Preston, Lancashire

“ Proud Preston, as the town has long been termed, was probably so called from its being the residence of genteel families in days of yore, before the introduction of the cotton trade; having been, as Dr Whitaker says, "the resort of well-born but ill-portioned and ill-endowed old maids and widows." The paschal lamb couchant, with the letters P.P. (for Princeps Pacis, Prince of Peace) , form the armorial bearings of the town. Hence, perhaps, the old lines—
"Proud Preston,
Poor people ”

“ See John, Prester.
Preston (112) , Lancashire manufacturing town on the Ribble, 31 m. N W. of Manchester; is a well laid out brick town, with three parks, a magnificent town-hall, a market, public baths, free library, museum, and picture-gallery; St. Walburge's Roman Catholic church has the highest post-Reformation steeple in England, 306 ft. The deepening of the river and construction of docks have added to the shipping trade. The chief industry is cotton, but there are also shipbuilding yards, engineer shops, and foundries. One of Cromwell's victories was won here ”

“ The soil is a fertile loam, under corn and green crops and old pasture. Lancaster is the county town, but the largest towns are Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, and Blackburn. The northern portion, detached by Morecambe Bay, is known as Furness, belongs really to the Lake District, and has Barrow-in-Furness, with its large shipbuilding concerns, for its chief town. Lancashire has long been an influential political centre. ”

“ The rebels had now got into their hands Manchester, Preston, Lancaster, and Bolton, the Royalists having their headquarters at Warrington and Wigan, whilst most of the other towns (including Liverpool) had as yet not been called upon to take any prominent part in the struggle; but it may be assumed that almost invariably the Roman Catholics, the older gentry, and most of the freeholders, were on the King’s side. ”

“ Those now worshipping in Meadow-street are the first “Christian Brethren” we have had, regularly organised, in Preston. How they will go on we cannot tell; but if present appearances are any criterion, we are afraid they will not make very rapid progress. They have about ten “members” at present; when the “baker's dozen” will be reached is a mystery.
The executive business of Christian Brethren is managed by deacons; but the diaconal stage has not yet been reached in Preston. There are branches of the body in Blackburn, Southport, Bolton, &c.; but none exist in Lancashire north of Preston. ”

“ In the assessment of ship money in 1636 the county was put down for £1000, towards which Wigan was to raise £50, Preston £40, Lancaster £30, and Liverpool £25, and these figures compared with the assessments of £140 on Hull and £200 on Leeds show the comparative unimportance of the Lancashire boroughs. On the eve of the Great Rebellion in 1641 parliament resolved to take command of the militia, and Lord Strange, Lord Derby’s eldest son, was removed from the lord lieutenancy. ”

“ At that time he was settled at Preston as a physician. He appears as a freeman of the borough on the Guild Merchant Rolls of 1662 and 1682. According to Wood he neglected his practice, and devoted himself to the study of antiquities. In conjunction with Christopher Townley of Carr Hall he contemplated the publication of a complete history of Lancashire, but the project was frustrated by Townley's death in 1674. ”

“ Connected by birth and marriage with the best families in the county his influence was unbounded. Of indomitable zeal, irrepressible energy, and reckless daring, he became the head and heart and hand and almost everything besides in his own county, and took part in almost every important action. He served at the sieges of Bolton and Lancaster; defeated by Colonel Ashton before Wigan, he retreated towards Liverpool, but, collecting a considerable force, he again marched northwards, with the view of recovering Preston and Lancaster. ”

“ The township of Elston, in the parish of Preston, formerly written Ethelstan, is situated on the north bank of the Ribble a little above Cuerdale and Red Scar.
To the south of Brindle and the east of Worden, near Whittle Springs, is a large tumulus, and the hill side on which it is situated has the appearance of having been, at some time, disturbed by human agency. A Roman vicinal way, from Wigan to Blackburn, or Mellor, where it joins the main highway from Manchester to Ribchester, passes near it. Remains of this road were discovered near Adlington not many years ago. ”

“ In 1826 he made another attempt to enter Parliament for Preston, this time having for his adversary the late Lord Derby, then Mr Stanley. The enthusiasm among the Lancashire artisans was intense. On his road to Preston he passed through Bolton, and several other towns and villages. Thousands of the working people, bearing flags and banners, and carrying green boughs, turned out to welcome him. Standing upon the seat of his carriage with his hat off, the people followed with the cry, "Here's the cleverest man in England;" "Here we have got the cleverest man in England." ”

“ After the peace of 1715, being in command of the troops in the Midland district, he marched northwards to meet the rebels from Scotland, and he and General Carpenter met them at Preston. Preston was a town both Jacobite and Roman Catholic; and in it was the army of the Pretender, composed of Scottish Highlanders and Lancashire gentry and their retainers. ”

“ WHITTLE, PETER ARMSTRONG (1789–1866) , Lancashire antiquary, was born at Inglewhite in the parish of Goosnargh, Lancashire, on 9 July 1789, and was educated at the grammar schools of Goosnargh, Walton-le-Dale, and Preston. He began business as a bookseller and printer at Preston in 1810, and became an active contributor to various journals. He was intelligent but ill-educated, and his works, though not without value, abound in errors. ”

“ Methodism was not introduced into Preston until 1750, and in some districts it did not obtain a footing until a much later period; but long before the close of the century its chapels were found in almost every large town as well as in isolated rural districts.
Early in the seventeenth century Baptist chapels were erected in several parts of the county. Of the many sects which have arisen within the last hundred years, it is not our province to record either the origin or progress, as Lancashire, in common with all the country, has now inhabitants who worship under many forms ”

