Over Wyre People in Calder Vale in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

by Julia M Beeden

The village of Calder Vale, East of Garstang, (SD 54 533458) was created in 1835 by Richard and Jonathan Jackson, in the wooded ravine of the River Calder. spinning mill, Vale Mill, and houses for the workpeople. About twelve years later, a second mill, The first buildings were a cotton Low Mill, was built for cotton-weaving at Calder Vale, and consequently additional housing provided. Where did the new population of Calder Vale originate? The valley was virgin land before the settlement was created. Were the new workers from rural or urban backgrounds?

Census Surveys began for England and Wales in 1801 and continued, as now, every ten years, with the exception only of 1941 when the practice was discontinued temporarily because of the Second World War. From 1841 the Census Enumerator's Schedules show details of each household and are available to the general public after a one hundred year interval. The following is a demo- graphic study of Calder Vale, taken from the Census Surveys for 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871, with particular reference to the people whose places of birth are given as in the Over-Wyre area. At that time, Calder Vale West of the River Calder was in Barnacre Township and East of the river was in Catterall Detached Township, both of the Parish of Garstang.

A branch of the "Parkinsons of Lancashire" lived many hundreds of years in nearby Bleasdale (Lancaster Parish), so it is not surprising to find that surname still in the locality. Ann Parkinson, a widow of 57, who was born in Pilling in 1851, had a house on Long Row (Catterall). The family had lived some years in Pilling before being employed in Calder Vale spinning and weaving cotton. They were already there in 1841 and Ann was still living in 1861 but with only one son at home.

Ann's daughter Isabella had married Richard Pye from Wyresdale. Their family were living separately on Long Row in 1861 but had spent some time in Bleasdale where a daughter was born. By 1871 there is no record of either family.

Martha (or Margaret) Clarkson, aged 47, was also a widow living on Long Row in 1851. She had a family of ten children; she and several children had been born in Cockerham but the later ones were born in Lancaster and Garstang; this is an instance of the mobility of working-class families in the Nineteenth Century. The older children were cotton-spinning, the younger ones were scholars. Husband, James, a stone-mason, was living in 1841 and one son followed his father's trade. From 1835 to 1850, the period of building in Calder Vale and Oakenclough necessitated the employment of many stone-masons at the local gritstone quarries. The whole family may have left Calder Vale before 1861.

Margaret Ward, aged 55, was another widow living on Long Row in 1851. Born in Catterall, she had moved to Nateby where all her children were born. The family had been in Calder Vale in 1841 when all over 9 years old worked in the cotton-spinning mill. Margaret's son-in-law, John Hog(g)art(h) by 1851 had taken his own family to Dolphinholme (near Lancaster) where they lived for about ten years. Probably they had hoped to find work at the Dolphinholme cotton mills, for they seem to have returned to Calder Vale around the time when those mills closed: so John Hogarth's branch of the family was absent in 1861 but had returned to Calder Vale in time for the 1871 Census.

Robert Hardman, a husbandman or agricultural worker, aged 20, born in Winmarleigh, was living in Calder Vale, on Long Row, in 1851. He married Sarah Hudson, also 20, who was living on Long Row at least in 1841 where her family had moved from Eccleston (Great?). Sarah's father, William Hudson, in 1861 a widower of 74, had been in two decades agricultural labourer, cotton mixer, and clogger. Robert and Sarah had five children aged from 9 years to 1 month (1861) and a niece aged 5 living with them besides grandfather. They had one more child, Sarah Ellen, who died an infant in November 1863. Sarah had died in September 1863 aged only 32, and both mother and daughter were buried at the new Calder Vale Parish Church. Infant mortality was very high in the Nineteenth Century and many women died of childbirth or related causes despite improved medical knowledge.

Several households in Calder Vale consisted of siblings only - ie families without parents. One such was the Leach family on Long Row. Elizabeth Leach, in 1851 a cotton reeler of 23, was head of the household of Nancy (17), Margret (14), Isabelle (12), Matthew (10), born in Pilling and Mary (9) born in Halton (near Lancaster). The two youngest were scholars, the rest worked in the cotton spinning mill. Part of the family was there in 1841 but only Isabell(a) at 22 was there in 1861, the other girls having probably married.

