History: Was it Dickens? Saddleworth’s Great Exhibition 1853

By Peter Fox 

ON 1 May 1851 the ‘Great Exhibition’ was opened at Crystal Palace in London and was the first in a series of exhibitions that became a popular feature of the 19^th century.

Saddleworth had its own exhibitors which included an elaborate needlework by Mr W. S. Broadbent, fine-drawer of Uppermill, made by him for F. Schwann, Esq, of Huddersfield, intended by that gentleman for the Great Exhibition in London. John Buckley of Bockin Mill, Greenfield, also exhibited some fine textile goods.

The ’Great Exhibition’ prompted the fashion for others and Saddleworth was no exception.

In January 1853 the Committee of the Saddleworth Mechanics’ and Literary Institute decided to hold an “…exhibition of antiquities, fine arts, models of machines, and such other works of industry and art as would be attractive and instructive to the public”.

The exhibition opened to great popularity in August 1853 and such was the success that the dates were extended and it was estimated by the end more than 15,000 people had visited.

News of Saddleworth’s ’Great’ Exhibition spread and an article appeared in ‘Household Words’, a contemporary magazine published by that great writer Charles Dickens – so did he visit Saddleworth or did one of his other writers?

The article itself (published in Vol VIII – 3 Sept to 11 Feb 1854) gives a wonderful description of the event as well as an impression of the Saddleworth landscape and a visit to the ’Moorcock Inn’.

 

THE GREAT SADDLEWORTH EXHIBITION (as published in ‘Household Words’)

Last week my friend, Miss Clytemnestra Stanley, asked me to go with her and her sister Miss Cordelia, to the Saddleworth Exhibition, and to have a day’s holiday upon the moors to gather bilberries. As I am rather proud of Miss Clytemnestra’s regard, I felt flattered by her invitation, to say nothing of wishing to see the Exhibition, of which I heard wonders. One fine day last week we started early, to have a long day before us. The railway would have taken us within half a mile of the place, but we preferred going in our conveyance – a light butcher’s cart, drawn by a mare of many virtues, but considerable more spirit than was desirable.

Clytemnestra and her two sisters are dealers in fish and game; fine high-spirited women, who live by themselves, and scorn to have the shadow of a man near them. They have lived together for years. Miss Cordelia was taught to groom the mare and stable it down when she was so little that she had to stand upon a stool to reach its neck. She is grown in a fine tall young woman now, and nobody to look at her would suspect that she can not only groom her horse, but build a stable with her own hands if need be. They are three very remarkable women, but they would require an article all to themselves. How they came to be christened such magnificent names is a mystery I was never told.

Well we started with many injunctions from the eldest sister to take care of ourselves. Miss Adeliza seemed to consider us as giddy young creatures who would be sure to get into mischief – after stuffing an armful of cloaks into the cart behind us and enquiring we had recollected to take money enough, she allowed us to depart, watching us all the way down the street. Clytemnestra drove. She was accustomed to it.

“The Saddleworth district,” as it is called lies on the confines of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The high road runs along the edge of a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by a labyrinth of hills, the ridges forming a combination of perspective which seems more like the clouds at sunset, than things of solid land. Above the high road, along a steep embankment, is the railway, and the hills rise steep on either side of it. The railway with the electric telegraph, the high road, the canal, and the river, all run side by side within the breadth of a hundred yards of each other. The country is very thinly populated, and except when the mills are loose, there is an oppressive sense of loneliness. At every turn the hills shut out the world more and more, until it seems a wonder how we ever got here, or how we are ever to get out. The road is not level for a yard together, and every step brings us deeper amongst the hills. It is an intense manufacturing district, the streams from the hills making a splendid water power. Magnificent cotton mills, looking more like palaces than places to industry, with beautiful villa like residences at short distances from them, belonging to the proprietors, are to be seen in all directions; in the most picturesque situations, and often in places where it would seem impossible for a mill to stand. These mills as well as the residences are built of white stone, and are five or six stories high, with tall spire like chimneys; they are all full of costly machinery. Clusters of grey stone cottages for the work-people are scattered about; but neither the mills nor the cottages seem to take up any room, nor do they break the loneliness and silence of the scene. The amount of capital invested within a compass of six miles round Ashton and Stayley Bridge is something wonderful.

We passed through the village of Mossley, which seems cut out of the rock, and is inhabited entirely by work-people – “hands” as they are called. One small village rejoices in the name of “Down-at-the-Bottom,” another is called “Herod,” (Heyrod) consisting of scattered houses, above our head and below our feet. The changing shadows on the hills and the deep clear purple mist that filled the valley, did not hinder the view, but gave it a strangely solemn aspect. No human life or human bustle seemed able to assert itself – the silence of nature swallowed it up. Our plan was to go to “Bills o’ Jacks,” about three miles from Saddleworth, dine there, then walk across the moor to the Exhibition.

