CONTENTS
TOC \o "1-3" \h \z
FRANK DAWSON - Brief CV..
PAGEREF _Toc198452038 \h 1
FOREWORD..
PAGEREF _Toc198452039 \h 2
SYNOPSIS.
PAGEREF _Toc198452040 \h 3
ILLUSTRATIONS WISHLIST..
PAGEREF _Toc198452041 \h 7
Chapter 1 - BEGINNINGS.
PAGEREF _Toc198452042 \h 9
Chapter 2 - WILSON HOUSE..
PAGEREF _Toc198452043 \h 17
Chapter 3 - BERSHAM - A NEW BEGINNING.
PAGEREF _Toc198452044 \h 21
Chapter 4 - WEALTH AND ACCLAIM.
PAGEREF _Toc198452045 \h 30
Chapter 5 - THE NEW STEAM ENGINE..
PAGEREF _Toc198452046 \h 38
Chapter 6 – THE IRON BRIDGE..
PAGEREF _Toc198452047 \h 48
Chapter 7 – THE NORTHERN SANCTUARY..
PAGEREF _Toc198452048 \h 56
Chapter 8 - DAUGHTER MARY..
PAGEREF _Toc198452049 \h 68
Chapter 9 – BROTHER WILLIAM AND FRANCE..
PAGEREF _Toc198452050 \h 80
Chapter 10 - DISAGREEMENT, DISPUTE AND LITIGATION.
PAGEREF _Toc198452051 \h 87
Chapter 11 – QUEST FOR AN HEIR..
PAGEREF _Toc198452052 \h 101
Chapter 12 – POSTHUMOUS RUMBLINGS.
PAGEREF _Toc198452053 \h 107
REFERENCES.
PAGEREF _Toc198452054 \h 119
In 1978, with an Arts degree from the Open University,
a Diploma in Education from the University of Leeds and 20 years teaching
experience in this country and Africa, Frank Dawson went to live and work at
Castle Head, the C18th home of John Wilkinson, the Ironmaster. He and a
group of friends had acquired the property to establish there a private
short-stay residential field centre for studies by teenage students and
adults. At the start he knew nothing of the Wilkinsons, but folk memories
of their activities in the area led to documentary research into their lives
and fortunes, and then to short study courses and field excursions which he
taught and directed. Annually for 12 years he gave a public lecture on some
aspect of their lives at Castle Head Field Centre. He retired in 1997 when
the field centre became part of the Field Studies Council, since when he has
linked together into a continuous story of their lives further evidence
gathered from private and public archives up and down the country.
John Wilkinson was the important third man in the firm
of Boulton & Watt, though he was never a properly constituted business
partner. His acknowledged iron-making expertise and his engineering skills
complemented James Watt's inventive genius and Matthew Boulton's
entrepreneurial flair. He made the iron parts for the early Watt steam
engines, suggested working modifications, promoted sales and organised
transport. In ten years from 1775 the three men were central figures in the
changing industrial world.
Within this backdrop documentary sources reveal a
Wilkinson family drama on an epic scale; a father with a touch of genius;
bitter quarrels between father and sons; the loss of beloved women in the
uncertainties of childbirth; and a family in constant business dealings with
the personalities and events of the Industrial Revolution - the Darbys of
Coalbrookdale and Richard Reynolds, Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestley who
married a Wilkinson and Samuel More of the Royal Society, John Wilkinson's
lifelong friend.
Power relationships are closely examined in the
building of the great Iron Bridge over the Severn, for the litigation
involving Watt's patent, for some early industrial espionage involving the
manufacture of cannon for the British Navy and the Wilkinsons' contact with
France when she was at war with England.
Everyone has heard of Boulton and Watt. Few know of
John Wilkinson's importance in their story and no detailed and documented
biography has yet explained it. He created a vast industrial empire but had
no son to inherit it and his need of an heir led to a reputation in his old
age as a womaniser and lecher. He quarrelled with his partners, his family
and many of his friends. He became an embarrassment to the established
conventions of the time, consorted openly with a mistress, had three
children by her in his seventies, left his vast empire to them only to have
it consumed by litigation, was ostracised and ultimately ignored.
"Iron-mad Wilkinson" his contemporaries dubbed him and
as Iron-mad Wilkinson he became a disparaged figure of fun in history. It
is a sobriquet at once patronising and dismissive. John Wilkinson rose from
humble beginnings to become a giant of his time, and he deserves better than
that.
1 Beginnings - 1720s to 1740s
Isaac Wilkinson's origins in the north. The Little
Clifton furnace in Cumberland. Birth of John. Isaac at the Backbarrow
Furnace 1735-1748. His terms of employment. His imagination and flair --
experimentation and patents. His marketing awareness. Improved Box
Smoothing Irons, and First Iron Bellows. His sons, John and Henry - growing
up, education, school - and his later children. John's schooling at Kendal.
Isaac's restlessness and deteriorating relationship with the Backbarrow
Company. His friendship with Wm Rawlinson. His position as a Dissenter
examined.
2 At Wilson House in Lancashire I740s tol750s.
John discovers Castle Head hill. Isaac establishes his
own iron furnace. His improved agricultural implements, and patents. His
rise from pot-founder to gentleman. John apprenticed in Liverpool; becomes a
merchant at Kirkby Lonsdale. His wooing of Ann Mawsley and subsequent
marriage into the landed gentry. Birth of John's daughter, Mary. The
Wilkinsons move to Bersham near Wrexham
3 Bersham; a new Beginning 1750s to 1760s
Links with the Darbys. Isaac leases Bersham Furnace.
The death of Henry. The death of John's young wife, Ann. His desolation.
His daughter fostered. His friendship with Samuel More begins. The iron
bellows again. William to Joseph Priestley's Dissenting Academy at
Nantwich. Priestley's background. Joseph Priestley marries Isaac's
daughter, Mary. Isaac and John draw apart. John's bid against the Darbys
for the Coalbrookdale Furnace lease. John's beginnings as Ironmaker in his
own right. The New Willey Company, and the Moreton Forge. His partners.
His association with Edward Blakeway begins. William leaves school and
starts work at Bersham Furnace under Isaac and John. Isaac leaves Bersham
for South Wales. His purpose and aspirations. The New Bersham Company
formed by his sons John and William. John marries Mary Lee and establishes
his Broseley Headquarters. His daughter Mary comes home.
4 Wealth and Acclaim 1765 - 1776
Wars and cannon production. John's search for
investment capital. First contact with Matthew Boulton. His growing
reputation. Samuel More promotes his products. John's Broseley home and
HQ. His womenfolk. Purchase of Bilston estate in Bradley, North
Birmingham. Association with Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. Continued friction
between Isaac, and John. New Bersham Co. begins to market improved iron
blowing engines. Isaac's ruinous litigation with colliers in South Wales.
His last years in Bristol. Evidence of John's continuing links to Castle
Head in Westmoreland. Importance of the brothers as lronmasters -William at
Bersham, John at New Willey and Bradley. John's improved method of cannon
production. Visit to Bersham of Frenchman, Marchant de la Houliere. His
description of Bersham Ironworks. His failure to persuade John to go to
France. Discussion of his successful recruitment of William. Importance of
John's new cannon-boring lathe in producing cylinders for James Watt's new
Steam Engine.
5 The New Steam Engine 1776 - 1781
James Watt. His background. His invention. John
Roebuck's financial support. First experimental working engine with Carron
Ironworks cylinder. Watt's first Patent. Roebuck's bankruptcy. Matthew
Boulton buys out his interest in Watt's engine. Watt's contact with the
Lunar Society of Birmingham. Death of his wife. His financial distress.
His move to Birmingham with experimental engine. Boulton urgent for
extension of Engine Patent. Watt obtains Act Patent in Parliament, with
sweeping protection for 25 years. Watt's uncertainties and fears. Need of a
better cylinder leads him to John Wilkinson. Delays in Partnership
Contract between Watt and Boulton. Watt re-marries. The first two working
engines. Watt's anxieties. Wilkinson's confidence and re-assurance. Family
pressures on Watt, and Wilkinson. Wilkinson's daughter Mary growing up.
