Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire

12/05/2024

RSLC volume 159 - The Jacobite Prisoners of the Fifteen, edited by Jonathan Oates - is now available! This volume provides important new information about the fate of those participants of the Jacobite uprising of 1715 who were taken prisoner after the battle of Preston, and about the make-up of the Jacobite army. It also contains two little-known contemporary Jacobite accounts of the campaign, which shed fresh light on the battle of Preston, and various legal depositions and letters relating to the prisoners.

This volume can be purchased for £35 + p&p: please email Dr Fiona Pogson ([email protected]) to make your order. If you'd like to consider joining the Society, and receiving our annual volumes for a yearly subscription of £20, please see our website www.rslc.org.uk for information

03/05/2024

The latest RSLC volume has arrived.

31/03/2024

Here is an extract from a letter written by Ada McGuire while on holiday on the Isle of Man on 23 July 1916:

"The news from the front continues good but the price to pay is high. Poor Ralph Merry has been killed (did I tell you). Also Mr and Mrs Lees only son. It makes me very anxious. They are waiting for me to go out so I will say goodbye. My teachers gave me a lovely silver tray for my dressing table when I left.
Dearest love
from Ada"

Ralph Merry was one of two brothers from the Merry Family of 63 Manor Road, Liscard. He died whilst fighting with the Liverpool Pals on 1 July 1916, aged 22 (not 20, as Ada claimed). The McGuires had lived on Manor Road, but by this time were living on Cliff Road Wallasey. Ralph's older Brother, Alfred Frithjof Merry (his middle name was Norwegian and came from his mother's family), fought with 6/King's (Liverpool Regiment) and was awarded the Military Cross three times, which, as anyone who knows how hard it was to win that medal will know, is an astonishing achievement. There were hundreds and thousands of such incredibly brave young men from Merseyside during the Great War and, contrary to popular myths, the officers were highly dedicated and led from the front, hence their high casualty rates. This is one of the many insights to be had from the McGuire Family's wartime letters which I am editing for the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.

31/03/2024

I am editing a volume for the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire - letters written by the McGuire Family of Wallasey during the Great War. Here is an extract from a letter written by Rhoda McGuire on 7 February 1916:

'Bess was telling us about a funny little girl she knows. This child is quite a caution – dances to the flowers in the garden, then makes them a bow and says “You liked it, flowers, didn’t you?” Not long ago her father lost a cheque and had the whole household searching for it. I suppose he was making a nice shindy about it – anyway they heard the child in her room praying that it might be found. It was found just as the little girl was coming downstairs. The father called out the news. They heard the child say “Oh! it is all right God. He’s found it.”'

The collection contains many little stories like this, as well as reflections on the war, its effects on local people and descriptions of the many local families who lost loved ones.

25/03/2024

There's still time to register for our public lecture on Wednesday (27 March): Martin Heale, 'Robin Hood in the Medieval and Early Modern North West', starting at 2pm, in Liverpool Central Library (Meeting Rooms 1-2).

ALL ARE WELCOME! The lecture will also be livestreamed via Zoom, for those who wish to join us online. To register, please contact Diana Dunn ([email protected]) in advance of the meeting, confirming whether you would like to attend in person or online.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested!

27/02/2024

The following events, organised by our friends at the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire, may be of interest.

Guest lecture (on-line) 21 February 2024
Dr Caroline Pudney, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Chester
‘In Search of Roman Rural Settlement’

The lecture was recorded and will soon be available via a link on the Historic Society’s website: hslc.org.uk

Lecture (on-line for non-members) Liverpool Atheneum, 20 March 2024.
Depending on the length of the AGM the lecture should start around 3pm.
Dr Paul Salveson, Visiting Professor, Universities of Bolton and Huddersfield
‘Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets: A landmark new history’

We will post a Zoom link for this lecture when it’s available

Mike Stammers Memorial Lecture – in person event - Maritime Museum, Royal
Albert Dock, Liverpool, 1 May 2024, 5.30pm
Tony Tibbles, author and Emeritus Keeper of Slavery History at National Museums, Liverpool
‘Liverpool’s Ship Portrait Artists’

15/02/2024

RSLC Public Lecture - all welcome!

At 2pm on Wednesday 27 March, in Liverpool Central Library (Meeting Rooms 1-2), we'll be holding our annual Colin Phillips Memorial Lecture. Professor Martin Heale will be speaking on 'Robin Hood in the Medieval and Early Modern North West'.

