REMINISCENCES OF SHEFFIELD
               R.E.LEADER


                 CHAPTER V
                           
                             
FROM CHAPMEN TO MERCHANTS - FROM PACKHORSES TO COACHES

IT is a tale oft-told by every historian of Sheffield, from the
days of Taylor, and Goodwin, and Hunter to those of
Gatty, how primitive, far into the eighteenth century, were the
trading relations between Sheffield and all outside its borders.
Aforetime, there were no merchants to undertake the useful
task of distribution and to place manufacturers in direct
communication with distant or foreign markets; and no
bankers. The Broadbents, of the Hartshead, and the Roe-
bucks, of Church Street, showed the way in both these
matters, claims to having been thc first to establish trade
connetions with the Continent having been made on behalf
of each. Imitators were soon found, and the example was
improved upon to open business relations also with America.
So that by I774 factors were blossoming out into merchants,
and there were nine firms so described. In I787 these were
increased to fifteen.

The growth from merchants to bankers was an obvious
development. A shrewd suspicion was entertained by so good
an authority as the late Mr. William Swift, whose knowledge
of all things conneted with Sheffield was both extensive and
peculiar, that there may have been bankers here before I770;
but no fact establishing this idea has come to light. What we
do know is that in I770 one of the Roebucks made the earliest
recorded attempt at banking, as distinguished from that money-
lending which is the ancient function of the pawnbroker.

Mr. Hunter has said that " In I778 Messrs. T. and J.
Broadbent opened a bank in the Hartshead, on the failure of
Mr. Roebuck's bank, which was the first known in Sheffield
and only lasted eight years; and in I780 the Broadbents
failed."* But this statement, in the light of the Directory of
I774, requires revision. For in that publication, Thomas

---------------
* Gatty's Hunter's Hallamshire, page 170.
---------------

Broadbent is already described as " banker, Hartshead;"
while the Church Lane bankers are giver as " Parker,
Roebuck, and Shore - a collection of names, as we shall
hereafter see, of some significance. Benjamin Roebuck
appears not as banker, but as " merchant, Church Lane."
So that although the Broadbents may have benefited by the
Roebuck failure in I778, it is clear their bank had already
been established some years before that event occurred.
It is amusing to find that there was a good deal of contem-
porary jealousy between the two houses of Broadbent and
Roebuck. In I753 Mr. Joseph Broadbent uas a candidate
for the office of Town Trustee, when Mr. Benjamin Roebuck
(one of the five sons of John Roebuck, manufacturer, born in
17I8), who had been elected in the previous year, in the place
of his deceased father, was Toun Colleyor. The Roebucks
put up Mr. Thomas Newbould in opposition, but on a poll
Mr. Broadbent was elected by a large majority. Writing on
this, the Rev. William Guest, Rector of Colley Weston,
whose correspondence with Mr. Joshua Matthewman has been
previously referred to, says, " Please give Mr. Broadbent joy
for me of his victory. I think all who joined him deserve
commendation, not only by choosing a much fitter man than
was offered, but also by that means clipping the wings of
aspiring pride and pragmaticalness. I protest those young
Roebucks have the ambition of a C~sar or a Pompey."
The banking collapse of those ambitious young Roebucks
was a still greater triumph for Joseph Broadbent s sons; but
it was a short-lived victory as, in tuo years they, too, had to
close their bank's doors. They reverted, like the Roebucks,
to the original merchants' business, but when the century
ended both families had disappeared from the town.

  The next bankers were Hannah Haslehurst and Son,
Market Place. They, too, had been merchants (I774); and
the most substantial proof of their ill-starred excursion into
the wider field of finance is a five-guinea bank-note, dated 24th
January, I783, from which it appears, first, that they called their
establishment " Sheffield Old Bank,' and, secondly, that their
career was short‹for the document is endorsed with an exhibi-
tion under a commission in bankruptcy, on the 23rd June, I785.

  Then there were the Shores whose bank, though of longer
life, was destined to disastrous collapse in 1843. In a deed
dated I776, two houses situate near the Irish Cross, in the
several occupations of Samuel Shore, Joseph Roberts, and the
company or partnership of John Shore and Joseph Roberts, a~e
conveyed by Samuel Shore, '~ hardwareman," to John Shore,
his second son, who is described as " banker." The inference
is that Mr. Samuel Shore lived in one of the houses, and that
the other was the bank of his son and Joseph Roberts, the
latter living on the premises. Dr. Gatty's suggestion- that
Samuel Shore may himself have been a banker prior to the
date of this deed, obtains some colour from the partnership
'~ Parker, Roebuck, and Shore " in I774; but whether this
was the father Samuel, or the son John, and how he escaped
from sharing the Roebuck ill-fortune, there is nothing to show.
That he did so escape is manifest from the prosperity of the
Bank at the Irish Cross, and from the fact that Samuel Shore
became the purchaser of Meersbrook, when Mr. Benjamin
Roebuck was compelled to sell it. The banking house of the
Shores was destined, in course of time, to become the home,
before the present premises were erected, of the Shemeld
Union Bank; and that of the Roebucks passed, first, into the
hands of ~alkers, Eyre, and Stanley (founded in Fargate in
I792), and then of the Sheffield and Rotherham Banking
Company .
The troubles of the early bankers were not over uhen the
early pioneers had given way to stronger firms. In I797 the
leading citizens, headed by the Master Cutler, had to come
forward to buttress the then existing banks (Shores' and
Walkers') by expressions of confidence and promises of
support. During the commercial troubles which followed,
in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, similar
expedients had to be adopted. A desperate run on Shores'
Bank in I 802 was thus stayed, and in I 825 and I 826 the
banks were helped by declarations of confidence in their
stability by the leaders of commerce. The evil day was
staved off until I843, when Parker and Shores' bank came
down with a crash which shook the foundations of local credit

------------------
* Sheffield Past and Present, p. 223.
------------------

and produced consequences felt for many a year. But
happily that was the last experience of the kind which befel
Sheffield.

