In the township of Lowton, within the limits of the ancient and far-reaching parish of Winwick, and a short distance from the little town of Leigh, is an old-fashioned building of no great architectural pretensions, erected apparently in the reign of one of the Stuart kings, and now in the occupancy of a farmer. Byrom Hall, for that is the name, stands upon the site of an earlier structure, described in ancient writings as a manor house, though there is no evidence that the reputed manor ever enjoyed manorial privileges, and gave name in times past to a family ranking with the smaller gentry, who could boast a line of succession reaching as far back as the time of the second Edward. The Byroms of Byrom, notwithstanding their ancient lineage, do not appear to have ever attained to any very great distinction, or to have held any very important offices in the county; they married and were given in marriage among the best families of the shire, and they maintained the outward evidences of gentility by the use of armorial ensigns, but how or when those were acquired is not clear, and it is somewhat singular that they did not attend at any of the Herald’s visitations to justify their right to the use of them, or to register their descent, at least not until September, 1664, when, in answer to the summons of Sir William Dugdale, Norroy King of Arms, Edward Byrom attended at Ormskirk, and on behalf of his elder brother, Samuel Byrom of Byrom—the grandfather of a certain “Beau” Byrom who wasted his substance in riotous living, and less than half a century afterwards parted with his patrimonial lands—registered a pedigree of five generations.
In the reign of Henry VII., when the Wars of the Roses were ended, and the people had settled down to more peaceful pursuits, a cadet of the family, Ralph Byrom, repaired to Manchester, established himself in trade, and throve apace by transactions which in those days were accounted considerable.
From the earliest period Manchester had exhibited an aptitude for manufacture. Kuerden tells us that as far back as the reign of Edward II. there was a mill for the manufacture of woollen cloths, and in the succeeding reign the industry and wealth of the town were greatly promoted by the encouragement given to a number of Flemish artisans who were induced to leave their homes in Flanders and settle in Lancashire, where they revealed the secrets of their craft to the peasantry of the neighbourhood, and thus planted the sapling of that industry which, taking root, flourished and gradually spread through the Lancashire valleys, the fulling mills and dyeworks then established in Salfordshire being the auspicious beginnings of that vast manufacturing industry which has enriched the kingdom and made Manchester the commercial capital of the Empire.
The old chronicler, Hollinworth, quoting an ancient writer, says that in 1520 “there were three famous clothiers living in the north countrey, viz., Cuthbert of Kendal, Hodgkins of Halifax, and Martin Brian, some say Byrom, of Manchester. Every one of these kept a greate number of servants at worke, spinners, carders, weavers, fullers, dyers, shearemen, &c., to the greate admiration of all that came into their houses to beehould them.” Whether Hollinworth’s authority is historically correct, or the persons he names only fictitious, certain it is that at that time Manchester was “a greate cloathing towne;” the Byroms had become noted as one of the great trading families, and took their places with the Galleys, the Beckes, the Pendletons, and other of the merchant princes of the day.
Adam Byrom, of “Saulforde, merchaunt,” as he is styled, the son of Ralph, who first settled in the neighbourhood and diverged into trade, was, with one exception, the largest merchant in the Salford Hundred, and in 1540 was assessed by the commissioners of Henry VIII. at a larger amount even than Sir Alexander Radcliffe, of Ordsall, who was accounted the great magnate of the district. Manchester was even then a thriving and prosperous mercantile town. Mills had been placed on the waters of the Irwell and its affluent streams, and “Manchester Cottons,” as they were called, and which, be it known, were then and for a hundred years to come Lancashire woollens, were carried on pack-horses to London and Hull, and were frequently sent to the great fairs at Amsterdam, Frankfort, and to other foreign marts. So important had the trade become that it was found necessary, after a year’s experience, to repeal the statute bestowing upon the town the privilege of sanctuary, and to send the sanctuary men, who by their idleness and other enormities were “prejudicial to the wealth, credit, great occupyings, and good order” of the place, to Chester, which, being poor, was less likely to suffer by the presence of such thriftless and disorderly characters—
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
The wealth which Adam Byrom acquired in his business was at different times invested in the purchase of lands, &c., in Salford, Darcy Lever, Ardwick, Bolton-le-Moors, and other places, including the chief messuage or manor-house called Salford Hall, in which he resided. He appears to have been a free-trader in principle, and opposed to the feudal monopolies that were then in vogue, for it is recorded in the Kalendar of Pleadings that he prosecuted William Arram, the mayor of Preston, claiming exemption from the payment of tolls and other imposts in the fairs and markets of Salford and Preston. This worthy died on the 25th of July, 1558. His wife, a daughter of one Hunt, of Hunt’s Hall—the Hunt’s Bank, probably, of later days—bore him six children, three sons and three daughters; and it is a noteworthy fact that the two elder sons, George and Henry, died within a month of their father’s demise. George, the first-born, was succeeded by his eldest son, Ralph, then a child of three years of age. One of his daughters was Margaret Byrom, the ill-fated victim of the memorable case of supposed witchcraft in 1597, of which mention has been made in our notice of Dr. Dee, the Wizard Warden of Manchester, who was solicited by her friends to cast out the devil with which it was believed John Hartley, a conjuror, had possessed her, while staying on a visit at the house of Nicholas Starkey, of Cleworth.