Her first love. Boulton's insistence on Engine Contract with customers
delays orders. Wilkinson's impatience. First engines to Cornwall. Boulton
declines to accept Wilkinson into engine partnership. Visit of Samuel More
to Birmingham to see New Engine and proposals for Iron Bridge. Evidence of
close and continuing friendship between More and Wilkinson. William
Wilkinson leaves for France.
6 The Iron Bridge 1770s
John Wilkinson's early involvement. His friend, Thomas
Farnolls Pritchard, the Bridge architect. Abraham Darby (III) is
Treasurer. The petition to the House of Commons. The Subscribers, and
initial funding. Wilkinson urgent to build in iron but no spare capacity in
his works. Early differences of opinion. Darby anxious about costs and
backs off. Wilkinson keeps up pressure to build in iron. Position of Darby
and Wilkinson compared. A clever manipulation of shareholdings keeps
pressure on Darby. Division among Shareholders, and subtle manoeuvrings.
Darby finally commits himself to build in iron, and to a deadline. Generous
support of his commitment from all shareholders. Wilkinson backs off.
Bridge completed, though not to schedule, but no compensation sought from
Darby by Shareholders. Method of bridge construction - some recent
evidence. Cost of Bridge. Tolls. Payments to Shareholders. Glimpses of
Cl8th life around bridge.
7 The Northern Sanctuary 1780s
Location. Experiments at Wilson House, his temporary
centre of operations. His womenfolk join him there. His restlessness. A
new project--his Castle Head mansion. Land purchases to secure position and
aspect. The Wilkinson Sea Bank. Wilkinson's enthusiasm. His purchase of
Castle Head Hill itself. His business world intrudes. Difficulties of
securing shipping to transport his iron goods. Purchases ship, and invests
in others. Difficulties of Passports for, and transport to, France in
business promoted by brother William. Building of Castle Head mansion
continues. James Stockdale of Cark his agent for further land purchases and
local supplies. Wilkinson's landscaping of his hill and his plan for a New
Steam Engine there. His agricultural activities. His Bell Tower. Samuel
More's description of early Castle Head building activities. Evidence of
effect on More and Wilkinson of power of landscape. More's account of
crossing The Sands by chaise. More's assessment of Wilkinson. Their
deepening friendship. Daughter Mary's response to Castle Head.
8 Daughter Mary 1756-1786
Her birth, and foster parents. Childhood in Broseley.
Relationship with her stepmother, Mary lee, and family. Her education
discussed. Her first love and some implications. Relationship with her
father in early womanhood. Her introduction to Castle Head. Evidence of her
restlessness among a wide circle of friends. Distances herself from her
father. Death of her grandmother and her subsequent inheritance.
Accompanies her father and uncle (William) to the continent. Father
returns. Mary and William continue travels through France and Italy for
next 6 months. Her return. Homecoming parties. Her second love, Theophilus
Holbrook, a young cleric and friend of Richard Reynolds. Reynolds' Wrekin
picnic. Evidence of Wilkinson's disapproval of Mary's new liaison.
Increasing division between them. Mary uses grandmother's inheritance as
dowry in marriage to Holbrook. Supported by Richard Reynolds, not her
father. Mary's pregnancy, and death. Effect on father's attitude to work
and friends. The significance in this context of Wilkinson's iron boat.
9 Brother William and France 1770s to 1780s
Brothers or Stepbrothers -- John and William
Wilkinson's kinship examined. William's childhood and teenage years. His
schooling. His apprenticeship at Bersham under Isaac and John. His
management of the works, and partnership. Isaac's position in the old
Bersham Company. His dispute with his nephew and fellow shareholder,
William Johnston. John Wilkinson's early years at Bersham. Acquires Mary
Lee's shares in old Bersham Company through marriage. His relationship with
William Johnston. William Wilkinson's pre-occupation with learning
iron-making skills at Bersham. His contact with Marchant de la Houliere and
his move to France. The French contract. His salary and status. Extent of
John's involvement in negotiations. William's construction of the Indret
Cannon Foundry. His French friendships. His assistance in .John's
successful tender for iron pipework for new Paris water supply. Was William
a spy? Were the Wilkinsons traitors? William's second French contract-
Louis XVI's New Cannon Foundry at Le Creusot. His detailed report to French
Govt. The approaching Revolution and William's reputation in France. His
attitude on returning to England. He claims his Bersham partnership dues.
The beginnings of his quarrel with John.
10 Disagreement, Dispute and Decline 1790s
John Wilkinson purchases Hadley estate (1791) and
Brymbo estate (1792). Bersham dispute with brother William escalates.
Difficult role of Gilbert Gilpin, Clerk of Works at Bersham. His attempts
to reconcile. Williams's Bill of Complaint to Chancery. John's reply.
Evidence of his concern and attempts to frustrate process. Brothers agree
to arbitrate. The Arbitrators and the Award. Observations from Gilbert
Gilpin, and Joseph Priestley in America. Post-Arbitration events. Bersham
to be sold. John closes works prior to sale. William purchases Bersham.
His attempts to poison relations between Boulton & Watt and his brother.
John anxious to retain their goodwill. An examination of their positions.
The Pirate Engine disputes and litigation, particularly the Cark Pirate
engine. Relations between Boulton & Watt, James Stockdale and the brothers
in this context. The detailed Pirate Engine list examined. William begins
to move workmen from Bersham to Birmingham. Arbitrators' final closing of
the Bersham Books in William's favour. Further dispute between brothers
over Maas-y-Fynnon lead mine. Defence of Watt's Patent against
Hornblowers. Discussion of final rift between John Wilkinson and Boulton &
Watt and some earlier differences.
11 Quest for an Heir in old age
Question of succession - no sons, daughter dead, but
three nephews each with responsibilities in John Wilkinson's works, each
with expectations. His decision to procure an heir of his own blood. His
relationship with wife, Mary, examined. His liaison with a maid at Brymbo,
Ann Lewis. The importance of James Adam. The three illegitimate children
born. Wilkinson's consolidation of his affairs into a robust old age.
Retains innovatory interest in iron-making. Consultations with Telford over
proposed iron bridge over the Thames. His Will ---main provisions. The
Trustees. Ominous portents.
12 Posthumous Rumblings
Portraits:
John Wilkinson in old age (The Abbott
portrait) IGMT
(They also have a sketch portrait of JW used on his
coinage)
James Watt IGMT
Matthew Boulton IGMT
Joseph Priestley IGMT
Richard Reynolds IGMT
T F Pritchard IGMT
Thomas Telford IGMT
Samuel More IGMT
(No known portraits
of Win Wilkinson, nor of any
of
the women in the text)
John Wilkinson --Abbott portrait - 1780s copy WHS
(Also "somewhere", a copy of a portrait of JW in middle
age)
JW Obelisk Memorial, Lindale (photographs)
FCD
Sites:
Coalbrookdale in its heyday IGMT
"Coal brook dale by night", 1801, oil, Philip James de
Loutherbourg SM
held by Science Museum (consent to use not yet sought)
The inside of a Smelting House near Broseley
IGMT
An annotated diagram of the Cannon Boring
Machine WHS
The Iron Bridge(a selection) IGMT
A 1778 Plan of Bersham Ironworks WHS
John Westaway Rowe's two sketches of Bersham Ironworks
1780 WHS
The Wrekin, an engraving IGMT
Rock face at Backbarrow with Wilkinson initials carved
into it FCD
Transport:
Coastal Cargo Transport(National Maritime Museum have
illustrations NMM
of most of vessels Wilkinson would have used viz:
Sloop, Lugger, Ketch, Schooner, Brigantine)
Iron Rails and Canal Transport (including The Inclined
Plain) IGMT
Four, and two, horse carriages and phaetons
IGMT(?)
Residences:
The Lawns, Broseley ("Headquarters") FCD
Castle Head (Engravings and photographs) FCD
Brymbo Hall (old photograph before deterioration -
Copy with FCD - BRL
BRL-B&W Parcel A/127 p26)
Wilson House, Lindale and Bare Syke,
Backbarrow(photographs) FCD
Plas Grono, and The Court(Bersham, near
Wrexham) WHS(?)
Maps:
I have the services of a colleague, cartographer,
professional Geologist FCD (FGS),himself an author, now retired,
who will draw up any maps required to illustrate location etc. (Sample for
South Lakeland available shortly)
France:
The Indret Cannon Foundry on the Loire Le Creusot and
Montcenis in Burgundy Portraits of de Wendel and Pierre Toufaire(?)