  There was a story long current, and believed to be
authentic, disentitling the Broadbents, in their banking col-
Iapse, to such sympathy as was freely extended later to Parker
and Shores. The suspension of the former's bank was inevit-
able when the doors closed on a Saturday. On the Sunday
morning a Derbyshire man demanded admittance, but he was
told to go away as business was not transacted on Sundays.
" I have not come for money," said the confiding countryman,
" I have brought some." " That is quite another thing," was
the answer. The door was opened and the poor man left, and
lost, his money.

  This account of early banking in Sheffield, with the story
of its initial misfortunes is, however, a digression. The point
is that in a community where there are no merchants, no
banks, no commercial travellers, most imperfect means of
exchange, and modes of carriage as rudimentary as are found
now only in places the most remote from civilisation, trade
must be asphyxiated and purely local. The wonder is not
that Sheffield did so little business, but that it did so much.
lell may the trade have been, as it was described by those
who had lived amidst it, " inconsiderable, confined and pre-
carious :"

   " None presumed to extend this traffic beyond the bounds
of this island, and most were content to wait the coming of
a casual trader, or to carry their goods with much labour
and expense to an uncertain market- and it is well known
that the chief produce of the manufactory was carried weekly
by a few pack-horses, Mr. Newsome's, to the Metropolis, the
inhabitants viewing their passing up the Park hill with the
highest pleasure." *

   The traders who acted as distributing agents were called
" chaps " or " chapmen." They were mostly Scotch or Irish,
with some English. Their chief resort was The Bird-in-
Hand, Church Lane. The house adjoined the Cutlers' Hall,
standing indeed on part of its present site. When a " chap "

-----------------

  * Rev. E. Goodwin in Robinson's Directory 1797, p. 19.
-----------------

arrived, the ostler went round to inform the manufacturers of
the fact, and received a penny from each one for his trouble.
Sometimes there were two, three or four " chaps " in the
house at one time, and each had a separate room for business.
The cutlers waited until all was ready, and then went upstairs
"i' their kales." If they bargained, they left the goods and
took the money away. There were other houses in the town
which travellers, or " chaps" frequented upon the same busi-
ness, but none was so popular as the Bird-in-Hand. This
was a very precarious way of doing business. The makers,
having the materials to find, as well as the labour, were
put to great inconvenience during such time as the goods
remained unsold. To mitigate this difficulty, the Cutlers'
Company frequently advanced money on goods deposited
with them, without charging interest. The Company seems,
indeed, at an earlier period to have gone even further, and to
have bought goods outright, itself undertaking the sale of
them, but this was a failure.* In 1768, the Town Trustees
let out £200 to twenty scissor-smiths, upon bond in small
sums. This was following an example set in I74I by Sir
Francis Sitwell, who bequeathed £400 to the Company to
be loaned in sums not exceeding £5, to any necessitous
member or other inhabitant.+ A Parliamentary Report of
I829 recorded that no traces of the receipt or application of
this gift could be found in the books of the Company. There
have been published, however,# extracts from the yearly accounts
of the Cutlers' Company which show that in I740-4I, Jonathan
Dixon being Master, " The Company accepted the trust of
Mr. Sitwell's money £400 ;" and to the accounts of I746-47
there is appended this note: " There appears to have been
some difficulty to get Mr. Jon. Dixon to. make his account,
and to pay in ye money belonging to Mr. Sitwell's fund."
The significance of this, as bearing on the disappearance of
the money, is accentuated by the fact that in I750-5I, Mr.
Dixon was so reduced in circumstances as to be a recipient of
the Company's Charity.

----------------

* Lecture by Mr. Herbert Hughes, to the Sheffield Press Club, 2Ist
December, I889.        
+ Sheffield Local Register, p. 4I.
# Local Notes and Queries, Sheffield Independent, 6th May, I875, et seq.

----------------

  The " chaps " usually brought with them mules, or pack-
horses, for the removal of such wares as they might purchase.
The burden was fitted to the animal's back‹which not un-
frequently was ill-qualified to bear it‹and shambling along
cross roads, fording rivers, or climbing up and down the
rough and narrow bridle paths, the jaded brute day by day
pursued his weary route. In those days a busy street at
dawn would often see a train of no fewer than fifty animals
making ready to start. And accompanying them would be
travellers and their friends, and merchants who, either
in charge of their wares, or on some other business, were
journeying to provincial towns or to the capital. Perched on
high among boxes and bundles, were children and women, old
men and maidens, who left amidst the farewells and good
wishes of their acquaintances; whilst the more active of the
men were either starting on foot, or bestriding beasts with
saddles and perhaps also pillions, on their backs. The signal
for march being given, onward they moved through the town
and out into the country, over roads on which the track was
roughly paved for the especial use of the pack-horse train.
Lanes had also to be traversed, in which holes and quagmires
constantly occurred. Across bleak moors, through swamps,
when the sagacity of the animals had to be trusted, fording
swollen streams where the women and the live stock were
alike alarmed, the cavalcade at last reached its longed-for
halting place for the night.

  Except for the few main roads of the kingdom‹survivals
of the great Roman routes, continued through the Saxon
period, north and south, and east and west‹these bridle
paths were the only lines of communication across country
until the earlier years of the eighteenth century. Such re-
mains of them as we have are best marked over Stanedge and
in the Hope Valley; but not many years ago there were traces
of them on other sides of the town, and some quite close at
hand. One, for instance, crossed Sharrow Lane, on the line
Priory Road; and there are still in Kenwood Park some
pitchings of this, supposed to be the route by which the
Canons of Beauchief came to Sheffield.