It is, however, with the descendants of Henry, the second son of Adam Byrom, the “merchaunt,” that we are at present more immediately concerned. This Henry had in his father’s lifetime been united in marriage with Mary, one of the daughters of Thomas Becke, a wealthy trader in the town, an alliance that introduces us to quite a group of Manchester worthies. The Beckes had been for years engaged in trade, and numbered among them some of the earliest benefactors of Manchester, and some of her most generous churchmen. Isabel, the widow of Robert Becke, and the mother, probably, of Henry Byrom’s father-in-law, at her own cost erected the conduit in the market-place, the first “water works” in Manchester, conveying the water in pipes from a natural spring at the upper end of the town, which gave name to the present Spring Gardens and Fountain Street. Her father was Richard Bexwyke, another opulent merchant, who founded the Jesus Chantry on the south side of his parish church—the one which his descendant Henry Pendleton, in 1653, gave to the parishioners of Manchester for the purpose of a “free” public library, the first of the kind in the town, if not, indeed, in the kingdom; he also restored the choir and nave of the church, erected the beautifully carved stalls on the north side of the choir, and founded a grammar school, which one of his chantry priests was to teach. It is probable that he was the husband of Joan Bexwyke, the sister of Bishop Oldham, who, with Hugh Bexwyke and Ralph Hulme (ancestor of William Hulme, the “Founder,”) was named in the first charter of feoffment of the Manchester Free Grammar School, the three being, in fact, not only trustees, but special benefactors and co-founders in the endowment, if not in the first erection, of the Manchester school, which absorbed the original foundation of Richard Bexwyke. Another of these Bexwykes, Roger, a son or nephew of the Richard just named, married Margaret, the sister of John Bradford, the “martyr,” a “worthy” whose name Lancashire men will always revere; and it is recorded that this Roger attended Bradford at the stake at Smithfield, but he was prevented by the brutal violence of one of the officials from helping to soothe the martyrs last agonies.
Henry Byrom left two sons—Robert, who succeeded as heir, but died unmarried in May, 1586, when the property passed to his younger brother, Lawrence. Of this representative of the family but little is known. He was in infancy at the time of his father’s decease, and he was yet only young when he became heir to his brother, and succeeded to an inheritance that seems to have involved him in no small amount of litigation—generally with his own kinsmen, and for the purpose of adjusting differences respecting properties bequeathed by his father and grandfather. Ultimately, an agreement was come to, as appears by the following deed, dated 13th December, 1586:—
Be yt knowne to all men by these p’sents that wee Raphe Byrom (a cousin of Lawrence), of Salford, in the countye of Lancaster, gent.; Richard Hunte of the same Town, gent.; Adam Byrom (another cousin), of the same Town, gent.; and Raphe Houghton, of Manchester, in the countie afforesaid, gent.; for dyvers good causes and consideracons vs movinge Have Remysed, &c., and quyteclaymed vnto Lawrence Byrom, of Salfforde afforesaid, gent.; &c. All and all maner of accons, sutes, querells, trespasses, &c. by reason of any Lease made unto us of confidence and truste by Roberte Byrom (the elder brother of Lawrence and then deceased) to us, &c. ffrom the beginning of the worlde till this p’sent daye except onlie for the Release or discharge of one Obligacon of a thousande poundes made &c. by Lawce. to Ralfe & Adam 3 Maye 28 Eliz. that the sayde Lawrence B. shall not alter the state tayle made by Henry Byrom, father of the said Robte B. & Lawrence B. Witnessed by “William Radclyffe” and “Roberte Leighe.” Dated 13 Dec., 29 Eliz. (1586).[41]
The late Canon Parkinson, in his notes on the “Private Journal of John Byrom,” says that “after an unsettled life, and a too keen sense of his own infelicity, at least towards the close of his earthly struggles, he found at last a haven of rest in the Collegiate Church, being buried there June 26, 1598. There was,” he adds, “more than ordinary sorrow in his family on that day, and probably some ground for his son not appearing at the Herald’s Visitation in 1613, as well as for his own Christian name not being borne by any of his descendants.” The appearance at the Visitation (Richard St. George’s) was scarcely necessary, for on the same occasion Adam, the son of Ralph (Lawrence Byrom’s cousin), entered a pedigree of six generations, claiming descent from Ralph, “second sonne to Byrom of Byrom,” the first occasion on which any pedigree of the family had been entered, and at the same time he asserted his claim to and was allowed the arms borne by the Byroms of Byrom—Argent, a chevron between three porcupines, sable, a crescent for difference, with a porcupine, sable, charged with a crescent for crest.
