century which has elapsed, and the cosy ingle-nook in the room on the right of the entrance remains full of memories of the poet and his betrothed--his "perfect woman, nobly planned." On the fourth of October the wedding took place in Brompton Church. The grey old steeple surrounded and overhung by masses of yellow and brown foliage in the centre of the picturesque, and in many respects, ideal little village, must have formed a perfect setting for the marriage of one who was afterwards to become the Poet Laureate of his country. The register for the years 1754-1810 contains the following entry:--

"_Banns of Marriage_ ...

William Wordsworth of Grasmere in Westmoreland, Gentleman, _and_ Mary Hutchinson _of_ Gallow Hill in the Parish of Brompton _were married in this_ Church _by_ Licence _this_ fourth _Day of_ October _in the year one thousand_ eight _Hundred and_ two _by me_ John Ellis officiating min^r.

This marriage was solemnized between us."

"In the presence of THOMAS HUTCHINSON. JOANNA HUTCHINSON. JOHN HUTCHINSON."

The same day Wordsworth with his wife and sister drove to Thirsk and two days afterwards reached Grasmere, where they soon settled down to an uneventful life at Dove Cottage. Dorothy Wordsworth could not "describe what she felt," but we are told that she accepted her sister-in-law without a trace of jealousy.

There is still preserved in Pickering one of the parchments on which were enrolled the names of all those who were liable for service in the militia. It is headed

"Militia Enrollment 1807-8"

and begins:--

"An enrollment of the names of the several persons who have been chosen by ballot to serve in the Militia for five years for the west part of the sub-division of Pickering Lyth in the North Riding of the County of York and also of the several substitutes who have been produced and approved to serve for the like term and for such further term as the Militia shall remain embodied, if within the space of five years His Majesty shall order the Militia to be drawn out and embodied and are enrolled in the place of such principals whose names are set opposite thereto in pursuance of an act of the 47th of King George III., Cap. 71, entitled an act for the speedily completing the Militia of Great Britain and increasing the same under certain delimitations and restrictions (14th Aug. 1807)."

The thirty-six men were taken as follows:--

8 from Middleton. 5 " Kirby Misperton. 16 " Pickering. 1 " Ellerburne. 1 " Levisham. 3 " Sinnington. 1 " Thornton.

Jonathan Goodall, a farmer of Middleton, induced Geo. Thompson of Pickering, a farmer's servant, 30 years old, to stand for him, paying him L42.

Wm. Newton, a farmer of Middleton, had to pay Geo. Allen, a linen draper of Richmond, L47, 5s. as substitute.

The smallest amount paid was L20, and the largest sum was L47, 5s.

Substitutes seem to have been hard to find in the neighbourhood of Pickering, and those few whose names appear had to be heavily paid. George Barnfather, a farm servant of Kirby Misperton agreed to serve as a substitute on payment of L42, and a cartwright of Goathland agreed for the same sum, while men from Manchester or Leeds were ready to accept half that amount.

The extreme reluctance to serve of a certain Ben Wilson, a sweep of Middleton, is shown in a story told of him by a very old inhabitant of Pickering whose memory is in no way impaired by her years. She tells us that this Wilson on hearing of his ill-luck seized a carving-knife and going to the churchyard put his right hand on a gate-post and fiercely cut off the two fingers required for firing a rifle. He avoided active service in this way and often showed his mutilated hand to the countryfolk who may or may not have admired the deed.

In 1823 Pickering was kept in touch with Whitby, York and Scarborough by coaches that ran three times a week. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday a coach (Royal Mail) left the "Black Swan" in the market place for Whitby at the painfully early hour of four o'clock in the morning; another Royal Mail left Pickering for York at half-past three in the afternoon on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. The stages were from

Whitby to Saltergate. Saltergate to Pickering. Pickering to Malton. Malton to Spital Beck. Spital Beck to York.

There was also what was called the "Boat Coach" that ran between Pickering and Scarborough.

One of the last drivers of these coaches became a guard on the North Eastern Railway, and he still lives in Pickering at the time of writing.