  In the course of time, tracks for wheeled vehicles began to
be made‹with little engineering skill and with a sublime dis-
regard for either gradients or surface. Old milestones still
survive here and there, monuments of past importance. Such
as have not been carried away for gate-posts may be seen
on Ankirk Road (Ringinglowe to Stony Ridge); or on Sir
William, above Grindleford. The moorland cart track that,
crossing the Baslow turnpike, runs above the Eagle Stone to
Curbar, may be identified as the old road from Chesterfield to
Tideswell; and the wayfarer can pick up fragments of it
further on‹near Brosterfield, above Wardlow Mires, for
instance, where an old milestone props up the corner of a
wall. But these primitive roads, when at length made, were
only fit for springless vehicles. Horace Walpole favoured
this neighbourhood with a visit in I756. He was at Wharn-
cliffe and Wentworth Castle, and writing from the latter place
he says: " During my residence here I have made two little
excursions, and I assure you it requires resolution. The roads
are insufferable; they mend them‹I should call it spoil them
‹with large pieces of stone.*

  Even the great trunk roads, north and south of Sheffield,
were terribly cruel. To get on to the London Road the
traveller had to go down Coalpit Lane and Button Lane to
Little Sheffield‹a group of poor and time-worn cottages.
The road ran across the gorse-clad swampy common
called Sheffield Moor, forded the Porter Brook over which
there was only a foot-bridge; thence up a sharp rise to
Highfield, and so down Goose Green to Heeley. There the
steep old lane, which some may remember, had to be climbed
to Newfield Green. This, at the end of the seventeenth
century, ~' appeared to be a very ancient way, being worne
very deep." The Sheffield people, both before and after the
civil wars, had got into the habit of avoiding this toilsome
route by going through the Park‹over Sheaf Bridge (at the
bottom of Dixon Lane) in at the Park gate (where now is the

----------------

  * For a general description of the " infernal " state of English roads
in the eighteenth century see Lecky's History of England, vol. vii., p.
223 (Cabinet Edition); Porter's Progress of the Nation' (Section iii.,
Chapter 2); and Arthur Young's Northern Tour, iv., 423-436.

-------------------

junction of Broad Street and South Street), and out, by a line
represented by the present Cricket Inn Road, at anotker gate
on Gleadless Moor. But they did this only on sufferance.
Carriers and pack-horses, carts and carriages, and even
gentlemen on riding horses were alike liable to be stopped;
and periodically the Park gate was closed, or a toll charged,
to maintain the Lord's right of private control. And in I692
~he inhabitants of Handsworth, Intake, and Gleadless entirely
failed to make good their claim to a right of way.
In spite of such discouragements, in I7IO a certain Joshua
Wright, of Mansfield, started a ~' stage wagon " from Sheffield
to London. This was the beginning of a new era. Little by
little better roads were constructed. Turnpikes began to be
made. The Town Trustees, who, by promoting the scheme
for opening a canal to Tinsley had taken a notable step
towards facilitating the transport of merchandise, now helped,
by liberal subscriptions, the formation of turnpike trusts.
From I740 onwards there are constant references in their
accounts to financial aid rendered to schemes for making, or
improving, roads to Manchester, Wakefield, Chesterfield,
Wortley, Halifax, and elsewhere. Thus was the road from
Leeds to Derby through Sheffield " made turnpike." In I764
there was stated to be " an excellent road to Chatsworth,
Buxton, and Manchester," and a Bill had likewise been
passed in Parliament for a turnpike road from Attercliffe to
Worksop.
But these left a good deal to be desired, as may easily be
understood by anyone who realises the lines of the improved
routes. Although the London Road no longer went by New-
field Green, it still exacted large tribute in horse flesh, for it
ran up abrupt Derbyshire Lane to Bolehill, then down the
steep lane to Woodseats, and up again to Little Norton and
Coal Aston. And for coaches entering the town from the
south, extra horses had to be sent to Heeley Bridge to get
them up to Highfield and across Sheffield Moor, where the
road ran in a sort of broad ditch, with footpaths on embank-
ments on either side. Vehicles going north, to Barnsley and
Wakefield, had to cross the Lady's Bridge, wind round to
Bridgehouses, and then climb Pyebank. There is (or was,
for it is not easy to keep pace with modern changes) a bit of
the old road, side by side with the new but elevated above it,
between Shirecliffe Lane and Firs Hill gates, showing how
the earlier surveyors went over the tops of hills, instead of
easing their gradients by cutting them away.
There is good reason to believe that the oldest road from
Rotherham to Sheffield, from the time of the Romans onward,
kept along the south side of the Don, thus avoiding two
crossings of that river, and, running in the direction of
Effingham Road and Blast Lane, entered the town not over
Lady's Bridge, at the bottom of Wain-gate, but over Sheaf
Bridge, at the bottom of Dixon Lane. It was by this route
that the Parliamentary Army marched to the siege of Sheffield
Castle in I644.  A hundred years later, when the approach from
Rotherham was on the north side of the river, crossing at
Brightside and coming by way of Brightside Lane and where
is now Savile Street East to the Wicker, the present direct
road from Attercliffe was a mere footway, approaching the
~Ticker, after leaving the river bank near the Twelve o'clock.
through the Pickle.
  Travellers to the Peak of Derbyshire left by the Heeley
Road as far as Highfield, then turned up Sharrow Lane,
along Psalter Lane, to Banner Cross, and toiled up the
abrupt hill by Ecclesall Chapel to Ringinglowe. Here the road
forked‹to Buxton by a sharp turn to the left over Ankirk;
while if Manchester, via the Hope Valley, were the destination,
the wayfarer went straight on across White Moss to Upper
Burbage Bridge, and then, after a sharp bend to the right,
down the gorge to Hathersage.~

-------------
* It was evidently by this route that Ebenezer Rhodes walked to
Hathersage, though when he wrote (1822) there was already, after
passing Burbage Brook, the alternative " carriage road " to the left,
which joined the present turnpike below " The Surprise " at Hathersage
Booths It is clear that as late as I8I3 the way for carriages was still by
Upper Burbage Bridge, for in the winter of that year the snow made that
road impassable, and " the carriages that attempted to cross this bleak
part of the moors either returned or were left half-buried in the snow."
Mr. Rhodes tells how a young man from Brookfield not only rescued a
sailor and his wife who had succumbed to the severe weather near
Burbage Bridge, but also saved several passengers when the coach from
Manchester was overturned.‹" Peak Scenery," Part III., Section I.