The Curator of the Broseley Local History Society
(Incorporating The Wilkinson Society) who has good links with the
Ironworking Museum Services in Le Creusot is currently researching this. His
name is David Lake.
The father of John Wilkinson, Isaac
Wilkinson, the first of this family of Ironmasters, probably came to
Cumberland from Washington, County Durham, in the late 17th century, but
there remains some uncertainty about his origins. Recent research by Janet
Butler[i]
indicates he was born in 1695, the youngest of six children of John
Wilkinson and Margaret Thompson who were married in Washington on the 27th
June 1678. However, a Bishop's Transcript of a 1705 entry in the Parish
Registers for Lorton, Cumberland, records “Isaac, son of John Wilkinson,
baptised 24th January”, which might therefore refer to another Wilkinson
family, for if one accepts Janet Butler's dates he would have been 10 years
old at this time. The further evidence of his stated age of 80 years at the
time of his death in the Bristol Register of Burials for 1784 must also be
considered.
At an early stage in his adult life Isaac
is a known Dissenter and if he grew up with these beliefs in a family of
Dissenters baptism in the established church would not have been possible.
On the other hand it may be that he developed these ideas later and that his
parents at the time of his birth were conforming Christians of the Church of
England.
It has been suggested, because of his
subsequent close relationship with the Quaker William Rawlinson of the
Backbarrow Company in south Cumberland, whose father had documented links
both with the Bristol merchants and the Darbys of Coalbrookdale
[ii], that Isaac came north to
Cumberland from the Midlands and developed his religious views from an
earlier beginning. He certainly moved south to Shropshire in his middle
life but whether that was a return, or another beginning, remains uncertain.
We do know that he died in Bristol in 1784 but meantime there is further
evidence for his northern roots.
Wilkinson is a northern, rather than a
Shropshire, name. The Church Registers in the Lake District of present day
Cumbria are full of Wilkinsons, and the IG Index for the old county of
Cumberland lists literally hundreds of them. Second, there is documentary
evidence[iii]
to show that Isaac came to the Backbarrow Company, on the River Leven
between the southern end of Lake Windermere and the sea, from Little Clifton
in Cumberland in 1735. Little Clifton is in Workington Parish some three
miles due east of Workington town and about eight miles by road north west
from Lorton. It lies in the mouth of the broad vale of the northward-flowing
River Marron a couple of miles above its confluence with the Derwent.
But there is a church record from the
parish of Skelton, also close to Workington, for the year 1727 which records
: "January 20th: John, son of Isaac Wilkinson and Ann his
wife, baptised”. If this is our Isaac he was married by the age of 32
(or by 22 if one accepts the alternative evidence) to someone called Ann,
whose maiden name is unknown, but there is further confusing evidence for
that year. From Brigham Church, a village in the area just to the west of
Cockermouth, comes a record[iv]
which indicates that Isaac was married there on 9 September 1727 to Mary
Johnston by banns. He was 23 years old at the time. The date and the name
of his wife, but not his age, agree with Janet Butler's evidence. If both
records are accepted for Isaac then two things follow. First, the baptism
record would mean that Isaac's Dissenting ideas could not have developed
fully by that time since his child was baptised into the Church of England;
and second, his wife Ann of the January record had died, possibly in
childbirth before he married Mary in the September. A possible explanation
for some of the confusion begins to emerge.
Isaac's first marriage sometime before
January 1727, the date of the baptism of the John above, is to a woman
called Ann about whom little is so far known. She dies in childbirth and
the infant John (who may or may not have survived) is baptised. It is the
tragedy which turns Isaac away from the beliefs and practices of the
established church. As a young widower he meets Mary Johnston and marries
her later that year. The following year their first child is born but there
is no church record of this birth or baptism because the father is now a
Dissenter. Such a scenario would be supported by all the evidence quoted
above with the one discrepancy of Isaac's age.
It is worth repeating here the folk memory
still circulating in the Workington area of the birth of John Wilkinson in a
cart when his mother was returning to her home in Little Clifton from
Workington market where she regularly went to sell her farm produce. The
birth in such circumstances was of sufficient notice to register the local
view that someday the baby wod be a girt man. Such stories handed
down by word of mouth are surprisingly enduring, often rooted in fact though
embellished in the telling, and stand more as an indicator than as evidence.
This one is sometimes used to support the
idea that Isaac's wife was a strong and healthy woman, which is likely to be
so since she went on to bear him five more children. It also supports the
tradition that the Wilkinson family roots were in farming even though in his
early thirties Isaac is being described as an iron founder. Little Clifton,
too, is in the middle of that favoured livestock farmland between the
Cumbrian mountains and the Irish Sea where the young sheep and cattle born
on the Fells and in the mountain valleys come to be fattened.
" The area of Little Clifton today is
completely by-passed by newer and faster roads, so without the aid of a
detailed map, it is for a stranger, virtually impossible to locate. It lies
cheek-by-jowl to Bridgefoot village which is set upon the River Marron, a
pretty spot, boasting a secluded and ancient water-powered iron forge with
an attendant weir and mill house.
The old furnace where Isaac worked, stood
about half mile south from Little Clifton, but today there are no outward
visible signs of such, though cinder is seen in fairly large quantities and
finding a lump or two of iron is no problem.
As one would expect, the site is known as
Cinder Banks, a name which has been adopted to a new bungalow recently
erected upon the site. Across the field to the west of Cinder Banks finds
Furnace House. It now stands empty in a long and lonely lane and was
probably used in days past by managers of the ironworks and possibly the
Wilkinsons…”[v]
From Furnace House the ground slopes down
gently to the River Marron and its old mill half a mile away and the view
beyond to the eastward is across gently rolling country, the low ridge
separating the Marron and the Lorton vales in the foreground and the rugged
peaks and ridges of the high fells of the Lake District on the skyline
beyond. Still a countryside of small farms it will have changed little
since Isaac's time.
There are eighteenth century records of an
iron furnace at Little Clifton, and it is likely that Isaac learned his
iron-making skills there and his wife ran a small farm or holding which was
their home. The Workington Church Registers in the 1730s record the
christenings of several children of a certain "Charles Reeves of Clifton
Furnace” , suggesting the place was a well-known and important focus in
the area at that time.
Isaac is first described as an iron founder
in an Agreement signed on 25th July 1735[vi]
between the Backbarrow Company, an established iron-making business in what
was then known as Lancashire-over-the Sands, and “Isaac Wilkinson of
Clifton in the County of Cumberland, Founder…”. It is a fascinating
document, and makes clear immediately that the Backbarrow Company are
contracting with an experienced and established craftsman. He undertakes,
“…to cast for them all kinds of Cast Iron Ware
whatsoever and what Quantities thereof as they may require him to cast at
Backbarrow and Leighton Furnaces for the Term of Twenty One Years (and it
shall not be Lawfull for him to leave the said Business during the said Term
upon any account if they think fitt to continue the same) at the following
Rates being sound and merchantable goods viz Pots and Pans of all sizes at
Two Pounds Seven Shillings and Sixpence p Tun Girdles and Boshes at One
Pound Four Shillings p Tun Backs Grates and Heaters at One Pound p Tun
Weights at Fifteen Shillings p Tun Waggon Wheels at One Pound Eighteen
Shillings p Tun and any other kinds of Work at Proportionable rates, the
said Isaac Wilkinson finding all kinds of Tools Utensills and necessaries
whatsoever requisite for Casting the said Wares at his own proper Costs and
Charges, the said John Maychell William Rawlinson and James Maychell finding
a Casting House of Twenty Yards long and Ten Yards wide for the said
purpose…”
Isaac then, did not learn his iron-founding
skills at Backbarrow, did not come there as a youngster to learn his trade.