Edward Byrom, the son who succeeded him, married, about the year 1615, Ellen, the daughter of Thomas Worsley, of Carr in Bowdon, an alliance that brought him in relationship with the Worsleys, of Platt in Rusholme, of which family was the distinguished Parliamentarian soldier, Major-general Charles Worsley, returned as the first representative for Manchester in Cromwell’s Parliament of 1654. Like his progenitors, he was engaged in trade, and carried on an extensive business as a “linen draper,” a phrase that meant a good deal more in those days than it does now. In local affairs he took an active part, and in 1638–9 his name occurs on the Court Leet Rolls as one of two constables of the town. His lot was cast in troublous times. Unlike his contemporary, Humphrey Chetham, he seems to have escaped the attentions of the money-seeking functionaries of Charles the First. Greatness was not thrust upon him, and he had not, as Chetham had, to pay smart for refusing to take upon himself the “honour” of knighthood—a distinction in those days of doubtful value.
Manchester had oftentimes been the scene of conflict. Roman and Saxon, Dane and Norman, had each in turn striven for supremacy; but well nigh six hundred years had elapsed since the tranquillity of the inhabitants had been disturbed by the presence of contending armies. The day, however, was near at hand when the sounds of war were once more to be heard, and that of war the most unnatural; when members of the same family, and often the same blood, were to contend with each other in deadly strife. When the storm burst, and the struggle between Charles and the Parliament began, the Byroms of Salford and the Byroms of Manchester, with whom the recollection of the vexatious lawsuits of Lawrence Byrom had not yet died out, ranged themselves on opposite sides. The Byroms of Salford, like those of the parent house, took up arms on behalf of the King, John Byrom receiving a commission as sergeant-major in the regiment of Lancashire militia commanded by Colonel Roger Nowell, of Read, for which, and other acts of delinquency, his estates were seized by the Commissioners of Sequestration, when he was obliged to compound for them by the payment of £201 16s. 6d.; his brother, Edward Byrom, being at the same time required to pay £2 6s. 8d.
Edward Byrom, the representative of the Manchester stock, though in earlier life a contributor to the building of Trinity Church, in Salford, and accounted a moderate Churchman, was strongly inclined to Presbyterianism, and, with two of his sons, William and John, took an active part in promoting the cause of the Parliament. Manchester was at the time the great stronghold and rallying point of the Puritan party, and it is worthy of note that it was here the first blood was shed in that unhappy conflict. When the town was in peril of assault from Lord Strange’s (afterwards Earl of Derby) forces, Heyricke, the Puritan warden, engaged the services of a German engineer, John Rosworm, who had served in the Low Countries, and happened at the time to be in the town ready to be employed by either party, and bargained with him to superintend the defences for six months for the modest sum of thirty pounds. Edward Byrom, “Sergeant Mr. Beirom the elder,” as he is called, served under Rosworm, and it is recorded that he was the means of discovering a villainous plot of certain individuals to seize and plunder the town, through which the chief conspirators were apprehended and their designs frustrated.[42] At a later date, when Cromwell had been appointed “Lord Protector of the Commonwealth,” and had summoned a Parliament to meet on his “fortunate day,” September 3, 1654, the anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, we find “Sergeant” Byrom among those of the witnesses to the return of “Charles Worsley, of Platt,” his wife’s kinsman, as the first member for Manchester. This appears to have been his last official act, and his death occurred shortly after. His wife, Ellen Worsley, bore him three sons and eight daughters. John, the second son, was a zealous Puritan, and held a lieutenant’s commission in the Parliamentarian army; his military experiences were, however, cut short by an accident which cost him his life, almost immediately after the outbreak of the war, and which is thus recorded in a chronicle of the time:—
1642, October.—The two and twentieth day store of powder came in (to Manchester) and the foure and twentieth day some (more powder) coming was stayed. The joy of this last supply was sadly tempered with the accidentall, but mortall, wound of a skilful and active souldier.[43]
The “skilful and active soldier”—John Byrom—who was in his twenty-second year, was buried in the Collegiate Church, October 31, 1642.
