A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



tolls were purchased by the local board in i8;'6 from 

 Lord Derby for ^{^i.ooo.' By the Act of i S94 the 

 board became an urban district council ; the town is 

 divided into four wards,' each electing three members. 

 The council owns the water supply, but gas is supplied 

 by a private company established in 1833. 



The West Lancashire Rural District Council meets 

 at Ormskirk. 



While the crown held the manor disputes arose as 

 to the rights of the mills.' 



Court rolls of the manor have been preserved for 

 the period during which the manor was vested in the 

 crown ; the courts seem to have been held in conjunc- 

 tion with those of Burscough.* There are other court 

 rolls at Knowsley. 



The following, as ' Papists,' registered estates here 

 in 1717 : Thomas Bradshaw, maltster; Hugh Bull- 

 ing, of Lathom ; Edward Spencer, of Scarisbrick, and 

 Lawrence Wilson.' 



The parish church has already been described. 



The Wesleyan Methodists built a chapel in 18 10 

 in Chapel Street, but in 1878 removed to the new 

 Emmanuel Church, near the railway station.' 



In connexion with the Congregationalists the 

 Itinerant Society of Ministers began preaching here in 

 1801. The services were not continuous. In 1826 

 part of a silk factory in Burscough Street was secured 

 for a chapel, and a church was formed two years later. 

 In 1834 the present church was built in Chapel Street, 

 but the cause has never been very prosperous.' 



The Presbyterian meeting-place had its origin in 



the ministrations of the ejected vicar of 1662. In 

 1689 his son and successor, Nathaniel Heywood, used 

 Bury's house in Ormskirk as a meeting-place.' A 

 chapel was built in 1696 in Chapel Street.' In 1755 

 the income of a sum oi £10 w.is to be devoted to the 

 benefit of the minister who should officiate at the 

 chapel or meeting-house at Ormskirk ; it seems to 

 have been bequeathed by Alice Lawton. Henr)- 

 Holland, in 1776, left ^100 as an endowment for 

 the Protestant Dissenting minister officiating in 

 Ormskirk. A few years later (1783) land was acquired 

 in Aughton Street on a 999 years' lease, and more in 

 subsequent years, on which a minister's house was 

 erected fronting the street, with a chapel and chapel- 

 yard behind, ' for religious worship for Protestant 

 Dissenters, usually nominated Presbyterians.' '" Trus- 

 tees were from time to time appointed, the last in 

 1881 ; and in 1890 they applied to the Charity Com- 

 missioners for power to sell the chapel and house, 

 stating that these had been entirely disused for four 

 years," and that for thirty years there had been no 

 congregation, the Unitarian body being practically 

 extinct in Ormskirk and district." 



The adherents of the Roman Catholic Church have 

 always been numerous, and in the times of persecution 

 would be able to worship at some of the neighbouring 

 mansions, as Scarisbrick and Moor Hall." A house in 

 Aughton Street, next to the Brewer's Arms, was known 

 as the ' Mass House.' '* The use of it probably 

 continued until the chapel in Aughton was built, a 

 short distance outside the Ormskirk boundary."" 



with brass spears, 1798. (4) Two spears 

 with brass spikes. The constable used to 

 have a special seat in the church ; on the 

 back was carved * The constable's seat, 

 1 688.' Ibid. 10. 



* Lea, op. cit. 7. 



* Aughton, Knowsley, Lathom, and 

 Scarisbrick. 



* Thomas Such, who farmed them, com- 

 plained early in the reign of Elizabeth that 

 certain of the inhabitants of Ormskirk 

 had recently taken their corn to other 

 mills, at the persuasion or command of 

 Edward Scarisbrick and Gabriel Hesketh, 

 lords of adjacent manors. These in reply 

 stated that besides the queen's mill, tailed 

 Greetby Mill, she had another adjacent 

 called Our Lady's Mill, in the tenure of 

 Sir George Stanley of Cross Hall ; there 

 were others called Whinbreck Mill, Cross 

 Hall Mill, and Bradshaw Mill, of which 

 Ormskirk people had been accustomed to 

 make use. There were complaints against 

 the miller that the corn was not so well 

 ground by him and that he took, or lost, an 

 excessive proportion of the flour ; Duchy 

 of Lane. Pleadings, Eliz. Ixxiv ^ S.19. It 

 appears from the document next quoted 

 that Greetby Mill was in a ruinous state. 



It was perhaps to remove these and 

 other objections that Thomas Such built 

 a new mill at the Knoll ; but in 1567, he 

 had again to complain of withdrawal of 

 custom; ibid. Ixxiv, n. 26. In 1591 he 

 once more drew attention to his grievances. 