He is forty years old with enough experience at the Clifton Furnace to give
him an impressive range of casting skills. Moreover, he has sufficient
standing to negotiate a compensation clause in his contract should it be
terminated, and from the beginning he is pushing his employers towards
innovations. The contract continues,
“…But in Case the said John Maychell William Rawlinson
& James Maychell do find the said Business not beneficial to them then it
may be Lawfull for them at any time to make void this agreement provided
they employ no other Workmen afterward in the same way and do pay the said
Isaac Wilkinson Fifty Poundes for full Damage and Satisfaction in procuring
Toolles; And it is moreover agreed that if the said John Maychell William
Rawlinson and James Maychell do incline to have the abovesaid Wares made by
an Air Furnace in the Intervalls when their Blast Furnaces are out the said
Isaac Wilkinson hereby covenants to build the same at his own Charge and to
cast the Wares at the abovesaid rates but not to find the Fuel for that
purpose…”.
There is another folk memory told in the
Backbarrow area of Isaac Wilkinson being paid in part by his employers in
molten metal to be used for his own purposes, carrying it in pots from the
furnaces across the road to moulds at his house, which has tended to be
dismissed by commentators who understand the quick-cooling fluidity of
molten iron. Such memories become more feasible, however, in the context of
this early reference to an Air Furnace in which the metal could be reheated
and further refined before being poured.
Information about Isaac's subsequent work
at Backbarrow comes from the Account Books and Journals of the Backbarrow
Company. His early energy and drive are impressive. Building of the
Casting House, the "new Pothouse", begins in December 1735 and
continues through the winter.[vii]
There is a payment against it of £45.11.10 in February 1736 and Isaac begins
casting in July even though the roof is not finally slated until September.
His first quarter's wages are paid the same month and a new account for
"Isaac Wilkinson Potfounder" is opened which shows a production by the
following February of some sixty tons of pots, pans, backs, girdles, plates
and wheels.
Later that year he proposes another
innovation to his employers. He has identified a marketing opportunity for
an improved type of box smoothing iron, is confident of his skill to
manufacture the new product himself, is keenly aware of the competitors in
the market and what must be done to outmanoeuvre them, is clear about how
the release of his new irons onto the market should be controlled and what
the price should be. His written proposals are accepted with only minor
modifications and signed by all parties in an agreement dated 18th October
1737.[viii]
This document identifies Isaac Wilkinson as
a skilled iron founder certainly, but also as a potential entrepreneur with
imagination and business flair, qualities which from this point on recur
throughout his life. It also outlines the unusual relationship he is here
able to establish with his employers, the Backbarrow Company.
The company is producing iron which they
sell as Bar Iron by the ton, or make into iron products (Cast Iron Wares).
Isaac is the skilled founder employed by them to make the Cast Iron Wares,
for which he receives wages. But he is also allowed to sell for his own
profit a proportion of the Cast Iron Wares he has made, under an arrangement
whereby he buys back from the company for resale his own products at an
agreed rate per ton of wares, the rate varying with the type of product.
For his improved box irons. for example, the rate he proposed was £12 or £13
per ton of wares, raised to £14 a ton in the agreement. He also asked his
employers for sole rights for the sale of these box irons which, since he
took out a Patent
[ix] for that product the
following year, it seems likely he was granted. It is the manner of the
moulding of the one-piece box that makes his smoothing irons innovatory, and
the fact that they can be made from a "melted fluid" of "any mixt
metall"
[x] indicates again a further
use for the Air Furnace in which any old metal could be re-smelted. The
wording of the Patent is revealing.
“…my said metallick boxes, both bottom, top, sides, and
the barrs within them, consist of one entire piece of any cast metall,
either iron, brass, copper, bell metall, or any mixed metall, and are made
and performed from a melted fluid of any of the said metalls cast into a
mould invented for that purpose, and then ground and finished in the same
manner as other box irons now in use.”
Two interesting questions emerge at this
point. First, how far was an iron founder in those early days looking
towards the domestic market for his profits and an outlet for his products;
how far is his imagination and inventiveness focussed on the domestic
scene? The list of Isaac Wilkinson's Cast Iron Wares suggests that the
domestic market is important. Pots, pans, fire backs and grates, weights and
smoothing irons are listed among his products. Second, what role did his
wife play in engaging his attention on the need for an improvement to the
box iron then in use? Its old construction of separate plates bolted
together could allow hot ash or small cinders to drop out onto the ironing.
Perhaps Isaac had some personal experience of this.
From earliest times forges and furnaces
were blown by leather bellows, the smaller ones hand-operated, the larger
ones as at Backbarrow attached to a cam wheel driven by a water wheel.
Servicing and replacing the leather airbags which became creased and worn
from constant use was a considerable recurring cost. The Backbarrow
Journals[xi]
show payments for “tanned Hides for Bellows” in December 1736 and
April 1737 soon after Isaac Wilkinson arrived there. In the autumn of 1737,
however, he changed for all time the dependence of his employers on leather
bellows in a step which at once demonstrated his imaginative flair and his
iron-making skill.
The Journal of the Backbarrow Company for
1737 has the following detailed entry :
“Backbarrow Forge Dr to Acc/t of Cast Iron Wares the
sum of £6-for a pair of Cylindrical Cast Iron Bellows, put up in Septemr
1737 being computed at ½ a tun and valued at £12 per Tun….. £6—“
There is further evidence that the Company
was enthusiastic about this innovation, was prepared to support it
financially and wished to celebrate its arrival. There are Account entries
round this date for fourteen days Day-labourer payments at a shilling a day
to “George Walters about Iron Bellows etc”, and several transfers
from one account to another of iron “for new Iron Bellows”.
Particularly interesting and showing beyond doubt the enthusiasm of the
Company for this improvement is an entry in “sundry disbursements”
for September 1737…”For Ale ordered by the Masters on occasion of the
Iron Bellows £--3—“
[xii]. It was obviously a
signal event.
There are two further significant records,
on 1 October 1737 … “By Forge, for iron used about Geering the new Iron
Bellows 1c. 7st. 12 lbs ….£1.11.9d”
[xiii]; and on 27 December the
same year when the Forge was also charged for “a pr of cylindrical
Bellows & Appurtenances” weighing 18 cwt
[xiv]. The former of these
entries could relate to repairs or improvements to the first iron bellows
installed, but it seems probable that the latter refers to a second pair of
bellows at another hearth; and overall it is clear that Isaac Wilkinson was
using iron bellows, designed, manufactured and installed by himself, for
forge and foundry work at Backbarrow in 1737 some 20 years before they came
into use elsewhere.
In this context, too, the second part of
his Box Iron Patent of 1738
[xv] which is puzzling and
often ignored begins to make sense, for he includes in it another item which
is difficult to relate to Box Irons and described as his “Bellows of Cast
Metal for Forges, Furnaces or any other works…”. His so-called Iron
Bellows Patent
[xvi] did not appear until
1757, the date generally credited as marking the introduction of iron
bellows into the iron-making industry, but that Patent Application is a
carefully elaborated description for a “machine or bellows to be wrought
by water or Fire Engines…”. By that time of course he had two decades
practical experience of iron bellows behind him.
It is surprising that in those intervening
years no-one stepped in to steal the invention, particularly in view of the
enthusiasm with which the Backbarrow Company initially adopted it and which
one would expect to lead to a wider broadcasting of its use. It may be that
in spite of William Rawlinson's contact with the Midland iron-making world
this far outpost of Lancashire-over-the-Sands, difficult of access by road
though less so by sea, retained its isolation and integrity until the 1770s,
by which time Isaac's iron-making sons John and William were living and
working in the Midlands whilst retaining strong links with the place of
their roots.
During these early Backbarrow years Isaac's
family had not grown beyond the two boys John and Henry born in Little
Clifton in1728 and 1730. It is as though he needed to pour all his energy
into the early opportunities this new work provided. Things were about to
change. In 1741 a daughter, Mary, was born; in 1744 a third son, William,
with two further daughters, Sarah in 1745 and Margaret whose birth date is
uncertain.
Tradition has it that he lived throughout
the Backbarrow years at Bare Syke, a substantial family house belonging to
the Maychells with gardens and orchards just across the road from the
Furnace and a little south of it, close enough to supervise the work
continuously but upwind of the furnace fumes. There is reference in
Backbarrow documents to “Wilkinson's House” long after Isaac was dead
which is likely to be Bare Syke, and ask after Wilkinson's House of any old
resident in Backbarrow today and they will point you to it. The impact of
the family on the place has been enduring.
