It was very shortly after the event just related that Byrom received the first intimation of his son’s having formed an attachment for the lady who became his wife, Eleanor, daughter of William and sister of Domville Halsted, of Lymm, the representatives of an ancient and honourable family in Cheshire, who had been owners of the Domville moiety of Lymm from the time of Edward III., when it was inherited from Agnes de Legh, the common ancestress of the Domvilles, Halsteds, and the Leghs of Adlington and Lyme. The letter written on the occasion to Mrs. Byrom is so thoroughly characteristic of the man that we make no apology for reproducing it:—

Tuesday night, Feb. 28, 1748–9.

My dearest love: I received this afternoon the potted hare from Mr. Wilkinson, which Tedy mentioned in his last letter, together with thy letter concerning Miss Halsted. &c., which has thrown me into a great but really very loving concern, for the consequence of an affair in which the family happiness so much depends. As I am quite a stranger to the young lady, and have no remembrance of having ever seen her, I cannot judge how I should like her person and behaviour; but for my beloved son’s sake, I should wish her possessed of every qualification that might justly be agreeable to thee, his sisters, uncle, aunts, and friends, as well as to himself. I guess by the contents of thy letter that he has made his addresses to her, and his Aunt A. (Mrs. Byrom’s sister Anne) has given her a good character, which does not seem to amount to any absolute approbation; his uncle, too, seems neither for it nor against it; what his aunts say of it, thou dost not hint at, by which I presume that they suppose that he is determined himself, and they would not disoblige him by making any objection to his choice. For my part, if my son be inclined to marry, I can only wish that he may make a proper choice; but whether he has or not, it is not in my power to determine, nor in my will to oppose his inclination, without cause, for I love him too well not to consent with great readiness to anything that others of his friends who heartily interest themselves in his happiness should approve of; but at present their approbation seems only to be negative, and his uncle’s “What will his father say to it?” does not seem to impart any great encouragement. His father would gladly hope that his son, in a thing of this consequence, might so behave as to please all his relations, and thereby acquire a title to his father’s approbation, who, considering him as the only youth of the name at present, would wish them all to assist, encourage or prevent him as their love and judgment shall find occasion to show itself in his favour. As to fortune, report but seldom lessens it, though it has hardly much increased it, I suppose, in Miss H.’s case; but as to that, though it is undoubtedly a very prudential consideration, yet the qualities which the lady herself may or may not have, may make her a good wife with less than she has, or a bad one with a great deal more. I am full of wishes, hopes, and fears, and can think of nothing else at present than to refer myself to thy sentiments, which I wish thee to give me, and my son to be so much master of himself as to act on this occasion with all necessary discretion. I wish that whenever he marries he may meet with one that he may have as just reason to love, honour, and cherish as his father has his Valentine, whom he begs to take all possible (care) of a life and health so dear to him, who is, with hearty prayers to God for her and hers—hers and theirs.

J. Byrom.
To Mrs. Eliz. Byrom, near the Old Church in Manchester, Lancashire.

With the exception of an occasional journey to London, and a visit now and then to his alma mater, Cambridge, the remaining portion of Byrom’s life was passed in comparative quietude, sometimes at the pleasant rural retreat at Kersall, “that quiet place of yours,” as his loving sister Phœbe, in one of her letters, styles it, and where, as she says, she “was very glad to be a bit from the hurry of the market place;” but oftener enjoying the society and pleasant gossip of his friends in the snug parlour of his comfortable dwelling at the corner of Hunter’s Lane—that quaint black and white house with a curious raised walk in front, the outlines of which the pencil of that industrious antiquary, Thomas Barrit, has happily preserved to us. The struggles of his earlier years gave a zest to the comforts of domestic life, and in his otium cum dignitate he whiled away the hours, poetising on subjects grave and gay; now and then ridiculing with good humoured banter some Presbyterian zealot or recalcitrant Whig, though always in a spirit calculated to soften asperity; and occasionally retaliating upon his Hanoverian opponents in some jeu d’esprit or sparkling epigram, to the great delight of the beaux-esprits who met in social intercourse at the Bull’s Head—a house that still remains, and the gruff countenance of whose ancient sign may yet be seen over the archway leading to the inn-yard and the old-fashioned and much-frequented parlour. The great truths of Christianity had from his earliest years made a deep impression on his mind, and many of his writings are characterised by strong religious feeling; indeed, it was the spirit of piety breathed into his poems that led to his being accounted a mystic by the mere lukewarm professors, a reproach that was, however, undeserved. His religion was without gloom, and by no means inconsistent with the maintenance of habitual cheerfulness. His utterances are marked by a manly, nervous style; his imagination was fertile, and his imagery happily conceived, though there is sometimes a lack of smoothness that suggests the idea that his effusions were hastily penned—the impromptu utterances of the man of genius with the happy facility of versification. Some of his pieces—the once popular “Three Black Crows[48]” for example—were written for the annual speech days at the Free Grammar School; he was, too, the first writer who employed as a literary vehicle the broad, racy vernacular of Lancashire, which in later times has been used with such signal success by Bamford, and Waugh, and Brierley. One of the happiest specimens of the playfulness of his muse was the poetical epistle “On the Patron Saint of England,” addressed to Lord Willoughby, the President of the Society of Antiquaries, and which Samuel Pegge, the antiquary, was at such pains to refute; but perhaps the one by which he will be best remembered is the ever popular Christmas hymn, “Christians, Awake,” which John Wainwright, the organist of the “Old Church,” at Manchester, set to music, the tune being called after his native town, “Stockport.”