William Byrom, the eldest son, who succeeded as heir to his father, was an active Presbyterian, and an elder in the Manchester Classis. In 1656 he was one of the chief inhabitants who elected Richard Radcliffe, of Pool Fold, as the representative of Manchester in the Commonwealth Parliament in the place of Worsley, who was then dead. Edward Byrom, the youngest of the three sons, was twenty-eight years of age at the time of his father’s death, and had been then married only a few months, his wife being Ellen, the daughter of John Crompton, of Halliwell. He inherited the Puritan principles of his father and grandfather, and was one of those who, on the death of Richard Hollinworth, signed the invitation to Henry Newcome to supply the vacancy, and, with his brother William, accompanied the deputation to Newcome’s quiet little parsonage at Gawsworth to entreat the famous preacher to comply with the wishes of the Church at Manchester.
This Edward was the first of the family who resided at Kersall Cell, a house occupying the site of a religious settlement that originally formed part of the possessions of the Cluniac monks of Lenton, and which had been confiscated to the Crown in the reign of Henry VIII. After its suppression the place, with the manor, had been granted to Baldwin Willoughby, who, in 1540, sold it to Ralph Kenyon, of Gorton, and he in turn conveyed it, eight years afterwards, to Richard Siddall, of Slade Hall, an old black and white house still standing in Burnage-lane, Rusholme. The estate remained in the possession of the Siddals until 1613, when it was alienated by Richard Siddal’s great grandson, George Siddal, who seems to have been the spendthrift of his family.
Edward Byrom made his will on the 14th June, 1668, being then, as he states, “sick and weak of body,” and he must have died within a day or two, for on the 18th June in the same year he was laid to rest with his fathers in the Collegiate Church. By his wife he had a family of six children, four of whom died in infancy, two sons only surviving, Edward and Joseph Byrom.
Joseph Byrom, the younger son, was largely engaged in trade, and, in 1703, served the office of borough reeve. He acquired considerable wealth in his business, and with the profits thus made he, on the 10th July, 1710, purchased from Samuel Byrom, of Byrom, the “Beau Byrom” before referred to, “the manor, demesne and hall of Byrom,” the ancient house of his progenitors, and it has continued in the family ever since.
Edward Byrom, the eldest son, took up his abode at Kersall, and he had also a house at Hyde’s Cross, which, with Withy Grove—Within Greave, as it was called—was then a pleasant outskirt, and the fashionable quarter of Manchester. In 1680 he married Dorothy, daughter of Captain John Allen, of Redvales, near Bury, and granddaughter of the Rev. Isaac Allen, rector of Prestwich, by whom he had, in addition to seven daughters, two sons, Edward, who, on his death in 1611, succeeded as heir, and John Byrom, the famous poet and stenographer.
The men of seclusion were by no means insensible to the beauties of Nature, but, on the contrary, in the selection of the sites for their religious houses usually displayed considerable judgment—
and Hugo de Buron was no exception, for he must have been imbued with the feeling so characteristic of the monkish fraternity when, in the days of Ranulph Gernons, he withdrew himself from the world and settled as a solitary recluse in the quiet secluded hermitage on the banks of the Irwell, which afterwards became an appendage of the Cluniac monastery of Lenton, in Nottinghamshire, and, in turn, the home of the opulent Manchester merchant, Edward Byrom, and his descendants. Fairer spot than that which Hugh de Buron chose it would be difficult to conceive, or one better suited for a life of monastic seclusion. It was then remote from the haunts of men, the atmosphere was not dimmed by the smoke of innumerable chimneys, nor the broad stream polluted with the abominations of countless manufactories. With its breezy moor and low wooded hills, its ferny hollows and forest avenues, and its wide shimmering river gliding swiftly yet silently along, and heightened in beauty by the noble oaks and stately elms that feathered down almost to the water’s edge, it was just the place where the soul might commune with itself, and feed on thoughts and fancies ever new and ever beautiful. A place where the purest and noblest impulses might be awakened and the mind stirred to many a holy thought and deed—where in leaf and blossom, in wood and water, might be discovered the parallelism between the Great Artificer’s work and His precepts, or, as Charles Kingsley puts it, “The work of God’s hand, the likeness of God’s countenance, the shadow of God’s glory.”