Gradually all signs of human life disappeared, and after ascending a steep hill, overhanging a precipice without any parapet wall to keep us from falling over, we came upon a wild tract of moorland, with steep crags towering high above our heads, and huge blocks of grey rock lying about, like masses of the solidest masonry overthrown; not a habitation in sight, only the hills shutting us in more closely than ever. It looked the very spot where a murderer might take refuge to hide himself. A sharp turn and a sudden descent brought us top a little wayside house of entertainment lying in a hollow under the high road, and not to be seen before. This is Bills o’ Jacks a place of great resort, in spite of its loneliness. Some years ago it was the scene of a ghastly murder. An old man and his son lived there together. It was then, as it is now, a wayside inn, and was their own property: it had been in their family for generations. The son was married, and had two children, but he did not live with his wife, as he had a romantic attachment to his father, and would not live away from him. They kept no servant. One day the son went out to buy some flour and groceries. Some acquaintance in the town asked him to stay awhile and rest. He said, “No he had met some Irish tramps on his road, going towards their house, and he was afraid the old man might be put about with them – he must make haste to help him.” The next day, people calling at the house found the son lying just within the doorway with his head all beaten to pieces, and the things he had brought home with him saturated in blood. He had been killed, apparently as he entered. The old man was lying dead upon the kitchen hearth, covered with frightful wounds. The murderers have never been heard of; and now most likely, never will be. The house still belongs to the same family.

The first person we saw on arrival was the widow of the son, now an old woman, but erect and alert. She was extremely kind and friendly; but I fancied that she looked as if she had seen a horror which has put desperation between her and the rest of the world. She lives with her son and his wife; the son a handsome, sensible looking man, and his wife the very idea of a comely matron – calm, kind, sensible, with a mellow beauty; she seemed to spread a motherly peace and comfort around her. There was much bustle going on, for parties of country holiday-makers were there; but nothing seemed to disturb her calm hospitality. She was very fond of Clytemnestra and her sisters, whom she had known for years, so that our coming was hailed with delight . The best of everything was set before us to eat, and though I could not suppress a shudder at finding myself on the very spot where the old man had lain, yet as the kitchen looked bright and cheerful, and no traces of the tragedy were visible, I tried not to think of it.

After dinner, we set off over the hill-side, which was in full bloom with the heather. Numbers of children and country people who had come from many miles round were swarming amongst the rocks, picking bilberries for sale. As far as the eye could reach there was not a habitation in sight; a deep valley lay at our feet, and across it were the hills rising in long ridges, the breaks in them disclosing further ridges of other hills beyond, and again beyond those, form a singular series of perspective distances, over which the deep blue shadows shifted and varied continually. It was hard to believe that such things as a town, or any other congregation of human dwellings had there an existence, and it was certainly a most unlikely locality in which to seek for an EXHIBITION.

After descending the hill, at the foot of the rock called “Pots and Pan,” we saw a little island of stone houses lying away before us, in the hollow of some hills, which rose in an amphitheatre above them. This was the village of Saddleworth; and, after a quarter of an hours further walking across some rough fields, we had reached the end of our journey. Saddleworth is two straggling streets of shops and cottages; the ground so abrupt and irregular that the back door of one house will be often on a level with the top of another. It is chiefly inhabited by the work-people of the neighbouring mills. A railway station has, within the last few years, brought it into the direct line from Manchester to Leeds.

EXHIBITION, in great letters over a door, told us we were before the object of our search. Ascending a dark, narrow, wooden staircase, we paid our shillings on the topmost step, and found ourselves plump face to face with the wonders of the place.  I felt curious to see the sort of people who would be gathered in that out of the world spot. They were not “mill-hands,” but quite a different class; people who most likely, had cloth looms of their own at home- for in Yorkshire there is still very much of this domestic manufacturing going on. The men buy their yarn, get it dyed for them, and weave it up in their own houses. They then take the web of cloth on their shoulders, and either go with it about the country to sell it, or else take it to the Cloth Hall at Leeds or Huddersfield, and dispose of it there on market-day. There was something touching in the good-humoured stupidity with which they looked upon the objects they had never seen before, and the intelligent greeting they gave to whatever was familiar.