Byrom outlived most of the friends of his youth, and maintained the natural cheerfulness of his disposition throughout his last lingering illness until, in the words of his obituary notice, “the scholar, the critic, the gentleman, became absorbed in the resigned Christian.” He died at the old house at Hanging Ditch, on the 26th September, 1763, having attained the ripe old age of 72, and three days later his remains were interred in the Byrom Chapel, on the south side of the “Old Church.” Strangely enough, there is no monument or other sepulchral memorial to mark his resting place or perpetuate his name; the register of burials is the only record, and that is brief indeed:—

1763.—September 29. Mr. John Byrom.

A tribute to his memory in Latin verse from the pen of his friend and correspondent, William Cowper, of Chester, M.P., appeared in the newspapers of the time, of which the following is a translation:—

In violation of the “Woollen Act,” a statute made famous by the allusions of Pope and Dryden, he was buried “in a shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud not made of sheep’s wool,” and, consequently, a direction was issued by “John Gore Booth, Esquire, one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace,” to the constables of Manchester to levy the sum of £6 by distress and sale of his goods and chattels.

Mrs. Byrom survived him several years, and died on the 21st December, 1778, at the age of 78; of his children three died in infancy, and three survived him—two daughters and a son. Elizabeth—Beppy, as she was familiarly called—the first-born, and the gossiping chronicler of the fatal ’45, died in 1801, her sister Dorothy having died three years previously, both unmarried. Edward Byrom, the eldest and only surviving son, succeeded as heir. Of this worthy son of a worthy sire we need say little; his biography has been undertaken by an able writer, and with such a congenial theme as the projected “Memorials of St. John’s” we may rest assured that the accomplished editor of the “Old Church Clock” will do ample justice to his memory. He was born on the 13th June, 1724, and baptised at the old church on the 24th of the same month. On the death of his uncle, Edward Byrom, in 1740, he became devisee in fee of his estates, and in the spring of 1750 he added to his worldly wealth the fortune he acquired by his marriage with Miss Halsted, already referred to, a marriage that, in accordance with the fashion of the times, is thus chronicled in the Chester Courant of the 6th March in that year:—

A few days ago, Mr. Edward Byrom, son of Dr. Byrom, was married to Miss Halsted of Limm, co. Cest., a lady of great merit and a handsome fortune.

He took up his abode in the large detached house in Quay Street, now occupied by Dr. Blackmore, and which continued to be the residence of his grand-daughter, Miss Atherton, up to the time of her death, in 1870. Mr. Grindon, in his pleasant volume, “Manchester Banks and Bankers,” says: “There is a legend that he removed thither on account of the delicate health of his little Nelly, the atmosphere of Quay Street being purer than that of the town,” and he adds, “the house was obviously intended to be the first of a row. Mr. Byrom preferred that it should stand alone, arranging also for the preservation in perpetuity of the meadow in front, which served as a playground for the children.” The house was Mr. Byrom’s own, and in all probability its erection was begun by his uncle, Edward Byrom, shortly before his death, for in the “Shorthand Journal” there occurs the entry:—

1741.—Thursday, August 11th or 12th. Dined at new house in Quay Street; ... We came from Macclesfield yesterday—Mrs. Byrom, Beppy, Dolly, David and I.

The neighbourhood was then unbuilt, and formed a pleasant suburb of Manchester, but with the increase of trade the tide of population spread in that direction; new streets were laid out, houses were built, and the locality became what might be called the “Court-end.” The house has survived the mighty changes that time has wrought; it stands alone, as it did in Byrom’s days; the remnant of the old garden and orchard are there, and the “meadow” in front still struggles to look green, but its sylvan beauties are only a memory of the past.

With the increase of the population came the necessity for a new church, and on the 28th April, 1768, Edward Byrom laid the foundation stone of St. John’s—so named in compliment to his father—which was consecrated on the 7th June in the following year. Little more than two years later he joined Messrs. Sedgwick, Allen, and Place, in establishing the first bank in Manchester, the doors of which were opened on the 2nd December, 1771, under the style of Byrom, Sedgwick, Allen, and Place. It occupied the site of Messrs. Hunt and Roskell’s shop in St. Ann’s Square, and the name is perpetuated in Bank Street, leading from it. Less than seventeen months after, Edward Byrom was laid to rest, his death occurring on the 24th April, 1773, at the early age of forty-nine. Under his will the Quay Street property passed to his daughter Ann, who became the wife of Henry Atherton, of the Middle Temple, the issue of the marriage being an only daughter, the estimable and much-honoured Miss Eleanor Atherton, the foundress of Holy Trinity Church, in Hulme, and the last representative in a direct line of the Byrom family, who died at the old home in Quay Street, on the 12th September, 1870, at the age of eighty-eight. In accordance with the provisions of her will, the greater portion of her property, including the Kersall estates, passed to her godson, Mr. Edward Fox, who, in accordance with her expressed desire, assumed the name and arms of Byrom—the arms John Byrom was so proud of, and of which he made such frequent mention in his Journal:—