-------------------

  The coaches to Tideswell and Buxton left Ringinglowe by
the steep climb to the top of Ankirk Road, and so to Fox
House, and then down to Grindleford Bridge very much as
the modern road now runs. Anyone who has walked on a
hot summer's day the length of Sir William, from Grindleford,
by Bretton, to Great Hucklow, will be able to appreciate
the sufferings of the hapless horses, doomed to drag heavy
coaches up that heart-breaking incline, straight as an arrow
and relentlessly steep.* We need not pursue it further, beyond
Tideswell by Ash Lane and Tunstead and Fairfield to Buxton.
Suffice it to rejoice that its severities were afterwards ex-
changed for other routes, so that by I787 we find the journey
to Tideswell and Buxton being made through Middleton,
while to Manchester there was an alternative road. You
could go by Hathersage, Hope, Chapel-en-le-Frith, and
Stockport; or through Wortley and Ashton-under-Lyne.
The present road from Hathersage to Castleton follows, in
the main, the line of its predecessor; but beyond that, to
reach Chapel-en-le-Frith there was no creeping gra.dually
round Mam Tor. The drear pass of the Winnats, in summer
sun or winter gloom, had to be faced without shirking.
The way to Baslow and Chatsworth from Sheffield (for the
present road by Totley and Owler Bar was not begun until
18I2) was also by Middleton‹reached l y the route already
described to Grindleford, and thence by Stoke‹very much on
present lines, though with some severities avoided by modern
ameliorations. Bakewell, too, was approached from Middleton
through Hassop, much as it is now, but over a very different
surface.
The Sheffield Directory of I787 gives a list of more than a

----------------
* When John Woolman, the American Quaker, came to England, he
journeyed about the country on foot, rather than countenance the cruelty
Attendant on the coaching system. ~ I have heard, " he records, ~ Friends
say in several places that it is common for horses to be killed with hard
driving, and that many others are driven till they grow blind." And he
refused to have letters sent to him by post, because the stages were so
fixed that post-boys, dependent on one another as to time, and going at
great speed, " suffer greatly in winter nights, and at several places I have
heard of their being frozen to death."‹"Journal of John Woolman,"
pp. 234-5.

--------------

score carriers' carts regularly plying to all parts of the country
on stated days. Some of these started from their owners'
warehouses; others from the Tontine, the Angel; the Grey
Horse and the Bay Horse, High Street; the Travellers,
Westbar; the Royal Oak, King Street; the Black Swan,
Snighill; the Mitre, Fargate; the Chandlers' Arms and the
Yellou Lion, Bull Stake; the Bird-in-Hand, Brinsworth
Orchard; and the ~ing's Head, Change Alley. They took
a fearful time to make their journeys. A collection of old
letters from customers in the country is full of wails over the
non-arrival of goods ordered long before, and over the care-
lessness and indifference of the carriers. The coaches did
something to cure this, when urgency required speed, but
their tariff, even when reduced to I.5d. per pound, was
prohibitive in the case of heavy goods.

  The coaching system began here in I760, when the well-
knoun host of the Angel, Samuel Glanville, enterprisingly set
up the first stage from Leeds to London, through Sheffield.
By I787 there were five great coach roads, and three
subordinate ones. The Tontine Coach (daily except Satur-
day) ran to London by way of Rotherham, Worksop, Newark,
and Grantham. The Mail Coach every morning, and the
Heavy Coach every evening from the Angel, went through
Chesterfield, Nottingham, and Northampton. To Birming-
ham, every morning except Sunday, the way was by Chester-
field, Derby, Burton, and Lichfield. Then there uere the
two north roads, one by Barnsley, Wakefield, and Leeds, a
rendezvous where coaches from all parts converged; the
other through Penistone, Huddersfield, Catterick, Penrith, to
Carlisle. To Doncaster there was a light coach twice a week;
but there was a summer service only to Manchester (via
Buxton) and to Hull (via Thorne). All of these, except a
Tontine " Diligence " to Leeds, and a coach to London,
started from the Angel. Ten years later (I797), though the
number of coaches had not materially increased‹there were
then two mails and seven coaches‹the service all round was
more frequent. The " passage " to London was at first
£I. I7S.; to York, IIS. and 7S.; to Leeds, 5s. and 3s.; to
Birmingham, 8s. and 6s.

  Samuel Glanville's announcement of his pioneer coaching
arrangements is an interesting document. It appears in
" Ward's Sheffield Public Advertiser " of November 4,
I760:

" November 2nd.‹Notice is hereby given that the London,
Leeds, Wakefield, Chesterfield, Mansfield, and Nottingham
machines on steel springs, in four days, sets off from the ~wan
With Two Necks Inn, in Lad Lane, London, and from the
Old King's Arms Inn, in Leeds, every Monday and Wednes-
day mornings, at five o'clock; breakfasts at the Angel Inn, in
St. Albans; dines at the White Horse Inn, in Hockley; and
lies at the Red Lion, at Northampton, the first night, break-
fasts at the Three Crowns, in Market Harhorough dines at
the Bull's Head, in Loughborough; and lies at the Crow
Inn, on the Long Row, at Nottingham, the second night
breakfasts at the Swan, in Mansfield; dines at the Falcon, in
Chesterfield; and lies at the Angel, in Sheffield, the third
night; breakfasts at the White Bear, in Barnsley, dines at
at the Coach and Horses, in Wakefield; and lies at Leeds
the fourth night."

  Details of the reverse journey‹which are varied only by
the substitution of the Blackamoor's Head for the Crown, at
Nottingham, and by the last breakfast being at the Saracen's
Head, in Newport‹are then given, and the advertisement
goes on:

" Passengers and parcels are taken in at the above places.
Two places reserved in each coach for Nottingham. Per-
formed, if God permit, by John Handforth, Samuel Glanville,
and Wm. Richardson."

  By I787 the journey, which, in I760 took three days, was
accomplished in twenty-six hours. Leaving Sheffield at 5
o'clock one morning, the coach reached London at 7 o'clock
the next morning. The last Sheffield mail coach, the
" Halifax Mail," did the journey from London to Sheffield
in sixteen hours. After this was taken off, a coach called
" The Brilliant " enabled its passengers to reach London in
twelve hours, but this was only accomplished by connection
with a railway train, in which they did part of the journey.