After the Reformation, when this little sanctuary passed into lay hands, a house was built upon the site—a picturesque black and white structure with projecting oriels, quaint mullioned windows, and gabled roofs, and here Edward Byrom took up his abode when he attained to manhood, for he was a youth of but twelve summers when his father died; to this house he took his youthful bride, Dorothy Allen, in 1680, and here many of his children were born. He had another house, as already stated, at Hyde’s Cross, and, besides this, his burgage shop or place of business in the market stead opposite the Cross, to which he afterwards added a stall, as appears by the following entry on the court rolls of the manor of Manchester:—
1692, May 16th.—Stallinged and installed Edward Byrom, of Manchester, milliner, in one stall, stallinge, or standing roome at or neare the Crosse, in the Market Place, in Manchester aforesaid, formerly in the possession of Francis Rydings, deceased, being next to Robert Pelton’s, towards the Crosse, conteyning in breadth two yards, and length three yards.
The spot thus indicated was in close proximity, if not, indeed, actually in front of the shop—the quaint black and white structure in the Market Place, which has been for many years a licensed house, and is now known as the “Wellington.” The building has ever since continued in the possession of the family, the present owner being Mr. Edward Byrom, who assumed that name in lieu of Fox on his succeeding at her death to the property of his godmother, Miss Eleanora Atherton, the great granddaughter of Edward Byrom’s distinguished son, John Byrom. The “milliner’s” business was in reality that of a mercer or haberdasher. It must have prospered, for subsequently the two adjoining stalls were absorbed; and it would seem to have been carried on after Edward Byrom’s death by his youngest daughter, Phœbe, for in Mrs. Raffald’s “Directory” for 1773 the name occurs, “Miss Phœbe Byrom, milliner, 1, Shambles,” and in that for 1781, “Miss Phœbe Byrom, milliner, Market Place.” The lady, who was five years younger than her brother John, died on the 20th February, 1785, at the ripe old age of 88.
It seems strange in these days to read of a merchant or trader having a stall in the Market Place, but the mode in which business was conducted in the earlier years of the last century was very different to that with which the present generation is familiar. Dr. Aikin, in his “Description of the Country Round Manchester,” says that “When the trade began to extend, the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack-horses, and accompany them to the principal towns with goods in packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inn. The pack-horses brought back sheep’s wool, which was bought on the journey and sold to the makers of worsted yarns at Manchester or to the clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.” When at home the trader was invariably in his warehouse or place of business at six o’clock in the morning; at seven he and his children and apprentices had a “plain breakfast” together, the “plain breakfast” being “one large dish of water pottage, made of oatmeal, water, and a little salt, boiled thick and poured into a dish.” “A pan or basin of milk” was placed by the side, and each, using a wooden spoon, dipped first into one and then into the other. The shops in the Market Place which were occupied by clothiers, mercers, and the better class of tradesmen were for the most part open to the street, and a loose stall or standing in front, where their wares could be more advantageously displayed, was not thought at all derogatory.
In the “Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom,” edited for the Chetham Society by the late Canon Parkinson, we have pleasant glimpses of the daily doings of the worthy linen-draper or milliner, as he was indifferently styled, Edward Byrom, and an admirable picture of the habits and modes of life in the household of a well-to-do trader as well as of the literary and social characteristics of the better class of people in Manchester a century and a half ago. Edward Byrom had a numerous family—seven daughters, six of whom died unmarried, and, in addition, two sons. Edward, the eldest son, who was brought up to the business which had been carried on with so much success for so many generations, was born March 4, 1686–7. John was baptised at the Collegiate Church, 29th February, 1691–2, and was his junior therefore by about five years. Having, as good old Bishop Oldham expressed it, much “pregnant witte,” he was trained for one of the learned professions, and in due course was sent to Chester and placed under the tuition of his relative, the eminent schoolmaster, Mr. Francis Harper, preparatory to his being entered at Merchant Taylors’—then famous as a seminary of learning—in which it was expected that his father’s influence with the city traders would secure him admission. He proceeded from Chester to London in January, 1707–8, and in the following month he writes to his father:—
London, Feb. 1707/8,
Hond. Sir [such was the form in which a young gentleman addressed his “governor” in the days of Queen Anne] I received yours in answer to mine of the 10th and 27th inst. Our feast was on Tuesday last; the boys went to school, had wine and biscuit, then walked to Bow Church, where one Mr. Dunstan preached on Prov. xix. 8; from thence they walked to Leathersellers’ Hall, where the gentlemen had a feast. The boys who were my schoolfellows at Chester came up soon to London, which turned to their advantage. I think it not prudence to go to University too soon, both for Mr. Ashton’s opinion, and because I believe that when they come there they are expected to know enough of school learning so as to read authors, compose exercises, &c., with their own help and the instruction of a tutor. I cannot have the opportunity of seeing the Register Book till doctor’s day, which will be about Easter, when I shall take particular notice how I stand as to election; in the meantime strive to improve myself in virtue, knowledge, and learning. We went to Bow Church on Sunday to hear the Archbishop of York.—I am your dutiful son,
J.B.