Paul Whiteside, aged 52 in 1851, was a butcher born in Hambleton, where his wife, Barther (45), and daughter Mary (23), were also born. The family had lived in Great Eccleston then moved to Barnacre (c. 1842). A total of twelve persons were living in 1851 in one house on Long Box. One wonders if that family was related to Robert Whiteside, aged 41 in 1851. He lived in Calder Vale (Barnacre) and was employed as a cotton carter. He was born in Rawcliffe but his wife and some children were born in Higher Wyresdale. The family are found in Barnacre in 1861 and 1871, though an unmarried daughter Sarah, at 25, was recorded at Stirk Hey, above Long Row, in 1861 with her one-week old son Robert.

Though Calder Vale had been founded by the Quaker Jackson family, the only other members of the Society of Friends to be found there were the family of William Wilkinson in Barnacre in 1851. He was a watchman, aged 38, from Caton near Lancaster; his wife, Mary Ann (29), was born in Pilling. The family lived at Leek in Staffordshire for many years before coming to Calder Vale. In 1871, William is found at Stirk Hey, a farmer of eight acres. From their large number of children born, but not necessarily surviving infancy, and the difference in their ages, it appears that William had married twice.

The Fairclough family, Richard (45), a carter, and Jennet (44), appeared only is 1851. They and several children were born in Preesall, then Barnacre. The Croft family was also found in Calder Vale only in 1851: George (46), a farm labourer from Stalmine, his wife Ann (35), from Pilling and children born in Stalmine, Preesall, Fleetwood and Barnacre. The son George, aged 6 in 1851, must have been born in Fleetwood in 1845, 10 years after its foundation. Henry Parkinson (23), a farm labourer from Ellel and his wife, Margaret (23), from Preesall are also found in Calder Vale in 1851. At the time of the Census, their son John was only 2 days old and Henry's sister Betcy (30), also born in Ellel, was visiting, presumably to help with the confinement of her sister-in-law and the new infant.

Elijah Howarth lived in Calder Vale in 1851, 1861 and 1871. Aged 44 in 1851, a farm labourer, he was born in Stalmine and his wife Sarah (37), in Singleton. This family also lived several years in Stalmine before coming to Calder Vale where other children were bars the older ones finding work either spinning or weaving cotton. Among other families who came for work, John Jackson of Upper Rawcliffe and his wife Jane from Pilling had an agricultural background. Although they had lived in Upper Rawcliffe, Kirkland, Catterall and then Barnacre, they were still found in Calder Vale some ten years later, 1851 and 1861.

Most of the people in Calder Vale in the mid-Nineteenth Century came from the Lancashire Plain, within a fifteen-mile radius; a large proportion being from the Over-Wyre area of the Fylde. They were not from industrial families; most came from agricultural backgrounds. Often families came in part, leaving others with the same surnames in the villages and hamlets they had deserted for an expected better standard of living. Some of the family groupings in Calder Vale were young people, related as brothers and sisters. A large number were families headed by a widowed mother. The population consisted of many more females than males at that time. Most of these women and girls found work in the mills.

What makes the people of Calder Vale seem different from those down on the Fylde? It is not that they have mainly come from East Lancashire industrial towns, for many have been shown to have descended from families then living in Over-Wyre. Although they have become "industrialised", perhaps their agricultural backgrounds show in the care that many have always taken in their gardens. A separate identity has probably developed from the geographical isolation of the village. Much inter-marriage took place at an early stage; the Parish Registers of the Church of St John Evangelist, Calder Vale record out of a total of 81 marriages, between 1964 and 1980, 28 where both parties were from Calder Vale, 3 where both were from nearly Oakenclough - and 1 where one party came from Calder Vale and one from Oakenclough. Several others found their partners in Barnacre, Bleasdale or Catterall nearby; and these refer only to the Anglican marriages. These factors may have made the people of Calder Vale seem different on the surface but they are still very much a part of this area of Lancashire in their kindness and friendliness.

Footnotes

Further information concerning the History of Calder Vale may be found in my articles (IX) and (X) contained in Volume 8 of Contrebis (1980), published jointly by Lancaster Archaeological Society and the Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Lancaster.

For the above articles and the present one, I should like to express my thanks to all the people, past and present, of Calder Vale and Oakenclough, without whose kind co-operation and encouragement no history could have been written.

I shall be pleased to furnish any further details, on the Nineteenth Century people of Calder Vale and Oakenclough, to anyone wishing to trace their ancestors. Similarly, I shall be pleased to have any further information on the area and in particular on the people of Calder Vale and Oakenclough both then and now.