“ The remaining fifteen hundred were reinforced at Preston by the Roman Catholic gentry of Lancashire, their servants and tenantry, to the number of twelve hundred, but they appear to have been an embarrassment rather than of use.
Towards Preston, by way of Manchester and Wigan, came General Wills, on behalf of King George. His force numbered only a thousand men, and had the invaders been commanded by a soldier, or even by a civilian of ordinary courage and determination, it is possible the rebellion, of 1715 might have been successful. But Forster was a pitiful fellow. ”

“ It will here be a suitable place to notice briefly a peculiar form of vestry which in the sixteenth century was common in the hundred of Amounderness and recognised as “sworn men.” Preston, Kirkham, Goosnargh, Poulton, St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, Garstang, Lancaster and Ribchester, each had this executive body, though the number varied; but most of the parishes had twenty–four sworn men. ”

“ The yarns of Preston are known by the name of "Blackburn Counts." They range from 28's up to 60's, and they enter largely into the manufacture of goods for the India market. These things partly explain why Preston is more deeply overshadowed by the particular gloom of the times than many other places in Lancashire. About half-past nine on Tuesday morning last, I set out with an old acquaintance to call upon a certain member of the Relief Committee, in George's Ward. He is the manager of a cotton mill in that quarter, and he is well known and much respected among the working people. ”

“ Including English and Scotch, only seventeen men had been killed in the defence of Preston.
The Lancastrian peasants got away out of the town, but fourteen hundred men were made prisoners by a thousand, or at the outside twelve hundred English horse. Among those captured were Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale, Winton, Carnwark, Kenmure, Nairn, and Charles Murray. There were others, members of ancient and honourable families of the north, of Scotland, and of Lancashire. ”

“ Probably the emblem was only local, for it originated at Preston in Lancashire, a place we knew well, commonly called Proud Preston, no doubt by reason of its connection with the noble family of Stanley, who had a mansion in the town. Preston was often represented in Parliament by a Stanley, and was looked upon as a Pocket Borough. In the turbulent times preceding the Abolition of the Corn Laws a powerful opponent, in the person of Mr. ”

“ The plan of the campaign was drawn up by no less a man than Marlborough. On the 8th Wills passed through Manchester and found the town so disaffected that he quartered a thousand men in it, greatly to the disgust of the High Church Tories, some of whom were arrested, whilst others fled, or remained in concealment. Whilst the rebels were “feasting and courting” in Preston, bewitched by the Jacobite charms of what was then the most aristocratic and luxurious of the Lancashire towns, wasting the precious hours in contented lotos-eating, the Whigs were full of activity. ”

“ The beautiful scenery and historical associations of the Ribble render it the most interesting and charming of the several rivers which water the county of Lancaster. The quietude of its fair valley has on more than one occasion been rudely broken by the clash of arms, and students of our country’s history will readily [146] call to mind that calamitous day to the Duke of Hamilton, when Cromwell routed the Highlanders under his command, near Preston ”

“ The only inhabitants of the town who volunteered were a barber and a joiner. On November 8 service was held in the church, when, the Vicar declining to pray for the Pretender, the Rev. William Paul,220 who was with the insurgents, read the prayer.
A writer, friendly to the rebels, narrates how the gentlemen of the army, “trimed in their best cloathes,” went to take “a dish of tea with the ladyes” of Lancaster, who “apeared in their best riging” in honour of the occasion.
On November 9 the forces set off for Preston. ”

“ From 1844 to 1859, under the management of Livesey and his sons, the ‘Preston Guardian,’ issued weekly, became the leading North Lancashire paper. In 1881 Livesey published his reminiscences, under the title of ‘The Autobiography of Joseph Livesey,’ Preston, 1881 ”

“ When dinner was fairly over, I lost no time in starting for Flixton, which was only three miles off; with what some people call "a good road" to it. And it certainly is better than those terrible old roads of North Lancashire, of which Arthur Young writes with such graphic ferocity. "Reader," says he, "did'st thou ever go from Wigan to Preston? If not; don't. Go to the devil rather; for nothing can be so infernal as that road is." The hedges by the wayside were covered with little buds. ”

“ The other carvings are for the most part grotesque heads, winged beasts, and foliage. The canopies over the stalls are of much later date, and were the gift of George Preston, of Holker, who in 1619 repaired and re-roofed the building. The columns supporting them have richly carved Corinthian capitals, and are interesting as showing that in that comparatively early period the classic forms of ornamentation had come into vogue in this remote corner of Lancashire, and that Grecian had then begun to take the place of Gothic art. ”

“ PROGRESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The general appearance of the chief Lancashire towns in the early part of the eighteenth century has been graphically described by a lady who rode through England on horseback;223 and from this source we take our descriptions of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Wigan, Preston, and Rochdale. ”

“ The Church Survey of the Lancashire parochial districts was begun in June, 1650, and from it we learn the state of each parish through the evidence brought before the commissioners, who had sixteen sittings in the county; they met three times at Manchester, six at Wigan, three at Lancaster, three at Preston, and once at Blackburn. There were then in the county 64207 parish churches, 118 chapels–of–ease, of which no less than 38 were without ministers, chiefly for want of maintenance. All the churches, with one or two exceptions, had curates, pastors, or ministers, as they called themselves. ”

“ The ignorant jealousy of the Lancashire operatives in those days drove this ingenious man to seek shelter in Nottinghamshire, where he was but ill-received, and where he ended his days in poverty. He died in a workhouse. Arkwright, the Preston barber, was more endowed by nature with the qualities requisite for worldly success than these ingenious, abstracted, and simple-minded mechanical dreamers. ”

“ Preston, a little before this, had been by royal charter created a free borough, in which the burgesses were empowered to have a free guild merchant, and exemption from tolls, together with many other privileges that King John confirmed in 1199, and granting the additional right to hold a fair of eight days’ duration. Cartmel is reputed to have had its market before the time of Richard I. (A.D. 1189–1199) . ”