In another letter he writes:—
My master is very kind to me, and never yet spoke a cross word to me, and I think I never gave him occasion, which is an encouragement and satisfaction to me, and I will strive to preserve it.
Young Byrom’s progress in the classics was so satisfactory that in 1709 he was admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in a letter, dated 14th May in that year, he gives his father a detailed account of the examination and the circumstances attendant upon his election. His career at the university was anxiously watched by his father, whose letters, many of which have been preserved, contain many admonitions and much excellent advice. Thus, apparently in response to a request for a copy of Locke’s great work, he writes,
I have not Mr. Locke’s book of “Human Understanding,” it is above my capacity; nor was I ever fond of that author, he being (though a very learned man) a Socinian or an atheist, as to which controversy, I desire you not to trouble yourself with it in your younger studies. I look upon it as a snare of the devil, thrown among sharp wits and ingenious youths to oppose their reason to revelation, and because they cannot apprehend reason, to make them sceptics, and so entice them to read other books than the Bible and the comments upon it.
In another letter he says:—
I lately brought home Mr. Melling and Mr. Worsley from evening prayers to drink a dish of tea in your remembrance ... good son, look now before you to consider how precious your time is, and how to improve yourself, to consider the design and end proposed in your education, to fit you for sacred orders, which ought most considerately to be undertaken ... whatever books you read, be sure to read Dr. Hammond upon the Psalms and Lessons, with Dr. Whitby every day; it is not every young scholar hath them, but you have, and shall want no necessary thing I can buy you. I was reading, the other evening, the 2nd lesson; Hebrews vi., 7, 8, made a deeper impression on my mind now, after receiving the holy sacrament on Good Friday and Easter day, than I ever noted in them before, which may be applicable to you. In your case, when the good education bestowed upon youths designed for the ministry bringeth forth herbs meet for them to whom it is dressed, it receiveth God’s blessing; but if thorns and briars, &c. Reading this, I applied it so on you, who I then thought of, but on myself as in my own case.
No wonder that with such counsel from such a father, the young undergraduate should have become imbued with a spirit of piety that influenced every action of his future life. But that father was soon to be taken from him. In August, 1711, Edward Byrom, whose health had been failing for some time, passed away at the comparatively early age of fifty-five, and on the twenty-first of the same month was laid to rest by the side of his fathers in the Jesus chantry, then called the Byrom chapel, in the old church of Manchester—the church in which in life he had so often delighted to worship.
In December, 1711, young Byrom took his B.A., and in his exuberant joy he thus writes from Cambridge to his confidential friend, John Stansfield, the assistant manager of his late father’s place of business in London, whom he frequently commissioned to purchase books for him:—
I would fain have nothing hinder the pleasure I take in thinking how soon I shall change this tattered blue gown (the undergraduate’s gown, which was then, as now, blue) for a black one and a lambskin, and have the honourable title of Bachelor of Arts. Bachelor of Arts! John, how great it sounds! the Great Mogul is nothing to it. Ay, ay, sir, don’t pride yourself upon your fine titles before you have them. Are you sure of your degree? Can you stand the test of a strict examination in all these arts you are to be bachelor of? Has not one of your blue gowns been stopped this week for insufficiency in that point already, and do you hope to escape better? Why, sir, you say true, but I will hope on, notwithstanding, till I see reason to the contrary.—Yours, J. B.