  There is, in the Town Hall, a crayon portrait of Samuel
Glanville, drawn by Raphael Smith. It was presented to the
Mechanics' Library by Mr. Benjamin Sayle, of Brightside,
and came into possession of the Corporation of Sheffield when
that institution was taken over, on the establishment of the
Free Library. It bears this inscription:

"Samuel Glanville, born at Exeter about the year I720;
entered early into the army, and was present as a drummer at
the Battle of Dettingen. He afterwards came with a recruiting
party to Sheffield, and was billeted at the house of Mrs.
Smith,* in Church Street; married her, and afterwards kept
the Angel Inn, to which house, about the year I760, he
worked the first stage coach from London. He died at
Sheffield in I803."

Another crayon portrait of Glanville, from the pencil of
Chantry, was in the possession of Mr. Charles Ridal, of the
firm of Smith and Ridal, Market Street, but when he left the
town it was sold by auction, and has not since been traced.
The " Iris," whose editor, Mr. Montgomery, spoke of Samuel
Glanville as " no mean benefactor to the town," gave a fuller
account of his varied career:

  "He was born about I720, near Exeter; was apprenticed
to a surgeon, but entered early in life into the army as a
private. In I74I he came to Sheffield, upon a recruiting
party, and married Mrs. Smith, who kept a public house in
Church Lane. In the course of time he became master of the
Angel Inn, and, about 1760, was a partner in the first stage
coach from Leeds to London. After some years, he retired
from the public line to a farm at The Edge, near this town,
where he was noticed by Mr. Arthur Young as an excellent
agriculturist. But becoming at length weary of agriculture,
he returned to his former occupation, and kept an inn at the
Cross Keys, Wood Street (London); and some time after
removed to the Black Bull, in Stamford. Were he buried his
wife, and married a second. Business there, however, not
answering his expectations, he came back to Sheffield, and
opened a public house at the lHermitage; soon after burled
his second wife, and not long after was admitted into the
Duke of Norfolk's Hospital, where he found a comfortable
asylum during several years. In his early days, and in public
life, he was steady, active (the writer of this memoir has seer
him carry out three dishes at once on his right arm from a
public entertainment), attentive and obliging to his customers
cheerful, rational, and intelligent in private conversation; was

-----------------

* Nee Mary Greaves, widow of George Smith, and grandmother o
Mr George Smith, draper (Smith and Ridal), Market Street.

-----------------


looked up to with great respect by all his acquaintance; and
closed his days with a constant serious attention to the duties
of religion."

While landlord of the Buil, Stamford, Glanville still kept
up his connection with Sheffield coaching. Godfrey Fox,
who, in I779, built the Rein Deer Inn at the bottom of Bull
Stake (where the Royal Hotel now stands) started in I783, in

combinatlon with others, " A London Diligence on a new
establishment, in two days, by way of Newark, Grantham,
Stamford, Huntingdon, Ware, etc., to the George Inn,
Aldermanbury, London ;" and on both the up and the
down journeys, it suppecd at Mr. Glanville's, The Bull
lnn, Stamford. The fare from Sheffield to London was f~2
(allowing 141b. luggage) and parcels ~ ere carried at lld. per
pouncl. The venture does not seem to have been a success,
and the Diligence was not long kept on the road.

Mr. Samuel Peech‹" Old Sam Peech," as he was familiarly
called‹who succeeded Glanville as landlord of the Angel, ~ as
a well-known townsman. A large fund of shrewd sayings is
placed to his credit, and many quaint anecdotes are associated
with his memory. He was ready of repartee too, for, taunted
once ~wth having begun life as a stable boy, he scathingly
retorted, " If thou's been a stable boy, thou'd be a stable boy
still ' Peech carried on the coaching connection of his house
with great vigour. In I776 we find him, for himself and his
co-partners, entering into a seven years' contract witl1 John
Hoyland, silver-plater, and others, to run a coach between
Sheffield and Birmingham twice every week, to carry their
goods to Birmingham, and to bring thence safely and deliver
all such moneys, and ingots of gold and silver, and other
things entmsted to him, and to make full satisfaction for any
which may be lost. The tariff was: For all moneys and
ingots of gold and silver Id. per Ib. weight, with 2S. 6d. for
every ,£I00 in value besides. Sam Peech vigorously main-
tained His supremacy against the Tontine, which, opened in
I785, aspired to be the chief posting house, and boasted that it
had twenty horses harnessed, and five post-boys ready booted
and spurred when the yard bell rang. In 1796 Peech met
this by announcing a reducion in the price for postin,,
to Is. per mile for a pair of horses, " as the price o
hay, corn, and straw is considerably lowered in this part
of the country; " and by vaunting that " he can fur
nish twenty-five pairs of good, steady horses at any one
time, with a suitable number of careful drivers, chaises, and
saddle horses. Added to this, he has agreed with his friends
(to prevent disappointment) to let their chaises go forward
when occasion may require, from the Angel, Chesterfield
Angel, Doncaster; White Bear, Barnsley; Man in the Moon
Middleton; Castle Inn, Castleton; George Inn, Worksop
and the Angel, Ingbirchworth, half-way on the road from
Sheffield to Huddersfield and Halifax. N.B.‹Should any of
his horses fail on the road, so as not to be able to perfonn the
stage with decency, no money will be required for the job.'
Having kept the Angel for thirty years, Sam Peech was
succeeded in I808 by his son William, and died in the
following year. The last to maintain the old coaching re
putation of the Angel was the late Ald. Bradley, of Soho
Brewery and Manor Oaks. He kept up the business with
great spirit. but the palmy days of the Angel, as a coaching
house, had departed with Sam Peech, and on his death the
Tontine blossomed into unrivalled celebrity.

  This inn, built on the site of old structures which had
taken the place of the Castle barns, had been opened in I785
During an existence of 65 years‹for it gave place, among
many regrets, to the New Market Hall in 1850‹it played a
leading part in the social, political, and business life of the
town. What convivialities it witnessed. To what eloquent
lectures and harmonious concerts did its walls resound. Of
what stirring election scenes was it the centre. How busy
was the bustle when its postchaises were called for, or when
the coaches, with steaming horses and weather-worn " out
sides " rattled up to its doors.