Martin Heale is Professor of Late Medieval and Reformation History at the University of Liverpool, and President of the Society. He has published widely on church and society in late medieval and sixteenth-century England. His recent work includes a chapter on piety and anticlericalism in the medieval Robin Hood stories, to be published later this year in a volume entitled _Historians on Robin Hood_, edited by Stephen H. Rigby.

ALL ARE WELCOME! The lecture will also be livestreamed via Zoom, for those who wish to join us online. To register, please contact Diana Dunn ([email protected]) in advance of the meeting, confirming whether you would like to attend in person or online.

Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested!

13/03/2023

RSLC Public Lecture - all welcome!

At 2pm on Wednesday 5 April, in the Liverpool Central Library (Meeting Rooms 1-2), we'll be holding our annual Colin Phillips Memorial Lecture. Dr Stephen Roberts will be speaking on “Welfare, Riot and Bereavement: The Great War through the Eyes of the McGuire Family of Wallasey, 1914-1919”.

Stephen Roberts has written books and articles about the history of Wirral, the North-West of England and about the Great War. He recently completed a PhD on Wirral in the Great War, and is engaged in editing the letters of the McGuire family of Wallasey for RSLC.

ALL ARE WELCOME! We will be livestreaming the talk via Zoom, if you would like to join us online. To register for this event, please contact Diana Dunn ([email protected]), providing your email address and confirming whether you would like to attend in person or online. The lecture directly follows our Annual General Meeting (1.45pm-2pm).

Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested!

23/01/2023

If you'd like to hear about our recent and upcoming activities, the latest RSLC newsletter is now available on our website: www.rslc.org.uk The newsletter includes an interview with Dr Jonathan Oates, whetting our appetite for his upcoming RSLC volume, "Prisoners of the Fifteen". There's also a fascinating piece by Dr Simon Harris about the Legh of Adlington archive, recently acquired by Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.

Please share with anyone you think would be interested!

14/07/2022

We’re delighted to announce the publication of our latest volume (RSLC 158): Loyalty and Levy. West Derby Hundred in Lancashire seen in the Succession Act Oath Roll of 1534 and the Lay Subsidy Returns of 1545, edited by Thomas Steel.

This edition contains two fascinating documents relating to the hundred of West Derby (which covered south-west Lancashire, including Liverpool, Warrington, Wigan and Ormskirk) in the reign of Henry VIII. The Succession Act of 1534 required every adult male in the kingdom to swear an oath acknowledging the legitimacy of the king’s recent marriage to Anne Boleyn (and any offspring it produced): and the recently-discovered roll for West Derby is apparently the only one to survive for the entire country! It is here edited alongside the 1545 lay subsidy record for West Derby, which provides details of every taxpayer in the hundred.

Together, these two records cast much new light on south-west Lancashire in the reign of Henry VIII. The edition also contains detailed introductions to both documents, and a topographical survey which draws together information about every parish and township in West Derby hundred in the mid-Tudor period.

For further information about this new volume, see: http://rslc.org.uk/blog/. A hardback copy (432 pages) can be purchased via our website for £35 + p&p: http://rslc.org.uk/purchase-a-publication/

Members of the Society receive the volume as part of their £20 annual subscription (£25 for overseas members). For details of how to join the society, and the benefits of doing so, see http://rslc.org.uk/membership/

07/04/2022

Colin Phillips Memorial Lecture, 13 April

We're really looking forward to hosting our first in-person public lecture since 2019 next week. If you're free, why not join us for Dr Alan Crosby's talk on 'Lancashire's Second Oldest Ghost Story', which offers a fascinating insight into Tudor culture and belief.

The talk will begin at around 2pm (directly after our short AGM) on Wednesday 13 April. You can attend either in person - in Lecture Theatre 1 of the Rendall Building, Bedford St South, University of Liverpool - or follow the livestreamed talk on Zoom. For the Zoom link, please contact our Membership Secretary, Diana Dunn, by emailing [email protected]

Everyone is welcome!

Directions and campus maps.

