A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



established in the i8th century. 15 The first calico 

 printer occurs in lj6^. K A sugar refinery existed in 

 I758. 17 There was a silk weaver in the town in 

 1637." A tobacco-pipe maker in Todd Lane was 

 in 1785 ordered to remove his works, as being a 

 nuisance. 19 Manchester is the centre of the cotton 

 manufacture, with its immense number of factories, 

 bleach and dye works, and calico-printing works ; 

 smallwares continue to be an important part of the 

 trade of the district, while iron foundries, engine and 

 machine and tool-making works are numerous and 

 important. Some of these factories and works are 

 within the township of Manchester itself along the 

 rivers and canals and in Ancoats, but the distinguish- 

 ing feature is the large number of great warehouses 

 for the exhibition and storing of the manifold pro- 

 ducts of the district. 



The history of the barony of Man- 

 B4RONT chester from its foundation in the early 



part of the I2th century until its 

 gradual dissolution in the I7th has been related in 

 detail in an earlier portion of the present work.* 



Before the Conquest MANCHESTER 



MANOR was one of the dependencies of the royal 



manor of Salford.* 1 Its position in 1086 



is not quite clear, but shortly after, as the head of 

 the barony, 2 * it came into the possession of the 

 Grelley family." Descending in the male line till 

 1311, it passed on the death of Thomas Grelley to 

 his sister Joan and her husband John La Warre.* 4 



GRELLEY. Or three 

 bendlets enhanced gulet. 



DE LA WARRE. Gulet 

 a lion rampant bet-ween 

 eight cross-crossletsjitchy 

 argent. 



For over a century it continued in this family, but 

 in 1426, on the death of Thomas, Lord La Warre, 

 became by his dispositions the property of his 

 nephew Sir Reginald West, son of Thomas's half- 

 sister Joan la Warre by her husband Sir Thomas, 

 third Lord West. 85 The manor and its dependencies 



15 Procter, Manch, Streets, 44 ; the pro- 

 prietor, John Fletcher, died in 1785. 



18 William Jordan ; see Pal. Note Bk. 

 iv, 140. 



1 " Manch. Constables' Accts. iii, 92. 



18 Manch. Ct. Leet Rec. iii, 260. 



19 Ibid, viii, 247. 



80 V.C.H. Lanes, i, 326-34. The court 

 leet records show that as late as 1734 the 

 constables of townships within the ancient 

 barony were summoned to attend at Man- 

 chester, but they paid no attention to the 

 summons ; Manch. Ct. Leet Rec. vii, 25, 

 27. The practice of summoning the 

 constables appears to have begun about 

 1625 (ibid, iii, 99), perhaps in consequence 

 of the claims of the Salford Court for the 

 attendance of the constables of Man- 

 chester ; ibid, iv, 126, and a note below. 



81 In the present account advantage 

 has been taken of Prof. James Tail's 

 study of the barony, manor, and borough 

 in his Mediaeval Manch. published in 

 1904. 



22 The 'manor' in the narrowest sense 

 included the townships of Manchester, 

 Harpurhey, Blackley, Bradford, and Bes- 

 wick. At Blackley was the lord's deer- 

 park ; at Bradford was a wood, and 

 another wood was at Alport (within Man- 

 chester). The manor was usually under- 

 stood in a wider sense, the extent of 

 1322 mentioning seven or eight hamlets 

 Ardwick, Openshaw (Gorton), Crumpsall, 

 Moston, Nuthurst, Ancoats, and Gothers- 

 wick ; Mamecestre (Chet. Soc.), ii, 371. 



23 The extent of the manor made in 

 1282, soon after the death of Robert 

 Grelley, gives an account of the manor- 

 house of Manchester with its orchard, 

 the small park called Aldparc and 

 Litheak, the park of Blakeley with its 

 trees and eyries of sparrowhawks, plats 

 of demesne land at Bradford, Brunhiil, 

 Greenlawmon, Openshaw Cross, the 

 Hules, Kepirfield, Millward Croft, Sam- 

 land, and Kipirclip ; rents from Denton 

 and Farnworth, from the water-mill,fulling 

 mill, and oven of Manchester, from the 

 burgages, market, and fair there, from the 

 ploughings near the vill, from Openshaw, 

 the bondsmen of Gorton, the Hall land 

 and mill of the same place, the bondsmen 



of Ardwick, a plat called Twantirford, 

 and the bondsmen of Crumpsall ; from 

 the free foreign tenants, sake fee and 

 castle guard, farm of the bailiwicks (five 

 foot bailiffs), perquisites of the borough 

 court and of the manor court, and the 

 value of the Withington ploughing. Of 

 all these the value was 84 121. 6J</., the 

 corn-mill alone paying more than one- 

 fifth, and the burgage rents and market 

 and fair tolls nearly one-sixth. In addi- 

 tion the lord of Manchester drew revenues 

 from Heaton Norris, Barton, Cuerdley, 

 and Horwich Forest. The clear annual 

 value of the whole was 1 24 us. %\d. ; 

 Lanes. Inqs. and Extents (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), i, 244-48. 