  The number of those who remember its plain but highly
respectable brick frontage, and its capacious courtyard, is
becoming very small; but to the few who can recall these, it
remains the type of the stately English inn of the best days ol
the coaching period. In I808 the then landlord, Mr. Simpson
had started the Hope (afterwards transferred to Mr. Wright
of the King's Head), which was for many years the only
London coach that set out from and returned to Sheffield only.
Simpson's successor, Mr. Batty, had the house at the time of
Sam Peech's death, and he immediately seized the opportunity
to make its position supreme. In his time the Leeds and
London express was one of the best appointed of all the
coaches that poured into the Metropolis from the North. In
1838 thirteen coaches were advertised to leave daily the
Tontine and King's Head offices, and it is worthy of note
that at this period, the Angel stables were actually rented to
afford supplementary accommodation for the Tontine coach
horses.
   But that was the climax of a brilliance destined to speedy
eclipse. For, two years afterwards the North Midland Railway
advertised trains between London and Sheffield, and coaching
died. As Dr. Gatty says: " Twelve pairs of horses were
wanted one day; on the morrow the road was forsaken.
Thus one of the fine old English inns, in the courtyard of
which a carriage and pair could be easily driven round, came
o grief.
  In those days the morning train left Sheflield at 5.30 a.m.,
and reached London at 3.30 p.m. A train leaving Sheffield at
12 noon reached London at 9.30 the same evening‹a truly
marvellous feat compared With the fastest coaches. The
journey to Derby occupied from two hours and a quarter to
two hours and a half, and the journey to Birmingham four
hours and a half.

  There has been preserved a description of the manner in
which our forefathers awaited the tardy arrival of news of the
ratification of the short-lived Peace of Amiens, I80I:‹

   "- Oct. 3, 180I.‹This day, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
Mr. Kershaw, a merchant of Halifax, brought the welcome
]ntelligence to Sheffield that the preliminaries of peace had
heen signed late on the evening of the Ist instant. Instantly
was Joy lighted up in every face, in a few minutes the news
was dispersed in every quarter of the town, the Bells rung,
bonfires were kindled in every street, cannon were heard on
every side, and in the evening fireworks were exhibited in the
old chuchyard. The return of the ratification from Paris
was now anxiously expected. When day after day passed
without news and many sinister reports circulated, the faces
of people suggested that we were destined to bear the morti-
fication of a disappointment. The public mind was happily
relieved from this state between twelve and one o'clock on
Monday, the lIth of October, by the arrival of the True
Briton coach, which, though it brought no papers, brought
the intelligence that the ratification had arrived in London.
The bells were again rung, and the bonfires, which during the
reign of doubt and anxiety had been almost suffered to go out,
were rekindled. Everything was joy again. and when the
mail was expected in the evening, thousands of people went to
meet it. All Sheffield Moor to Heeley was crowded with
people, so as with difficulty the coach advanced, and when the
entire confimation was published their joy uas great, Monday
was celebrated as a glorious day, bonfires and cannon on
every side. and in the evening a general illumination with the
most brilliant fireworks."

  Very quaint are the stories of those early adventurers
who, taking their courage in both hands, greatly daring, and
breaking throhgh the stay-at-home habits of their predecessors,
fared forth to seek markets for their wares. Joshua Fox, of
Westbar, whose premises were in West Court, is reputed to
be the first Sheffield manufacturer who determined on the bold
experiment of a personal business visit to London. This must
have been early in the century, for he took out his freedom,
after finishing an apprenticeship to his father, in 1723.
Nothing that his wife or friends could say availed to dissuade
him from encountering all the fatigue, hazard, and difficulty of
the journey. The picture that tradition has handed down is
indeed the counterpart of John Bunyan's description of the
wife and children and neighbours of Pilgrim beseeching him,
with tears, not to run away from the City of Destruction.
But unlike Pilgrim, Joshua Fox, by way of cheering up those
he left behind, bade them to a great feast, and like a prudent
man of the world made his will before setting out. He
decided to go on foot. The first day he walked as far as
Mansfield, where he rested for the night. The next day he
had to wait until travellers met together in sufficient numbers
to brave the perils of Nottingham Forest, dreaded both for its
robbers and for the intricacies of the road. He accomplished
this journey in safety, and reaching London, not only sold his
goods to his satisfaction, but he obtained many orders for
more. His success encouraged others to follow his example,
but this is believed to be the first instance of personal inter-
course with the Metropolis.
Many humorous incidents arose when old-fashioned Shef-
fielders, with their narrow local notions, first found themselves
face to face with the more cosmopolitan ideas of London.
Enoch Trickett, a genuine broad " Old Shevvielder," who was
in partnership with his brother William‹Master Cutler in
I77I‹as a file manufacturer in Coalpit Lane, had his
imagination fired by stories of the large orders and the
high prices to be obtained in London. So rolling down
his shirt sleeves, and throwing aside his leather apron, he
donned his Sunday best, swathed his throat in the unac-
customed luxury of a neckerchief, and without misadventure,
reached London. Entering a merchant's warehouse, he
produced patterns, and discanted on the excellence of his
files. They asked prices, and what discount was allowed ?
" Discount," he said, " what's that ? Oi ne'er heard tell on it
afore." It was explained that by making an allowance of so
much per cent., he would get an order, and on receipt of the
goods money ~would be remitted in payment. " Way, oi 've
telled yo t' price on em, an' beloike oi 'st expect t' brass for
'em." Further explanations only elicited from him the indig-
nant exclamation, ~' Soa, yo wanten me to gie yo so much
money to buy t' foiles." 'The terms on which an order would
be given were again rehearsed, but Enoch's patience was
exhausted, so " lapping up " his files he said, " Nay, lad, nay;
oi can sell 'em for moor nor that at Breetmoor s onny toime,
and tak t' brass whooam wi' me when ween 'livered." And
Enoch formed so poor an opinion of London doings, that,
thereaher, he stayed at home.