18/03/2022

RSLC Annual General Meeting and Public Lecture

We are pleased to confirm that the Record Society’s Annual General Meeting and Public Lecture will be held in Lecture Theatre 1 of the Rendall Building, Bedford St South, University of Liverpool on WEDNESDAY 13 APRIL 2022, beginning at 1.45pm. For a map of the University of Liverpool campus, see: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/maps/

The AGM is expected to last around 15 minutes, and will be followed at c.2.00pm by the 2nd Colin Phillips Memorial Lecture, to be delivered this year by Dr Alan G. Crosby on ‘Lancashire’s Second Oldest Ghost Story’. This story dates from the reign of Henry VIII, and so links well with the upcoming RSLC volume, 'Loyalty and Levy'.

Dr Alan G. Crosby is one of Britain’s leading local historians, and since 2001 has been editor of 'The Local Historian'. He has published extensively on many aspects of the history of North West England, and his 1991 Record Society volume, 'Benjamin Shaw’s Family Records', has become a standard text in the field of nineteenth-century working class autobiography.

We will be streaming the AGM and public lecture via Zoom, for anyone interested who is unable to attend in person. If you would like to join us online, the Zoom link for the meeting can be obtained from our Membership Secretary, Diana Dunn, by emailing [email protected]

Please feel free to circulate details of this free event to anyone who might be interested. All are welcome!

For more details about the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire and our activities, please see our website: www.rslc.org.uk

09/03/2022

The 2022 RSLC newsletter is now available on the front page of the Society's website: www.rslc.org.uk. This year's edition includes a summary of our recent activities, and details of our AGM and public lecture taking place on Wednesday 13 April (more information to follow). There are also interviews with Thomas Steel, who discusses his upcoming RSLC volume 'Loyalty and Levy', and with RSLC Council member Dr Peter Cotgreave. Finally, Sam Riley writes about his recent research into the 'Ugly Club', a mid eighteenth-century Liverpool drinking club.

Any feedback about our annual newsletter is very welcome!

07/01/2022

Christmas with Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby (1669-1737), part 3

The strangest Christmas entry in Nicholas Blundell’s diurnal records a curious happening on the Christmas Day of 1717. This indicates that ghostly visitations at Christmas were not confined to Charles Dickens’ imagination.

Blundell’s diary entry relates how Ellen Harrison (who acted as a ‘dry nurse’ to the family) ‘was lying in a Slumber between 6 & 7 of the Clock this Morning’ [Christmas Day], when ‘she felt some Body (as she thought) feeling about upon the Bedclothes’. At this, ‘she called out (thinking it was her Bed-fellow Ann Blundell who was gone in the Night to Mr Thomas Wofold to her Devotions) and said, “Nanny are you not almost Starved?”. “Yes”, answered something’.

Ellen then replied “Had it not been better for you to have gone this Christmas day to Confession to Mr Aldred than have gone so far this cold Night to Mr Wofold’s?”. Then ‘something answered with a Sigh and said “I would rather go to him than any Body”.’ Blundell’s entry proceeds: ‘Ellen not hearing her stir in the Room, nor hearing her go out, spoke again but nothing answered – which did something surprise her, knowing that Ann Blundell could not get into the House, the Doors being all Locked or Bolted; so Ellen got up & went down Stairs, found all the Doors fast as she had left them when she went to bed; and Ann Blundell came not Home till near nine of the Clock.’

Blundell then records that ‘This Account Ellen Harrison gave me this Morning who assures me there was no body in our Part of the House except herself and my Wife and I; she says also she took the Voice to be Ann Blundell’s’. He was clearly impressed by the story, since he concludes his entry: ‘What this means, I suppose time will show – for certainly it was something supernatural.’ Alternatively these strange happenings might perhaps be attributed to the after-effects of Nicholas Blundell’s Christmas Eve punch.

For the full text of The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, 1702-1728, edited by F. Tyrer and J. J. Bagley as RSLC volumes 110, 112 and 114, see: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (rslc.org.uk)

Image: Illustration by John Leach for "A Christmas Carol"

03/01/2022

Christmas with Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby (1669-1737), Part 2

The Blundell family Christmas did not consist wholly of festivities. A devout Catholic, Nicholas Blundell’s Christmas day generally included a religious dimension. In some years, he records that he passed the afternoon reading ‘a spiritual book’ in his closet. The entry for Christmas Day 1703 specifies his seasonal reading matter. He relates that: ‘I read much in “Quid me persequeris”’: an unpublished book, written by his grandfather William Blundell (the Cavalier), on the penal laws faced by Roman Catholics. In the 1720s, Nicholas often attended two masses on Christmas Day, one at night and the other at 10am in the morning.