84 Though Thomas Grelley was styled 

 lord of Manchester till his death, he had 

 in 1309 transferred to Sir John La Warre 

 and Joan his wife the manor of Man- 

 chester with its appurtenances, the advow- 

 sons of the churches of Manchester and 

 Ashton, all homages, rents, fisheries, 

 chases, liberties, &c., at a rent of 100 

 marks to Thomas during his life ; Mame- 

 cestre, ii, 248-52. 



An elaborate extent made in 1320-2 

 has been preserved. It gives the bounds of 

 the lordship of Manchester, showing that it 

 included the whole of the parishes of 

 Manchester and Ashton except Salford, 

 with its dependencies of Broughton and 

 Cheetham ; Reddish, Stretford, and Traf- 

 ford. It is noticeable that the small 

 portion of Manchester which projects 

 into Cheetham north of the Irk was then 

 within the manor ; the present North 

 Street seems to be that called the Causey. 



The manor-house and appurtenant land 

 occupied about two acres ; outside the 

 gate was a house formerly a dog-kennel, 

 and beyond the stable wall was a plot of 

 pasture bounded by the Irk and the 

 Irwell. There were a mill by the Irk at 

 which the tenants of the vill and adjacent 

 hamlets were bound to grind their corn to 

 the sixteenth measure ; a common oven ; 

 and a walk-mill. The fisheries were 

 those of the Irk, Medlock, and Gore- 

 brook, and half of the Irwell. 



The free tenants within Manchester 

 were John Bibby, Robert son of Hugh, 



230 



Adam de Radcliffe, and Richard son of 

 Clement,holding in all 16 acres of land. 



Full details are given of the arable land 

 (being seventy-one oxgangs), heath land, 

 meadow, and pasture ; also the woods, 

 moors, and mosses, mostly situated in the 

 surrounding hamlets. 



The lord had ten villeins in Ardwick, 

 Gorton, and Crumpsall ; none in Man- 

 chester itself, where the burgesses were 

 relieved of agricultural services. In addi- 

 tion to money rents the villeins had to do 

 a day's ploughing on the lord's demesne 

 with their own ploughs, a day's harrow- 

 ing, a day's reaping in autumn, and a 

 day's carrying of corn in their own carts j 

 they had also to carry mill-stones, when 

 needed, from the quarry to the mill. At 

 death the lord had a right to a third of the 

 villein's goods, and in certain cases took a 

 fine on the marriage of a daughter. Cus- 

 tomary services were also required from 

 the tenants of Withington, though this 

 was a distinct manor. 



The manor was held of the Earl of 

 Lancaster by five- and-a-quarter knights' 

 fees, paying ^4 zs. 6d. for sake fee and 

 z 1 2s. 6d. for ward of Lancaster Castle ; 

 suit to the county and wapentake courts- 

 had to be compounded for by fines of zos. 

 and 131. 4</. The Manchester court 

 baron, held from three weeks to three 

 weeks, was attended by judges from Child- 

 wall, Harwood, Pilkington, and the other 

 subordinate manors of the fee ; the lord 

 claimed toll, team, infangenthief and out- 

 fangenthief ; and ' be it known that the 

 pleas there are impleaded according to the 

 custom nearest to the common law.' 



The value of the whole barony to the 

 lord seems to have been about ^440 a 

 year ; Mamecestre, ii, 273421. 



The liberties of the manor (or barony) 

 were in 1359 declared to include, besides 

 infangenthief, peace-breach, &c., those of 

 the gallows, pit, pillory, and tumbril ; ibid, 

 iii, 449. 



25 Among the lands of Thomas La 

 Warre were Hall field and Hardecroft, 

 specially settled in 1411 ; also John de 

 Hulton's Field and Ingelfield, the bounds- 

 of which began at Barlow Cross in the 

 highway from Manchester to Stanedge, 