  Tom Wood, uho lived at the bottom of Pea Croft in a
house boasting a garden in front, was another early adventurer
to London. One day, while there, he returned to his inn
sorely bothered, and stood with his back to the fire. Dis-
satisfied with the heat it gave out, he turned round to poke
and mend it, but finding no coal, he rang the bell. " Bring
some coblins," he said, " some coblins, and be quick." The
waiter went to the cook, who sent word she was very sorry,
but there were none." ~'Then bring some sleck," said he;
getting angry. The cook was again appealed to. " You must
send up something," said the waiter, ~' for the gentleman is in
a passion." So, concocting some sort of edibles, a dish was
served with many apologies and hopes that it was right. Thls
brought out the truth. ~ Oh, plenty o' good boiled beef dld 1
get when I were e' Lunnon," said a " Little Mester " to Jacky
Fox, " but the deuce on a porringer o' broth."

  But the sterling excellence of the Sheffield goods, backed
up by the knowing adroitness of Sheffield men, forced them
into good repute. The fame which attaches to this day, to
the shoemakers' and butchers' knives sent out from Sycamore
Street, bearinx the name of John Wilson, with the well-known
trade mark of four peppercorns and a diamond, was laid by
the founder of the firm, when, sallying from his shop at Ran
Moor, or Hallam, he packed up a stock of his goods, and
trudged off with them into Lancashire. Thomas Wilson had
shreudly seen the advantage of dispensing with factors, and of
getting into direct contact with his customers, without the
intervention of middlemen. So, in his own person, he com-
bined the functions of commercial traveller and hawker.
Wherever he sold any knives, he told the purchasers he
should come again at a fixed time, when, if the article did
not suit, he would return the money. On his next journey,
instead of complaints, he found such an increased demand
that some of the retail shops would gladly have bought all his
stock. But, declining, their proposals, and keeping his
promlse to his purchasers, he readily sold all he had taken,
and went home to manufacture more. From that time to
this, the quality has been so well maintained that the WiIson
mark is a certificate of excellence all over the world.

  The foundations of another large trade were laid with even
greater ingenuity. The Harrisons, of Hollis Croft, were early
saw manufacturers. The fame of their house, and the fortune
which was afterwards manifest at Weston Hall and in the
large benefactions of the Misses Harrison, began in this wise.
Thomas Harrison took with him to London a workman named
Elick Rutter. Him he sent, dressed like a carpenter, and in
his shirt sleeves, apparently fresh from his work bench, among
the London shops, asking for ~'Harrison's saws." None of
the shopkeepers had ever heard of such a maker. They had
of course, saws by this eminent firm and the other which they
recommended to the customer, but he would have none of
them, declaring that no saws were like Harrison's, and theirs
he must have. This from an actual user of tools, made its due
impression, and a few days afterwards, when Mr. Harrison
happened to call soliciting orders, he found no difficulty in
obtaining them. This story is authentic, since it comes from
an old workman of Harrison's, who knew Rutter well.

  Thus, little by little, by such means as these, and still
more by the increased facilities for external enterprise sketched
in this Chapter, Sheffield trade was enlarged, and Sheffield
manufacturers and merchants stepped on to a higher plane.
The fashioh of their fathers of living in houses adjacent to the
workshops and warehouses in the older streets of the town, no
longer contented them; and they began to build themselves
comfortable and substantial residences in the outskirts. The
first and most notable, but not the happiest, indication of
growing ambition and wealth, was the erecion, in 1773, of
Page Hall by Thomas Broadbent, whose family has already
been mentioned at the beginning of this Chapter as merchants
and bankers, in the front rank of the pioneers of the second
half of the centnry. Thomas Broadbent was, manifestly a
man of large ideas, inspired by a confidence that the prosperity
he enjoyed was a permanent thing. But like many another,
both before and since, that vaulting ambitioll which had been
imputed as the besetting sin of his rivals, the Roebucks,
o'er leapt itself.

  He began his new- house, on land bought by his father,
described in the early deeds as "Page Field" and "Page
Greave," on a scale which caused much shakin~ of heads
among his wiseacre neighbours, who prophesied a bad end to
such exctravagance. They were not long deprived of the
gloomy satisfaction lurking in the phrase, " I told you so.'
Mlr. Broadbent soon discovered that he had not sufficiently
counted the cost, and that his plans were too grand for his
purse. Perforce, he curtailed the dimensions of the house,
in a way plainly to be secn in the entrance hall to this day.

   This was but the presage of greater evils for in seven years
(1780), came the misfortune which compelled the banking firm
in the Hartshead to suspend payment, and Page Hall was
mortgaged to Mr. James Milnes, of Thornes House, Wake-
field, the trustee under the bankruptcy.*

  Meersbrook,+ erected about the same time, by one of the
Roebucks, was a similar example of an undue confidence in the
stability of prosperity. Like Mr. Broadbent, Mr. Roebuck
built that another, Mr. Samuel Shore, might enter upon
his labours, and the Shores had, in a later generation,
their full share of commercial misfortunes. But many
merchants of the period were either more prudent or more
lucky. They built the plain but substantial residences which
stand, mostly shorn of their surrounding glories, to this day,
to show the contrast between the honest workmanship of the
past and the jerry-building of the present. Such houses were
that of Mr. Joseph Bailey, at Burn Greave, of Mr. John
Henfrey, at Highfield, of Mr. Jonathan Marshall on Pyebank,
of Mr. Sitwell, Mount Pleasant, Mr. William Shore, Tapton
Grove, and many others.