Isaac's two older boys grew up at
Backbarrow, youngsters of seven and five when they arrived, young men of
twenty and eighteen when they left, and throughout their early adolescence
with no other siblings in the family to consider. It was a marvellous place
for two such lads, quite apart from the fascination of the furnace and forge
which Isaac would certainly involve them in as they grew older. Backbarrow
lies in a gorge section of the River Leven about a mile downstream of the
point where it empties out of the foot of Lake Windermere. To this day it
is a clean river of waterfalls and pools where salmon wait, with extensive
oakwoods rich in wildlife spreading into the valley on both sides. John
particularly, throughout his life and in stark contrast to his preoccupation
with the noise and heat and smoke of his iron-making, responded to
wilderness and water with a spirit that anticipated the later Romantics; and
he created his own corner of Paradise in later years at Castle Head not far
from here. Perhaps this is where it began, where he and Henry were free to
roam, where this wildness and wet created a pattern, an ideal, for his later
life.
Henry is a shadowy figure and virtually
nothing is recorded about him. It has been suggested that he was born
impaired, handicapped in some way, but this has to be speculative. However,
he did not follow his older brother to school when Isaac was careful and
determined in the education of his children; there is no record of marriage,
and he remained within the embrace of his father's house until he died at
the age of twenty-six.
There is one other haunting piece of
evidence. Carved into a vertical face of the hard slate behind Bare Syke and
still visible in a place where Isaac is said to have espallioned his fruit
trees, are the initials HW 1745 in a fine elaborated script and
obviously the handiwork of a competent scribe. If Henry did this he had
certainly learned to write and might have been taught within the family? Or
did John enscribe it for him ? What could be John's initials JW (possibly
IW) are cut into the same face of rock close by.
It is interesting to speculate that if
Henry's life was impaired from birth might this not be reason enough for the
eleven year gap before the arrival of the next sibling, the more so if there
had been earlier birthing tragedies. Perhaps Isaac and Mary had decided to
have no more children, even before they came to Backbarrow. If so what
changed that? Or was their daughter Mary a happy accident which carried
them into the sunlight again? Such things would have implications for the
happiness of the family and for the atmosphere in which the children grew,
particularly for John who was alone with Henry for so long.
The possibility of course remains that John
could have been the surviving son of Isaac's deceased first wife. If his
first wife, Ann, had died when John was born, and Henry was the damaged
firstborn of his second wife, Mary, Isaac might have decided to have no more
children. All his considerable energy would go into his iron-making. Then
is daughter Mary was born and everything changed again.
In his old age when he was living in
Bristol Isaac signed an agreement with Thomas Guest of Dowlais Furnace at
Mythr Tydfil and Thomas Whitehouse Ironmonger of the city of Bristol for the
casting and manufacture of iron goods which contains the following clause;
“…it is also hereby agreed…Thos Guest and Thos
Whitehouse…to pay the said Isaac Wilkinson and Mary his wife during
their natural lives one shilling per ton for every ton of Iron…made at the
said works from coakes over and above 15 tons per week on average through
the Blast…”[xvii]
The underlining is mine. It is not of
course proof that a first wife died in those early years. It does establish
that in his old age Isaac had a wife called Mary, and if the Workington
church record identifies the same Isaac then the Ann named there as his wife
must have been dead. It supports the possibility that John Wilkinson's
natural mother might have died when he was very young, that he was brought
up by a stepmother, that William with whom he quarrelled bitterly and
irreconcilably in his later life was his stepbrother, and that his closeness
to Henry might simply have been a matter of their closeness in age.
In those later Backbarrow years John left
Henry to go to school though at precisely what age is uncertain, and since
Isaac sent him to a Non-Conformist school at Kendal it is likely Isaac and
the family were known Dissenters by this time. The Church Schools, and
there were few others, simply would not be available to them so they were
fortunate in having close by a good school run by a remarkable man.
The Reverend Caleb Rotherham was associated
with the Unitarian Academy at Kendal from its inception in 1733 until his
death in 1752. On 27th May 1743 he was admitted Master of Arts
of Edinburgh University followed immediately by a DD awarded on public
disputation “On the Evidences of the Christian Religion”[xviii].
His Academy, however, was not a theological academy and two-thirds of his
students were never intended for the Ministry. It was a place for young
men, as opposed to boys. He charged eight guineas a year for lodging and
board and four guineas for learning. The young men were required to provide
their own fire and candles and wash their own linen. “They go through a
whole course of Mathematicks…I have a distinct consideration for that branch
of instruction…”[xix].
Outside of the Universities of the time,
which as Church Establishments would also be closed to him, it was probably
the best education available to Isaac's sons and because of the building and
engineering demands inherent in the iron-making processes he would recognise
the value of a good grounding in Mathematics. There is plenty of evidence
in John Wilkinson's later life that it served him well, and that his
handwriting and use of language had also benefited.
He, though never Henry, is in a list of
Caleb Rotherham's students which has been dated at circa 1745 as a
consequence of other names included in it. The precise dates of his
education at the Academy are not known though since he would be eighteen
years old in 1745 that date is likely to be towards the end of his time
there. It is recorded that Isaac later sent his son William to school at
the Warrington Academy when he was fourteen years old, so it is reasonable
to suppose John started at the same age and spent four years at Kendal.
Two other young men at the Kendal Academy
about this time are James and Robert Nicholson, sons of a Liverpool merchant
Matthew Nicholson, who was cousin to Edward Blackstone, one of the original
founders of the Unitarian Chapel in Kendal, and whose widow, Ann, Caleb
Rotherham married in 1746 after the death of his first wife. Matthew
Nicholson with his Kendal links may therefore be the “respectable
merchant” to whom John was said to be apprenticed on his return from
school “…and with him continued about five years…”
[xx]
In 1740, when he would have been
considering the education of his eldest son, Isaac was spending more time at
Leighton Furnace also owned by the Backbarrow Company where he began casting
and trying guns. How far this was driven by an urge to continually push out
the horizons of his work, or by a belief by his employers that there may be
good profits in it, is difficult to assess; but there is evidence of a
restlessness in Isaac's life at this time and also the first signs of
differences of opinion with the Company.
On 2nd February 1741 shortly
before the birth of his daughter Mary, Isaac signed a Lease[xxi]
with James Machell for a run down Corn Mill and Kiln on the east side of
Backbarrow Bridge and a dwelling house with outhouses, orchards and gardens
on the west side. Bare Syke is on the west side and the description of the
property fits though there is a discrepancy in precise location. Does this
mean that Isaac up until this point had held his family house by grace and
favour until this lease gave him occupancy as a tenant? And if so was it a
move by the astute Isaac towards greater security? Or is the dwelling house
in the lease another property, which since he was living at Bare Syke he
subsequently sublet? Certainly by 1753 when Isaac sought to terminate this
lease a Widow Taylor was living there, but by that time he had been gone
from Backbarrow five years.
The Corn Mill was fitted out with new
grindstones which suggests he used it to finish the Cast Iron Wares like Box
Smoothing Irons which he sold on his own behalf, providing him at the same
time with his own commercial premises. If disagreements were beginning to
emerge with his employers this would be important.
The casting of guns was not going well.
The accounts show occasional rather than regular evidence of the purchase of
gunpowder “for trying of Cast Guns”[xxii]
some of which burst on proving[xxiii],
and there is an increasing tension between William Rawlinson and the other
partners at this time. William Rawlinson had been Isaac's chief support in
the Backbarrow Company, certainly for the wide spread sale and distribution
of his Cast Iron Wares, and may have been responsible for the ill-starred
sortie into gun manufacture. By 1743 the partners had had enough. In a new
agreement with Isaac dated 14 March
[xxiv] there are indications
that a substantial conflict is being resolved .
“Let it be remember'd that Backbarrow Company having
sundry articles under Consideration relating to Isaac Wilkinson…and have
concluded & agreed with him as followeth, viz That Damage which the Company
have suffered by Casting of Guns, shall be Ballanced by the workmanship of
Casting Hammers & Anvills at Leighton last Blast, so that all Demends on
both sides in these respects are to cease and be evened…”
“Let it be remember'd…” has an
admonitory tone which is significant, and it would be fascinating to know
what these “sundry articles under consideration” were and whether
William Rawlinson stood beside Isaac at this time; but the future
involvement of each of them in the Backbarrow Company was to be shortlived.