The “black gown,” the “lambskin,” and the “honourable title” were gained notwithstanding, and the vacation which followed was spent by the young Bachelor of Arts with his widowed mother and sisters in his Lancashire home at Kersall. His sister, Sarah (Mrs. Brearcliffe), in a letter to John Stansfield, writes—
Brother John is most at Kersall: he goes every night and morning down to the water side and bawls out one of Tully’s orations in Latin, so loud they can hear him a mile off; so that all the neighbourhood think he is mad, and you would think so too if you saw him. Sometimes he thrashes corn with John Rigby’s men, and helps them to get potatoes, and works as hard as any of them. He is very good company and we shall miss him when he is gone, which will not be long to now; Christmas is very near.
From orating on the banks of the Irwell, and “threshing corn with John Rigby’s men,” Byrom returned to his studies at Cambridge. His lively and cheerful disposition made him popular with his brother collegians, and secured for him many friendships. He was, too, a welcome visitor in the house of the master of Trinity, Dr. Richard Bentley—the great Bentley; one of his most intimate associates was the doctor’s nephew, “Tom,” and he was also on friendly terms with the doctor’s young and fascinating daughter, Joanna—“Jug,” as she was familiarly called—if, indeed, they did not entertain something more than friendly feelings towards each other. In July, 1714, we find him writing to his old friend Stansfield as to his prospects of a fellowship, and in the following month he writes to his brother Edward, who was then in London:—
I have wrote to Mr. Banks to desire his interest at fellowships, but must leave it to you to direct it and send it to him.
It was about this time that his passion for poetry first manifested itself. He had before (August 17, 1714), under the signature of “John Shadow,” contributed a paper to the Spectator on the subject of dreams, which elicited a complimentary editorial note from Addison. This was followed on the 6th October in the same year by his pretty pastoral, “Colin and Phœbe,” prefaced by another complimentary note, which at once brought him into general notice:—
The poem, which comprises ten stanzas, at once became generally popular; it was his first production in verse, and gained the admiration of Chalmers and the praise of Bishop Monk, the latter pronouncing it “one of the most exquisite specimens in existence.” It is commonly supposed that the Phœbe of the pastoral was Bentley’s witty and accomplished daughter, “Jug,” who, Bishop Monk says, “from her earliest youth captivated the hearts of the young collegians,” and for whom Byrom is said, though without any evidence, to have conceived a passion. It is more than likely that he wished to attract the attention of Bentley, who was an ardent admirer of the Spectator, and who, finding in its columns a poem of such merit from one of his own college might be induced to use his influence in obtaining for the author the fellowship which Byrom so much desired. Certain it is that he got the fellowship he had previously despaired of, and did not gain the hand of Bentley’s daughter, that young lady a few years afterwards becoming the wife of Dr. Dennison Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of Clonfert and Killaloe, the issue of the marriage being Richard Cumberland, the well-known dramatic writer.
The year following his election to a fellowship of his college (1714) Byrom proceeded to his master’s degree. The ardent aspirations of his father that he should enter the Church were not, however, to be realised, for in 1716 he was obliged by the statutes of his college to vacate his fellowship in consequence of his declining to be admitted to holy orders. The reason of this is not very clear, but it is evident from his correspondence that he had then become strongly imbued with Jacobitism, and, in the unsettled state of society consequent upon the Hanoverian succession and the determined efforts that were made to restore the crown to the exiled Stuarts, he may have felt a desire to be free from the obligations his ordination vows would impose. Be that as it may, he visited the continent in 1717, and remained for some time in seclusion. There was some mystery about his movements at the time, and it has been surmised that his retirement was not altogether unconnected with politics, if, indeed, it was not for the actual purpose of fomenting another Jacobite insurrection. During his stay he met with Malebranche’s “Search after Truth,” and some pieces of Mademoiselle Bourignon, the consequence of which was that he became strongly impressed with the visionary philosophy of the former, and the enthusiastic extravagance of the latter. He resided for a while at Montpelier, where he applied himself to the study of medicine. His brother Edward, writing to him on the 17th August, 1717, says:—
I hope you have improved yourself in physic since your being there (Montpelier). I would gladly have you employ yourself that way, and you need not doubt of encouragement here. Not one person but ourselves knows where you are, but we think now to let our friends know that you are studying physic at Montpelier.... You may save yourself any trouble of inquiring after Mr. Roberts, for he is in these parts, but thinks himself excepted out of the act of grace, as are all persons who have gone beyond seas, or all who have been with the Pretender.
