﻿Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlix. (1905), No. 15. 9 



friends. While living at Wrexham, William Wilkinson 

 and John Wilkinson were partners, but the two soon 

 quarrelled, and instead of adopting the ordinary methods 

 of settling difficulties between partners, William Wilkinson 

 collected a gang of men and proceeded to break up the 

 machinery at the Bersham ironworks. John promptly 

 followed suit, and in a very short time the famous Bers- 

 ham ironworks were wrecked, and were never worked 

 again by the Wilkinsons. Like his brother John, William 

 Wilkinson purchased estates in North Lancashire, and 

 eventually settled in Cartmel parish. There he dis- 

 tinguished himself by indicting the highways. The parish 

 authorities of Cartmel had maintained the highways with 

 a view rather to economy than efficiency, with the result 

 that in 1802, when William Wilkinson appeared on the 

 scene, they were mere cow lanes, and were much under 

 the statutory width. Wilkinson " indicted the roads " at 

 the Lancaster sessions in 1804, and after some legal delay 

 the defaulting townships were fined ,£2,100 for not repair- 

 ing two of the roads, and Mr. Wilkinson proceeded to 

 collect the fine at once. The legal proceedings about 

 these and other roads lasted until Mr. Wilkinson's death 

 in 1808, but the roads were improved. According to his 

 nephew, Mr. Stockdale, William Wilkinson " used to say 

 that he well knew how much he was disliked for indicting 

 the roads in Cartmel, but that the day would come when 

 all he had done in this respect would be approved of." 

 Mr. Stockdale adds, and I can confirm it, that " in this he 

 certainly predicted rightly." 



As a family the Wilkinsons were distinguished above 

 their competitors by their readiness to adopt new methods 

 whether of their own or of others' invention. Perhaps 

 Isaac Wilkinson was too ready to adopt new methods, 

 and shared the fate of many pioneers, but John Wilkinson, 