A statement of William Rawlinson's alleged debts to the Company amounting to
£3,369 was drawn up by the manager in February, 1747. A counter claim by
Rawlinson demanded the production of the accounts and the sale of stock to
meet the Company's debts to him, and the dispute was only settled when the
Machells undertook to buy out William Rawlinson's moiety in the company in
an agreement dated 8th April 1749.[xxv]
By this time Isaac Wilkinson had gone.
Following the new agreement of March 1743 the Journals continue to show an
Isaac Wilkinson Account with the company each year until 1748, but in 1747 a
major dispute erupts. By that time Isaac is in partnership with William
Rawlinson's brother Job and two other men in a new iron-making venture, the
Lowood Company, about a mile down-river from the Backbarrow works and
potentially a serious competitor to it. Isaac is still bound to the
Backbarrow Company by his 1735 contract and they went so far as to obtain
Lawyers' Opinion as to whether he was still in their employ and could
legally do this. They were advised that provided he continued to work for
them there were no grounds for legal action against him, but the end is in
sight. His account with the Company is drawn up and balanced to 25 March
1748 after twelve years of continuous business and his name appears no more
in the registers of the Backbarrow Company after that date.
The terms under which he was released from
the 1735 contract ahead of the twenty-one years he was required to serve are
not known. Fell[xxvi]
who obviously had access to primary sources now lost tells us that Isaac and
the other original partners in the Lowood Company disposed of their interest
to two local men in 1749 and there is some later evidence to support this[xxvii].
The Backbarrow years consequently came to an end in 1748 at which point
Isaac Wilkinson and his family moved some five miles south east to Wilson
House near Castle Head hill beside the River Winster.
By the time Isaac moved to Wilson House
near Lindale at the mouth of the Winster valley he was forty-four years old
and his family was complete. John and Henry were young men by this time,
Mary was seven and William four, and the two youngest girls, Sarah and
Margaret, were still toddlers. John left the family home soon after he left
school and would soon complete his apprenticeship with a Liverpool merchant[xxviii].
There are no records of the details of the apprenticeship, but Isaac might
have timed his move from Backbarrow in anticipation of his eldest son's
return. Did he by now have a vision of a family business focussed on
iron-making?
Both Stockdale[xxix]
in 1872 and Dickinson[xxx]
in 1914 say that Isaac moved to Wilson House because of the abundance of
peat in the vicinity. He had certainly experimented with peat in various
forms as a supplementary fuel at the Leighton and Lowood furnaces in the
area, and perhaps saw it as an easily available supplement to charcoal,
supplies of which even in the well-wooded Furness area of Cumberland had by
then become difficult. It is interesting in this context that when John
later in his life returned to Wilson House in 1778 and 1779, by then a
wealthy and successful Ironmaster, he too experimented with peat as a
furnace fuel, a detailed account of which can be found in his letters to
James Watt at that time.[xxxi]
Stockdale[xxxii]
is quite explicit about Isaac's experiments with peat at Wilson House but
says he was unsuccessful and had to revert to smelting with charcoal, though
he says that a mixture of well dried peat bricks and charcoal was being used
at the Backbarrow Furnace at the time he was writing (1872). Isaac
certainly operated a furnace at Wilson House as the following agreement
makes clear :
“Cartmel, October 30th, 1750. - Be it remembered that
this day Robert Bare of Cartmel Church Town has sold to Isaac Wilkinson, of
Wilson House, two hundred tons of wett flatt iron ore, to be put on board at
Lousay, the said Isaac Wilkinson promising to pay for the same twelve
shillings for each ton, but in case the said Isaac Wilkinson does not
approve of the said ore, that then he is only to have fifty tons of the said
ore, he giving the said Robert Bare notice in April next, that he will have
no more than the said fifty tons. If no notice is given then, he to have the
whole two hundred tons, the said Isaac Wilkinson paying for the same on the
second day of February,
1751. Signed, Robert Bare Witness - Walter
Cowperthwaite. Isaac Wilkinson.”[xxxiii]
Stockdale in 1872, like Fell in 1908, had
access to primary documents which have since been lost and he describes the
signatures in this agreement as being “in excellent mercantile hands”,
evidence that he held the original; but for all that there has to be some
doubt that he quoted it correctly. Isaac is required to pay for the whole
consignment before the expiry of the notice period which allows him to buy
only a quarter of it if he doesn't like the quality; which is a
contradiction in terms and likely to be an omission or oversight by
Stockdale rather than Isaac. The let-out clause is typical of the business
shrewdness evident elsewhere in Isaac's dealings, but the Agreement has
another interesting focus.
The ore is coming in by water, probably by
coastal barge, or Flatte, and Isaac is committed to the first load
whatever the quality. At that time the River Winster was open to the sea and
tidal the two miles up to Wilson House and beyond, giving Isaac access to
cheaper water transport for his raw materials in, and his cast iron wares
out, an important consideration in view of the poor roads into the area and
a further demonstration of his business acumen.
It would be at this time that John first
discovered Castle Head hill, a wooded rocky knoll round which the Winster
curled standing a mile downriver of Wilson House en route to the sea. It
remains to this day a striking feature in the landscape, a faulted block of
limestone standing up in sharp contrast to the flat valley floor sediments
all round. At that time the spring tides had unobstructed access into the
sea end of the valley and twice a month they flooded all round the hill
leaving it as an island at high water. Southward into the sun the shining
mud and sand of Morecambe Bay stretched away to Lancaster. From there the
Guide-to-the-Sands led at low tide long strings of people and carts safely
across the channels and through the treacherous sinking sands of the bay to
the Cartmel and Furness coasts. His is an ancient office, a Crown
appointment dating back to medieval monastic days to provide a quicker and
easier route between Lancashire and the Furness region of Cumberland, and it
survives still.
The hill of Castle Head stands sentinel at
this point on the coast to further access into up- country Westmoreland and
Cumberland and with dramatic skylines behind it has a powerful presence.
There is evidence of its occupation back through Roman times into
pre-history both as a look-out point and a sanctuary, and John Wilkinson
here in his early twenties came powerfully under its spell. He was to
return to this place again and again throughout his life, eventually to
build his house and finally to be buried here.
There are questions as to precisely how
Isaac eventually blew his furnace and forge at Wilson House. Although the
site is close to the river the gradient there is minimal and the river
meanders with little current across a flat valley floor. Just upstream from
Wilson House, however, there is one slight break in slope towards which the
remains of a wide ditch can still be seen cutting through a peaty field. It
might just be possible to obtain a sufficient head of water by way of the
ditch to turn a cam wheel to power a pair of iron bellows at the furnace
adjacent, which then must question Stockdale's account of the same ditch,
which he says was cut as a canal for a boat to carry peat to the site
[xxxiv], an iron boat at
that, the first iron boat ever built, and which at this date would have to
be credited to Isaac rather than John. John certainly built an iron boat
some thirty-five years later on the Severn
[xxxv] and could have used one
at Wilson House after that, but Stockdale's account of an iron boat here at
this time is unlikely. He was after all gathering evidence for this
assertion a hundred and twenty years after the event.
Isaac certainly used water power close by
in Lindale where the valley floor sediments meet the faulted slates and
limestones and the slopes rise steeply. According to Stockdale he powered
“…a large grindstone... by a small waterwheel erected
on Lindale Beck at a place called Skinner Hill, about a hundred and fifty
yards above the higher public house at Lindal...”[xxxvi].
This is such a careful and detailed description that
Stockdale must have had good evidence for it which unfortunately he does not
quote, but at precisely the location he identifies the Lindale beck runs
steeply downhill through a mini-gorge section, and in an adjacent field
there is a flat bed of sediments behind an artificial bank, good evidence
for the storage pond a water wheel on such a small stream would need in
drier weather.
In these Wilson House years Isaac, though still
principally engaged in the manufacture of iron goods, became once more
interested in farming. There was little opportunity in the scope and size
of his property at Backbarrow to do more than build a terrace and grow fruit
trees, but his tenement at Wilson House extended to at least ten acres
[xxxvii], and certainly the
needs of his agricultural neighbours along the coast and in the Winster,
Cartmel and Lyth valleys would provide a market for the agricultural
implements he began to make in his forge.