The Exhibition had no specific feature; but, in the care and taste with which the various objects were arranged, it gave evidence that those who had presided over the setting up had not grudged trouble. The articles had chiefly been contributed by families connected with the district, who must have dismantled their houses and drawing rooms of some of their most valuable adornments; and this gave a certain spirit of good intention and kind-heartedness to the whole affair, which was the real charm of it. The object I was told is to recruit the funds of the Mechanics’ Institute, which (as is no wonder) are in a very languishing state. The first room contained several plaster casts and busts of every species of phrenological development- great men, murderers, and criminals of every degree; and there was also the cast of that unhappy youth with the enlarged head, who seems to have been sent to die of water on the brain for the especial interest of science; for this effigy is to be seen either cast or engraved in all places where the “human skull divine” is treated of. Clytemnestra  was much attracted in this room by the bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and the anatomical preparation of a horses head; but the real interest of the party was not excited until we entered a room  where there were some cases of stuffed birds, not very rare ones; but such as may be seen in England. Here the little girl whom we had brought with us from Bills o’ Jacks, came beaming up with the exclamation that “she found some real moor-game in a glass case and a fox, that looked as if he was alive!” This sharp, bright little child of twelve years old-who had lived on the morsel her life, and had never been further from home than to Ashton, which to her seemed a great metropolis-took no sort of interest in the pictures, and bronzes, and statuettes, and other fine things, but greeted the objects she knew, with a burst of enthusiasm. The only novelty she seemed to care about, was an ostrich egg, which she spoke of just as the people in the Arabian Nights’ spoke of the roc’s egg. Clytemnestra – an excellent judge of game-pulled me to come and look at some lovely ptarmigans, and the most beautiful grouse she ever saw. Certainly they were excellently well preserved and stuffed; but amongst so many novelties I did not expect they would have attracted one who sees grouse professionally every day of the season; I suppose it was like recognising the face of a friend in a strange place.

One room was filled with electrical and philosophical apparatus. A crowd of people were looking at them as if they had been implements of sorcery; whilst one, a placid good-natured countryman was preparing to be “electrified;” his “missus” sitting b with an air that seemed to say he deserved whatever he might be bringing on himself.

In the machinery-room there were a few beautiful models: a knitting-machine in full force, which turned out beautifully knitted grey stockings: and a sewing-machine, which was even a greater innovation than the other. This seemed to be an attractive room. There were some intolerable pictures, which the people admired when the subjects were things they understood or had seen before-whatever was absolutely new, nobody appeared to care about. A hall was filled up with curious old furniture, carved cabinets, old armour, tapestry, &c.-all arranged in a very tasteful manner-whilst an organ or seraphim, which was constantly played, made this the centre of attraction. Articles for sale were laid out in the centre of one room, and a collection of what some think curiosities, and others rubbish was arranged along one side of the room. Amid the medley of carved ivory boxes, Chinese mandarins, and black-letter books, , one pair of curiosities elaborately labelled attracted me; the shoe and pattern of a certain Mrs. Susannah Dobson, or some such name, the daughter of her father and mother, whose names were inscribed. She died – the label told us how many years ago, and also that a monument to her memory had been erected in her parish church! the old lady was doubtless a notability in her day and we saw how people waked in pattens when they were ingenious inventions.

By this time we had gone pretty well through the Exhibition, and prepared to retrace our steps over the rocky moor. That strange wild district seems to lie apart from all the world, but in some of the scattered cottages there are histories going on, besides the which the incidents in a French novel are tame. There are men and women, too, who go about looking quite rough and natural, who have had incidents in their past lives that one would have thought most inevitably have wrecked any existence for ever – but it seems that fancy goes for a great deal in these matters. The matter of fact prosaic manner in which I was told some of the most startling incidents one could well listen to, astonished me even more than the things themselves. When we once more reached Bills o’ Jacks, we had only time to have tea; for the evenings soon begin to close in, and our road home was not made for travelling in the darkness. Our return home did not seen likely to be as successful as our coming out; for the little jade of a mare – who had nothing to do but eat corn and enjoy herself – chose to be excited at finding herself in a strange place, and to be startled by the sound of the falling water, and begin to plunge and dance in a way that Clytemnestra called playful. She made as may excuses for her as a mother might spoil her child; but the two facts remained – that I was a rank coward and that the road for the first two miles was down a hill that was awkward enough when we came up it in the morning. So Cordelia good-naturedly walked with me to the bottom; although I am sure it must have tried the patience of both sisters to see me frightened at what they did every day. When we were once more fairly seated in the cart, I was told that the mare had been kept without work and on an extra allowance of corn for three or four days,” in order that she might be quite fresh for us!” It was un-grateful of me, but how thankfully would I have changed her for a sedate cart-horse without any imagination, and with much less corn! The lights were gleaming on the hillsides as we passed along, and the dusk had long set in before we arrived home, and found Adeliza looking anxiously up the street for us, for she had begun to feel some misgivings about our capabilities of taking care of ourselves. She had a comfortable supper ready for us, and when she had heard our adventures, she declared, with an emphatic shake of her head, that the little Jezebel of a mare should go through a course of hard work before she trusted her to go anywhere without her again.

This we accomplished one object of our expedition. We had seen the Great Saddleworth Exhibition; but the pranks of the mare had prevented us from bringing back a single bilberry.