From time to time, events caused the Blundells to pass a particularly solemn Christmas. The Yuletide of 1714 was a sad occasion, with the passing of family friend Mrs Molineux on 24 December. On Christmas Day, Blundell and his wife went to the Grange for her funeral, although they did not accompany the body to her final resting place in Sefton on account of needing to receive a visitor.

The Christmas of 1707 was also sombre, with Nicholas spending Christmas Day writing ‘some Letters to my Friends to Acquaint them with the Death of my Mother’. To this entry, he appends ‘Laurance Gilberson sang here very Long’ – intimating that this was an equally trying pastime.

For the full text of The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, 1702-1728, edited by F. Tyrer and J. J. Bagley as RSLC volumes 110, 112 and 114, see: rslc.org.uk/out-of-print-publications/

Image: Little Crosby Hall. The copyright on this image is owned by Neal Theasby and is licenses for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license

30/12/2021

Christmas with Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby (1669-1737), Part 1

The ‘great diurnal’, or diary, of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby – which runs from 1702 to 1728 – provides details of how this gentleman passed the Christmas season over a quarter of a century. Blundell’s entries frequently relate the festivities that accompanied this time of year. In the early eighteenth century, Christmas entertainments continued well into January – with Blundell still enjoying ‘Christmas fare’ and ‘Christmas cheer’ with local gentry and his tenants up to the middle of January. In many years the Blundells received visitors over Christmas, and they also enjoyed the hospitality of others: for instance, in 1704 they spent time with ‘Cousin’ Robert Scarisbrick of Scarisbrick Hall, where Nicholas played cards with fellow guests. This favoured leisure pursuit of Nicholas Blundell was not always successful. In March 1710, he accounted for 2s.6d. ‘Lost by me at Cards this Christmas’.

Nicholas Blundell’s preparations for Christmas often included a trip to Liverpool, to collect rents due from tenants, have a festive drink at the Woolpack, and do some Christmas shopping. In 1714, Blundell purchased some shoes for his wife and children, arranged for the setting of a stone in his wife’s ring, and purchased some ‘wine and drams’, spices, treacle and sugar, dried fruit, oil, capers and anchovies and 100lbs of beef.

By 1722, Blundell had inaugurated a new Christmas tradition: making punch on Christmas Eve. His recipe that year included ‘very small Birch Wine & very small Lime Juice’. He adds: ‘I Steeped the Pills of three Dozen of small Lemons in two Large Quarts of Brandy and put the Juice of them into one Large Quart of Brandy.’ By 1726, Blundell’s punch had become rather more plentiful and more potent, as he records: ‘I Began to make a Provision of Punch of seven Large Quarts of Brandy’.

For the full text of The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, 1702-1728, edited by F. Tyrer and J. J. Bagley as RSLC volumes 110, 112 and 114, see: rslc.org.uk/out-of-print-publications/

05/12/2021

The oath roll for the acknowledgement of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn (and their offspring), soon to be published as RSLC 158 (Loyalty and Levy), was to set a pattern for the early modern English state’s intrusion into daily life – in Lancashire and Cheshire, as elsewhere in the country. A later example was linked to the Test Act of 1673, which introduced mechanisms to prevent nonconformists and Roman Catholics from holding public office.

One of the provisions was that “persons who bear any offices or places of trust” under the Crown had to receive the sacrament of communion according to the rites of the Church of England. To prove that he had done so, each communicant had to return a certificate into court, signed by the minister who had officiated, one or more churchwardens of the parish, and two witnesses.

We have made available on the RSLC website an index listing 190 of these ‘sacrament certificates’ for the county of Cheshire, covering the period from July 1716 to April 1724. Men from a wide range of Cheshire parishes are here listed as certified communicants. This includes mayors, clergymen, army, excise, customs and salt officers. Around 40% of the men in this sample are described as knights, gentlemen or esquires, but others were of lower social status.

This sample were chosen for indexing because these certificates date from the years immediately following the 1715 Jacobite rising, a period of particular tension in the north-west. This also ties in with the upcoming 2022 RSLC volume: Prisoners of the Fifteen, which focuses on the prisoners taken at the battle of Preston in 1715.

For the index of the Cheshire sacrament certificates (1716-24) and accompanying introduction, see www.rslc.org.uk/publications

Image: an early eighteenth-century sacrament certificate