His second Patent dates from this period,
for... “…cast metallick rolls for crushing, flattening, bruising or
grinding malt, oats, beans or any kind of grain…”11. It is
dated 24th January 1753 and establishes that he was still at
Wilson House at that time since he gives Wilson House as his residence in
the application, but another very interesting point emerges from it. He
names himself in the application as “Isaac Wilkinson, gentleman”; not
pot-founder, or iron-founder, but gentleman. That one
word used at this particular point in his life might tell us more about his
personality and ambitions than pages of lost letters. It tells us too that
in the social code of the day he had at least the means to dress and to live
in a certain style. To probe that piece of evidence further it is necessary
to examine what is happening to his eldest son, John, about this time.
The only solid information is in the Kirkby
Lonsdale Parish Registers. In 1755 at the age of twenty-seven or
twenty-eight John married Ann Maudsley, the wealthy daughter of a landed
family from Rigmaden Hall north of Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lune valley. The
register entry reads,
“No 17 Mr John Wilkinson merchant of Kirkby Lonsdale in
the County of Westmoreland and Miss Ann Maudsley of Rigmaden in the said
Parish of Kirkby Lonsdale, spinster, were married in this church by Licence
from Richard Atkinson Clerk Surrogate this twelfth day of June 1755 by T
Croft. This marriage was solemnised between us (signatures of John
Wilkinson and Ann Maudsley) in presence of (signatures of Wilson Jn Robinson
and Chrisr Wilson)”.[xxxviii]
Neither a Wilkinson nor a Maudsley
witnessed the marriage. Were they absent because they disapproved? The
fact that the marriage took place in Kirkby Lonsdale church is interesting
given John's Dissenting background and may be the reason why a Licence was
needed and why Isaac was not present. It also suggests some persuasion on
the part of Ann, or her family.
Opposition to the match from the Maudsleys
could be expected as a landed family who had held the Manor of Mansergh in
which Rigmaden stands since 1661
[xxxix] The Wilkinsons’ origins
in the recent past were as pot-founders. Isaac’s description of himself as
gentleman, and John’s as merchant in the marriage record,
begin to acquire new significance if the purpose is to woo and wed a
Maudsley; and if the Maudsleys had opposed the marriage it might well have
coloured John Wilkinson’s attitude to the gentry in his later life.
But there is another focus. Thomas
Godsalve, Ann's ancestor who first purchased the Manor of Mansergh, was a
Dutch merchant. He of course was long dead but there could have been
surviving sympathy in the Maudsley family because of these roots for a
personable young man who was in love with their daughter even though he was
in trade? Conversely there might have been increased opposition to him as a
reminder of a past they wished to hide. The evidence is with the former,
and is found in another Church Register entry for Kirkby Lonsdale for 1756
when the child of their marriage, Mary, is baptised. The parents are
recorded as “of Rigmaden” which suggests they lived there after their
marriage which in turn suggests the support and sympathy of Ann's family;
though the baptism of the child in church again smacks of compromise. The
appearance of the Maudsleys in the Kirkby Lonsdale Registers continuously
for a hundred years prior to this date indicates their enduring and
traditional association with the established church; and their acceptance of
a Dissenter into the family, and one with John Wilkinson's lowly background,
would require a balancing consideration from him. How far good relations
were established might be gauged from another record in the registers for
the following year when John Wilkinson is witness to the marriage of Ann’s
sister Margaret on 18 May 1756. It all points to a love match that was able
to survive the differences.
Meantime Isaac has left Wilson House.
Whether John returned to Wilson House when he left Liverpool is not known;
nor is it clear if his move to Kirkby Lonsdale was due to any difference of
opinion with his father. There is an absence of information about him in the
early 1750s at a very important point in his life. He was a tall,
strongly-built young man with a good education and an apprenticeship
completed, though whether the apprenticeship was to some aspect of iron
manufacture, or whether he served the iron trade simply as a merchant at
Kirkby Lonsdale remains unclear. How far Isaac's departure from Wilson House
to the Midlands represented a setback to any vision he then had of a
successful family iron business, or conversely how far it provided a better
opportunity to build it, is similarly unclear.
Isaac's friendship with William Rawlinson
his former employer at Backbarrow and a man with an established contact with
the Darby iron-making family, perhaps endured and deepened in the Wilson
House years. It is likely that Rawlinson advised him of the opportunities
in the Midlands, and of the availability of the lease on the Bersham Blast
Furnace near Wrexham, a place with strong Darby connections. Isaac certainly
took the lease from the Chirk Castle Estate in 1753[xl],
and the same year, as befitted a gentleman, rented from Squire Yorke of
Erdigg a substantial three-gabled residence in its own grounds called Plas
Grono in the township of Esclusham Isaf. The lease of the property remained
with the Wilkinson family for the next 21 years.[xli]
Wilson House, too, was retained and
eventually became the home farm of John's Castle Head estate though it was
certainly Isaac's property in 1757 by which time he was resident at Plas
Grono. Stockdale quotes an important document in his possession in 1870
listing encroachments onto Common lands in the parish of Cartmel :
“Isaac Wilkinson, Bersham, for an encroachment at
Wilson House, taken off the common to enlarge his fields, 10 perches at
£21.0.0d per acre, £1.6.3d Mem - Will pull down or pay before Easter”.
[xlii]16
John and his wife and daughter followed Isaac to
Bersham in 1756 and rented a modest house in Wrexham Fechan 3 miles down the
road. He is unlikely to have done so if he and his father had quarrelled;
but any plans afoot at that moment between them to build an iron-making
empire to rival the Darbys of Coalbrookdale has to be speculative. Isaac
was certainly ambitious and very confident in his iron-making expertise, and
John was a young man who had made a good marriage but with his way yet to
make. The time was ripe. But then disaster struck.
Isaac had been living in Bersham with the rest of his
family for almost three years by the time his eldest son John arrived with
young wife Ann, and baby daughter Mary just a few months old. From what is
known already about Isaac's drive and energy during the earlier years at
Wilson House and Backbarrow it is long enough for him to have established
himself in the area and to have a forward plan. Glimpses of what that plan
might have included emerge in the next few years and the likelihood is that
it involved John.
There would need to have been a tempting prospect in
store to persuade John to leave his merchant business in Kirkby Lonsdale and
his wife’s ancestral home at Rigmaden for what amounted to an immediate step
down in status in a new and untried environment, and the more so for Ann.
The move from Rigmaden Hall to a small town house I n Wrexham would not be
undertaken by her without real hope of better things to come. But they were
young, and in love, and everything was possible; and in that summer of 1756
none of them knew what pain and sorrow would soon overtake them.
John's brother Henry died first, on 26 June
at Plas Grono, by then the family home, and was buried in the Dissenters'
graveyard in Wrexham. There are no records of a declining illness. He was
twenty-six years old and unmarried. One can only speculate on the effect of
the bonds here broken and on the impact of this death, on Isaac and his wife
who had loved and protected Henry within the family fold all his short life,
and on John who lost the close companion of his early youth. The place of
burial confirms Isaac’s dissenting views at this date and John later erected
there a memorial to his brother. But Fate had worse in store.
On the 17 November John’s wife Ann died and
he lost forever the radiance that for a few brief years had filled his
life. She was twenty three years old. His desolation is recorded on a
memorial he placed on the wall of Wrexham Parish Church, an ornate white
marble plaque inlaid with black and a testament to his grief. That it is
there at all inside this magnificent church indicates at least a certain
ambivalence in John’s religious ideas at the time, an attitude which
reappears in his later life in spite of his father's clear position as a
Dissenter.
Since Ann’s death occurred within a few
months of childbirth it is likely, in the absence of documentary evidence,
that the hazards always associated with childbirth at that time and the
absence of anything but primitive medical techniques and treatment in face
of complications were responsible for it. This might suggest that she
undertook to move from Rigmaden to Wrexham when she was already a sick
woman, though the physical rigours involved in the journey and upheaval so
soon after her first baby could themselves have brought on a decline. Did
John have to persuade her to move? And if so did he feel in part
responsible for her death? And what was his response now to the little baby
who lived on as a constant reminder of what he had lost?