While away there was a probability of the librarianship of the Chetham Library falling vacant, a post which Byrom was rather anxious to obtain, though the emoluments were very small. In a letter to his brother, written from Montpelier, January 3, 1718, he writes:—
My wife (his youngest sister Phœbe, whom he playfully spoke of by that name) writes me word that Mr. Lesley, your library keeper, is going to die; that the feoffees ask if I will have the place. I could like it very well, but I suppose it tied to certain engagements which I do not like so well; I suppose the feoffees (are) at liberty to give it to one in or out of orders, but whether he must take the oaths or no depends not upon them. If I may be as I am, I shall be glad to visit the skeleton. You all invite me home very kindly, and in spring I think to come to you by way of Paris, if you know of no other by any of the ports. I have nothing should tempt me from your company at present but the occasion of a little insight into physic in this place.
The “insight” having apparently been obtained, he returned to England, and on the 3rd May he writes a hurried note to his brother from Cambridge.
The post is this moment going out, so I run to the coffee-house to return you an answer in haste to yours, and let you know that I should be very willing to have the library, and am very much obliged to you for your pains in engaging the feoffees; if you can be sure of it, let me know further; it will be better worth while than staying for a doubtful chance of a fellowship whose profit will be slow in coming; besides, ’tis in Manchester, which place I love entirely.
Whether admission to orders was a condition, or the taking the oaths an obstacle, is not clear, but, though Byrom returned to Manchester, he did not succeed to the office.
The prospect of the librarianship of Chetham’s Library was not the only inducement for Byrom to settle in his native town. His uncle, Joseph Byrom, had a pretty daughter, then blooming into womanhood, who had made an impression on his susceptible heart, and, in short, the ardent young Jacobite, who awhile before had penned verses in praise of Bentley’s fascinating daughter—
fell in love with his cousin; but the course of true love was ruffled by the proverbial obstructions. The young lady’s favour was quickly gained, but her father’s approval was not so easily secured, and that is scarcely to be wondered at. Byrom at the time had not settled down to any profession; his prospects were doubtful; he had been obliged to seclude himself on account of his political proclivities; and had, moreover, come to be accounted an eccentric and somewhat dreamy philosopher, infected with the mysticism of the French school. The practical, hard-headed Manchester merchant could, therefore, hardly look upon him as an eligible suitor or a promising husband for a young lady destined to inherit the ancestral home of the Byroms. Everything, however, comes to him who can wait. Byrom did wait; and eventually the obdurate parent yielded, and gave his consent to, if he did not actually express approval of, the match; and on Valentine’s Day, 1720–1, at the old church, the young couple were united, the bride having just completed her twenty-first year, and Byrom being then in his twenty-ninth.
Chalmers, in his biography of Byrom, represents the marriage as a clandestine one. He says the lady’s father “was extremely averse to the match, and when it took place without his consent, refused the young couple any means of support; and, as a means of supporting himself and his wife, Byrom had recourse to the teaching of shorthand writing.” But this is an error, as evidenced by a passage in a letter addressed by the bride’s elder sister, Anne Byrom, to Mr. Stansfield, under date February 18, 1720–1, four days after the wedding:—
I received yours last week, and designed answering it by first post, but could not have an opportunity, we having been pretty much engaged this week; for on Tuesday last sister Elizabeth was married to Dr. Byrom, with consent of father and mother, and the wedding kept here, and we having had a deal of company.
His sister here designates him “Dr.” Byrom, and the prefix to his name was through life commonly accorded by his friends and acquaintance. He does not appear ever to have taken a degree entitling him to it, though in one of his letters written from Montpelier he styles himself “Dr. of Physic.” There is a common belief that he practised medicine in Manchester; but this was only upon rare occasions, chiefly among the poor and the members of his own family; and he threw physic to the dogs when he applied himself to the perfecting of his system of shorthand. Shortly after his marriage he became the occupant of a house belonging to Mr. Hunter, standing at the corner of Hanging Ditch, and what is now the lower end of Cannon Street, but then called Hunter’s-lane, and here his family resided for many years. His journal affords pleasant glimpses of his home life and surroundings at this time:—
October 5, 1722.—This day we came to Mr. Hunter’s house. Saturday, 6th.—Laurenson’s wife died. Sister Ellen ill. Sorted my papers all morning. Mr. Hooper came about one to ask me to go to Holme (Hulme Hall). I followed ’em thither; Mr. M. and R. and Mrs. H. Malyn. Dr. Mainwaring there. We bowled, read Haddon’s verses on the eclipses, &c. Mr. Leycester came, and Mr. Kate.