  The prosperity of the Sheffield factors and manufacturers
of a hundred years ago, was not without its seamy side‹that
is to say, some portion of it was freely attributed, and no
doubt rightly, to a readiness to take undue advantage of the
necessities of those whose manual labour helped to make their
wealth. " The Stuffing system " was a plan which had its
origin in the days of imperfect means of exchange; when the

-----------------
* In 178G, it was conveyed to Mr. George Bustard Greaves, who
married the heiress of the Clays, of Bridgehouses. He subsequently
resided at Elmsall Lodge, near Pontefract, but retained possession of
Page Hall until his death in 1835, when Mr. James Dixon, whose
biography is one o{ the striking manufacturing episodes of the town,
became the purchaser. It remained in the possession of his son, the late
Mr. William Frederick Dixon, until his death, and the estate was sold in
May, I874, to Mr. Mark Firth, who gave a portion of it for the purposes
of a public park, opened by the Prince of Wales, August 16th, I875.
Since then the Hall has suffered the decadence that attends upon proper-
ties overtaken by the extension of a great manufacturing town. Mr.
Broadbent died at Sandall, near Wakefield, in 18I3.
+ Now the Ruskin Museum, standing in a public park.
-----------------

circulation of money was sluggard, and its transmission from
place to place both costly and dangerous. The early accounts
of the Town Trustees show that when payment had to be
made to creditors at a distance, there was nothing for it but to
go to the expense and to run the risk of sending a messenger
with the coin. Naturally enough, to avoid this as much as
possible, goods were exchanged for goods. The distant
customers of the Sheffield factors sent, in payment for cutlery,
not cheques, for they were unknown, but tea, hams, spirits,
cloth, cotton, drapery‹anything which they produced or
imported. These commodities had to be turned into cash
locally, and thus it came to pass that firms like Harwood and
Thomas, whose premises were on the site of the Sheffield
Banking Company's Bank in George Street, had rooms fitted
up with shelves and counter, resembling a regular draper's
shop; while many factors, among whom were Hoult
Rowbotham, Wingfield and Wade, in Tenter Street, and
Lockwoods, in Arundel Street, had signs, outside their
premises, stating that they were licensed to sell tea, or
spirits. There was no great harm in this of itself, and
when rightly used. For instance one house, doing a home
trade and not concerning itself with the foreign merchants,
had good connections with Belfast, and frequently received in
exchange for hardware, hogsheads of hams, or bales of linen.
It also kept black and green tea. A11 these were sold at fair
prices, with little pressure, if any, on the cutlers to buy them.
but in unscrupulous hands the system was capahle of grave
abuse. For the factors, compelled to take payment in kind
from their customers, passed it on to the manufacturers who
in turn, required the workmen to accept wages for their
labour not in money, but in goods‹and in goods, moreover
retailed to them at exorbitant rates, and irrespective of quality.
It was recognised as an evil as early as I680, when the
Cutlers' Company sought to prevent the injury caused by
"divers persons" imposing upon the artificers of hardware
"certain commodities instead of ready money for their wares,
and at excessive rates, to the great damage and almost utter
ruin of the tradesmen." This forcing of stuff, concretely
" stuffing," upon men who could not help themselves, was
also called "taking up." The firm of Beilby and Pro~tor,
and the Baileys (Bailey, Eadon and Bailey) had, rightly or
wrongly, the reputation of largely carrying on the obnoxious
system‹and the unpopularity they incurred lasted so long
after the system fell into desuetude, that the defeat of Mr.
Samuel Bailey, at the first Parliamentary election for Sheffield,
~as attributed by some in close touch with public sentiment,
to the prejudice still existing in the minds of the townsfolk
against the race of factors to whom he had belonged. For it
must he obvious that " stuffing" was not merely an injustice
to the workpeople, it had the further effect of competing
cruelly with shopkeepers, and so robbing them of their
customers. The system was worked in this way: When a
cutler came to " sattle " for the wares he had " livered" at the
warehouse, the master, instead of paying him in money, gave
him a credit note on a factor (or, when he was both a
manufacturer and a factor, on his own factor's department) for
certain articles of food, especially cheese and tea, or for various
descriptions of clothing. "This 'stuffing,"' wrote Mr. John
Holland, who had personal knowledge of its ramifications,
" was not only compulsory, but the prices charged were
generally exorbitant; of course they were paid for by a
" setting up," or weekly instalments, or stoppages on the cash
side of the wages book. This was convenient to the employer
as a mode of barter hetween him and the merchant with whom
he dealt. Both made an unfair proift by it, and it tethered
the workman by a perpetual debt." Cases are on record in
which men had to accept tea, in payment of wages, at as much
as twelve shillings a pound‹when, even as far back as 1760, a
fair price was eight shillings.

  But abominable as was the " stuffing" system, carried out
as it was with a great amount of fraud and extortion, it had its
favourable side, which is more than can be said for the " swag
shops" whose operation was unmitigatedly evil. These were
establishments purely and simply designed to prey on the
misfortunes of others, their chief victims being " little mesters"
in difficulties. When short of ready money, and without any
market for their goods, they sold them to the swag shops at, of
course, a large percentage of loss. but worse than this,
unscrupulous factors' buyers, not inappropriately known as
"devils," would make excuses to reject goods, even that had
been ordered, when brought in, with the deliberate purpose of
forcing the makers to the swag shops, and of buying them
there from themselves at a lower price.
John ~Toolman, the American Quaker,* gives some par-
ticulars+ which may be compared with what was said in the
first chapter of this book,# of the rates of wages and prices of
necessaries he found current in England:

" On enquiry in many places I find the price of rye about
5s., wheat 8s. per hushel; oatmeal I2s. per I20 Ibs.; mutton
from 3d. to 5d. per Ib.; bacon from 7d. to 9d.; cheese from 4d.
to 6d.; butter frorn 8d. to 10d.; house-rent for a poor man
from 25s. to 40s. per year, to be paid weekly; wood for fire
very scarce and dear; coal in some places 2s.6d. per cwt., but
near the pits not a quarter so much.

" The wages of labouring men in severa] counties towards
London at tenpence per day in common business, the employer
finds small beer and the labourer finds his own food but in
harvest and haytime wages are about Is. per day, and the
labourer hath all his diet. In some parts of the north of
England poor labouring men have their food where they work
and appear in common to do rather better than nearer London
Industrious women who spin in the factories get some four
pence, some fivepence, and so on to six seven, eight, nine or
tenpence per day and find their own house-room and diet
Great numbers of poor people live chiefly on bread and water
in the southern parts of England, as well as in the northern
parts and there are many poor children not even taught to
read.

-----------------
* See note, p. p8. + Journal, pp. 233, 234.  , # Ante, pp. 4, 5.

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