The parish chest in the vestry of Pickering Church contains among other papers a number of apprenticeship deeds of a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago, in which the master promises that he will educate the boy and "bring him up in some honest and lawful calling and in the fear of God," and in most cases to provide him with a suit of clothes at the completion of his term, generally at the age of twenty-one years.

The odd papers registering the arrival of new inhabitants in the district include one dated 1729, and in them we find a churchwarden possessing such a distinguished name as Hotham, signing that surname without a capital, and in 1809 we find an overseer of the poor only able to make his mark against the seal.

The largest bell in the church tower is dated 1755 and bears the inscription, "First I call you to God's word, and at last unto the Lord." It is said that this bell was cracked owing to the great strength of one of the ringers, and that the date 1755 is the year of the re-casting. The flagon is the only piece of the church plate belonging to this period. It was made in 1805 by Prince of York.

In the year 1837 the Rev. Joseph Kipling, grandfather of Mr Rudyard Kipling, was living at Pickering, and on the 6th of July of that year a son, John, was born. Mr Joseph Kipling was a Wesleyan minister, and his residence at Pickering was only a temporary one.

Another Wesleyan who was living at this time was John Castillo, the author of many quaint poems in the Yorkshire dialect, and an original local preacher as well. He died in 1845, and his grave is to be seen in the burial-ground of the Wesleyan Chapel. It bears a verse from "Awd Isaac," the poem by which he is best known--

"Bud noo his eens geean dim i' deeath, Nera mare a pilgrim here on eeath, His sowl flits fra' her shell beneeath, Te reealms o' day, Whoor carpin care an' pain an' deeath Are deean away."

In 1720 a new chapel was built at Pickering for Protestant Dissenters, but before that time--as early as 1702--Edward Brignall's house was set apart for divine worship by Dissenters. An Independent Church was formed in 1715, the people probably meeting in private houses for several years. After this, little is known until 1788, when the Independent Church was again established, and in the following year a chapel was built, and it was enlarged in 1814.

It is an interesting fact that about 1862 the small manual organ in the Independent church was played by a Mr Clark, who was organist at the Parish church in the morning and at the chapel in the afternoon and evening. Before this time the Independents had contented themselves with violins and a bass viol, and for a time with a clarionette.

In 1801, the population of Pickering was 1994, and at the last census before the accession of Queen Victoria it had increased to 2555.

During the Georgian period Pickering's only external illumination at night was from that precarious "parish lantern," the moon. The drainage of the town was crude and far too obvious, and in all the departments for the supply of daily necessities, the individualistic system of wells, oil-lamps or candles and cesspools continued without interference from any municipal power.

The houses and cottages built at this time are of stone among the hills, and of a mixture of brick and stone in the vale. Examples of cottages can be seen in the village of Great Habton. They are dated 1741 and 1784, and are much less picturesque than those of the seventeenth century, though village architecture had not then reached the gaunt ugliness of the early Victorian Age.

The parish registers throughout the district were regularly kept, and as a rule contain nothing of interest beyond the bare records of births, deaths and marriages. The great proportion of villagers, however, who at this time signed their names with a mark, shows that the art of writing was still a rare thing among the peasantry. The church account books of the period reveal many curious items such as the frequent repairs of the _thatch_ on the vestry at Middleton (thatched churches are still to be seen in Norfolk and Suffolk), and "L5, 19s. 6d. in all for the Violin or Base Musick" of the same church.

Churchwarden architecture of the deal boards and whitewash order made hideous many of the village churches that required repairs at this time, and if one discovers a ramshackle little porch such as that just removed at Ellerburne, or a big window with decayed wooden mullions cut in a wall, regardless of symmetry, one may be quite safe in attributing it to the early years of the nineteenth century. One of the staple industries of Pickering and the adjoining villages at this time was weaving, and a great number of the cottages had the room on the opposite side of the passage to the parlour fitted up with a loom.

We have now seen many aspects of the daily life in and near Pickering during the Georgian period. We know something of sports and amusements of the people, of their religious beliefs, their work, their customs at marriages and deaths, and we also have some idea of the dreadful beings that these country folk trembled at during the hours of darkness. We have discovered more than one remarkable man who was born and bred in these primitive surroundings, and we have learnt something of one of the trades that helped to make Pickering prosperous.