 Richard Fletcher, 'a great occupier of 

 malt and seller and utterer of a great 

 quantity of ground malt and meal,' had 

 erected a horse-mill of his own and with- 

 drawn his custom. In answer it was 

 stated that the existing mills were quite 

 inadequate for the people, some having to 

 use hand-mills, while others took their 

 corn to water-mills seven or eight miles 

 off; ibid, clix, ^. I. 



The dissatisfaction on both sides con- 



tinued, and in 1598 Lawrence Ireland 

 and others, having erected a water-mill 

 and a windmill in Aughton, close to the 

 border of Ormskirk, were accused of per- 

 suading the people of this place that there 

 was no obligation on them to have their 

 corn ground at the old mills ; in this way 

 they had induced a number of Ormskirk 

 people to use the new mills, as more 

 conveniently placed. The royal farmer 

 (Roger Sankey) consequently obtained an 

 injunction forbidding Lawrence Ireland 

 and his partners from receiving and grind- 

 ing any corn from the tenants of Orms- 

 kirk ; ibid, clxxix, A.25 ; clxxxvii, A. 43 ; 

 Duchy of Lane. Decrees and Orders, 

 Eliz. xxii, fol. 287, 301, 361. The land 

 in Aughton on which the new mills were 

 built had been the property of Robert 

 Bootle, from whom Lawrence Ireland 

 bought it. The latter in his defence 

 mentioned Tawd Mill among others. 



■■ Duchy of Lane. Ct. R. bdle. 79, 

 nn. 1060 to 1070; from 29 Hen. VIII 

 to 42 Eliz. It was the duty of the tenant 

 of a house to repair the pavement up to 

 the middle of the street. In 1539 it was 

 ordered that 'no tenant shall dig flae 

 turves for more than two days on Orms- 

 kirk moss under pain of 6i. %d.^ (n. 1061). 

 In 1 545 the inhabitants were ordered to 

 repair their pavement * next the Lyde- 

 yate' (n. 1064). In 1549 it was com- 

 manded that Thomas Hesketh, 'commonly 

 called the Bell man,' was to clean the 

 marketplace once in each week (n. 1066). 



° Estcourt and Payne, Engl. Cath. Non- 

 jurors, 109, 126, 127. Wilson appears at 

 Altcar also. 



® Lea, op. cit. 19. 



' Nightingale, Lanes. Nonconf. iv, 198, 

 &c. 



s KenyonMSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 231 ; 

 O. Heywood's Diaries, i, 38 ; iv, 30S. 



' Nightingale, op. cit. iv, 187. 



'" The first minister was a Calvinist, the 



264 



second an Arminian, the later ones (three) 

 Unitarians ; Lea, op. cit. 20. 



" Henry Fogg, the last minister, died 

 in 1886. He had been there for sixtj- 

 two years ; ibid. 



^•^ End. Char. Rep. 1899 (Ormskirk), 

 54. The property was sold for^4oo, and 

 the trustees hold a further ;f 300. The 

 income is given to the Liverpool Dist. 

 Miss. Assoc. 



" The following entry occurs in the 

 Ormskirk Reg. 30 September, 161 3, 

 against the burial of Katherine Jump, 

 widow : ' Note, that she was a recusant, 

 and buried without consent of the vicar.' 

 In 1626 there were 1 1 1 recusants or non- 

 communicants resident in the parish ; Lay 

 Subs. Lanes, bdle. 131, «. 318. The roll 

 of 1641 records a number of recusants 

 living in Ormskirk ; Trans. Hist. Soc. 

 (New Sen), xiv, 233. In the return for 

 1767 at the Chest. Dioc. Reg. the number 

 of ' Papists ' in the whole parish is shown 

 to have increased from 358 in 1717 to 

 1086 ; but only two resident priests are 

 named — at Scarisbrick and Lathom; Tram. 

 Hist. Soc. (New Ser.), xviii, 215. 



" Lea, op. cit. 9. It had been the resi- 

 dence of John Entwistle. There is a 

 Latin inscription on the gable. ' I am 

 told by one of the oldest Protestant 

 tradesmen that when he was a boy he 

 remembered a big room at the top of the 

 house with "strange arrangements"; but 

 he had never heard that it had been a 

 place of Catholic worship, or that it was 

 called a Mass house ' ; Abbot O'Neill, 

 O.S.B. of Aughton. In 1701 the Jesuit 

 Fr. Gillibrand is said to have 'helped ' at 

 Ormskirk ; Foley's Ree. S. J. v, 320. 



^' See the account of Aughton. Dr. 

 John Fletcher, born at Ormskirk, was a 

 professor at St. Omcr's when the French 

 Revolution broke out, and suffered im- 

 prisonment for some years ; Gillow, Bibi, 

 Diet, of Engl. Cath. ii, 298. 