The evidence is that it was more than he
could bear. Mary was put out to nurse and for the next few years was brought
up in the family of Mr John Flint, Gentleman, who controlled the stamps and
post in Shrewsbury, leaving her father to grieve alone and find a new
purpose in his life. It is from this tragic loss that his focus as an
Ironmaster begins and it could have been the catalyst which drove him.
Soon after this the paths of John and his
father begin to diverge. It is as though John needed to establish his
position and status independently of anything that might have come through
Isaac, who by now is struggling at the Bersham Furnace, with an unreliable
water supply, a poor quality iron ore and a smelting process with coke which
suffers from insufficient blast. It seems, too, that some of the
underground pipework to and through the site was in poor condition as
witness an undated letter in Isaac's handwriting to Sir Richard Myddleton of
Chirk Castle.
Sir. I am informed it you have a firret at ye castle:
which I should desire ye loan of it for a day or two: I will take partickler
care of it and return it safely by ye bearer who is to bring it if you can
spair it so long. It is only to put after a rabet thro' our pipes it
walking throw in order to drive ye rabet thro' so as to discover if there be
anything left in them: by this method we can tell where it is and cut ye
pipes and take it out. I have aplyed for one to several places but cannot
yet meet with any which makes me give you this trouble. If anything should
befall it I will pay any prise for it...”.[xliii]
Isaac is in his early fifties at this
time. John is twenty-eight and perceptive enough to see the limitations of
working with a strong-minded father in an unprofitable business that needed
substantial input and changes to turn it round. He decided instead to look
for an opportunity to make iron in his own right and at this point in his
life had the confidence to move away from his father and to contemplate
another future and a new life.
Part of that new life was a gradual
broadening of his circle. It was about this time that he met for the first
time Samuel More, a young Apothecary based in London, a man a year or two
older than himself with a good classical education which boasted the
addition of Arithmetic and Accounts. In the late 1750s More is gaining
notice as an experimental chemist working with Dr William Lewis at the
Society of Arts (the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and
Commerce, that is) and on the 13 May 1761 is elected a Member.
More and Wilkinson, both unattached males,
must have been established friends by then for a few months later More
introduced John Wilkinson to the Society and nominated him for Membership.
It was More’s first nomination and an important and prestigious step for
Wilkinson, who must have had a growing reputation for his iron-making
innovations in order to be acknowledged by the Society. It immediately gave
him access at this early point in his rise to power, to the elite of the
manufacturing and commercial world and to the many new inventions and
forceful personalities that were a dynamic part of it. These, too, were the
early years of a close and continuing friendship with More, greater than
with any other of his contemporaries, which was to endure and deepen into
old age.
Throughout this period Isaac carried on
making iron at Bersham and the evidence is that he still nourished the hope
of establishing with his sons a new dynasty of iron-founders. On the 12th
March 1757 he filed an elaborate patent application for his iron bellows
[xliv]. The wording included
the following surprising description;
“... when full of air... the air is compressed by a
pillar of water of a proper altitude... and forced out by the water through
a pipe at any distance required, so that a furnace, forge, or any other
works may be blowed from any waterfall or falls, or from a fire engine or
engines to several miles distance... by means of a pipe being fixed to the
machine, to force or convey the wind through to the said work...”
The description of this device is
significantly different from the Blowing Engine John developed at his New
Willey works a year or two later, which More described and a drawing of
which is preserved in the British Museum[xlv],
and where iron bellows, regulating bellies and furnace are all in close
proximity. Isaac it seems, was trying to convey the blast once generated
through underground pipes considerable distances to the furnace, and in this
context his undated letter seeking to borrow a ferret from Richard Myddlton
to check that his underground pipes were open has new significance.
It is interesting that he took twenty years
to develop this blowing machine from his simple iron bellows, and patenting
it at this time suggests he had realised since arriving in this hub of the
iron-making world that other Ironmasters would adopt or modify it, as his
son would do, and use it to their profit. He must have had confidence, too,
in the survival and expansion of the Bersham Furnace provided he could
improve the blast for coke smelting, for on the 9th June 1757 he
took out a forty-year lease from one John Hughes for all coal and iron lying
under the nearby estate of Cae Glas, in Esclusham Uchaf near Llwyn Enion.[xlvi]
The following year he sent his son William,
then aged fourteen but destined to become the third Ironmaster in the
family, to the school of another well-known Dissenter, Joseph Priestley,
some twenty miles away at Nantwich in Cheshire, evidence of his continuing
religious dissent at the time and a decision which was to have important
consequences for his family in the future.
Priestley was a scholarly and free-thinking
young divine not yet ordained. He was twenty-five years old, unmarried,
Yorkshire born, a product of Batley Grammar School and a graduate of the
Daventry Dissenting Academy. He had already published a number of religious
texts which had attracted notice and had served two brief Ministries at
Needham Market in Suffolk, and Sheffield. He suffered from an hereditary
stammer which must have made it difficult for him to preach a sermon and
perhaps led to the kind of compensatory behaviour which made him “…too gay
and airy…”[xlvii]
for his Sheffield congregation.
“…The pupils … thought of him first and foremost as an
eccentric. Walking in a kind of disjointed, birdlike trot, Priestley
chattered incessantly, stammering like a woodpecker. Even more disconcerting
was the fact that the two sides of his face were so unlike as to cause a
marked difference in his left and right profiles.”.[xlviii]
His school at Nantwich flourished however.
It was established soon after his arrival there in September 1758 and
Isaac’s son, William, was to become one of the first pupils. Isaac was
obviously party to information circulating among the Dissenting fraternity,
first because he knew of Priestley's school at a very early stage, possibly
before it opened, and second because Priestley had an interest in
Mathematics and Sciences in addition to his theological enquiries, which
would have been an important consideration for Isaac. He might also have
liked the man he saw, an eccentric certainly but in the opinion of Josiah
Wedgwood who knew Priestley personally, another rising star at this time and
a man with an unmistakable touch of genius.
“Priestley spoke and moved rapidly; in private converse
he was vivacious and fond of anecdote, often smiled, but seldom laughed; he
would walk twenty miles before breakfast, carrying a long cane, and was a
good horseman. He uses no action, no declamation, but his voice and manner
are those of one friend speaking to another In person (he) was slim but
large-boned; his stature about five feet nine, and very erect…”.7
It seems he was also a strict schoolmaster,
“…never giving a holiday on any
consideration. His school and private tuition occupied him from seven in the
morning till seven at night…”
William's eighteen year old elder sister, Mary,
certainly liked what she saw. How many times in the next three years did
Joseph Priestley walk or ride the twenty miles to Bersham on the excuse of
offering William some private tuition?
Priestley left Nantwich on his appointment
to the Tutorship of Languages and Belles-Lettres at the Warrington Academy
in September 1761 and was ordained there on 18 May 1762. The move signalled
the end of William's formal education and doubled the distance Priestley had
to travel to see Mary. His salary at Warrington was £100 a year and came
with a house by which he was able to supplement his income by taking
boarders, and Mary Wilkinson married him on 23rd June that same
year soon after he was ordained. She was twenty-one years old. He was
twenty-nine.
Their first child Sarah was born the
following year, and their next few years together at the Warrington Academy
were happy though towards the end of that time the first signs of a
recurring problem with Mary's health appeared. Glimpses into their early
marriage, however, show Mary involved in the social recreations of that
close academic world, obviously respected as a woman of “sound culture
and strong sense”[xlix],
yet further evidence of the importance her father Isaac attached to good
education and independent thinking. Although the wedding was at Wrexham her
father did not give her away, an office performed by one of Priestley’s
pupils, and it is a strange omission in the light of other events in the
Wilkinson family in 1762.
During these years the paths of John and
his father had further diverged. John's financial position would be based on
what Ann Maudsley had brought to him as a dowry, which might not have been a
large sum if there had been Maudsley objections to the marriage, plus any
accumulated profits he had made from his business as merchant at Kirkby
Lonsdale; and with the Bersham Furnace barely profitable he could not
expect, nor perhaps for other reasons wished to ask for, financial support
from his father. He would be looking for potential partners prepared to
back his drive and ideas with capital, and his need to start a profitable
business quickly would be urgent. It may be, too, that he chose to
concentrate his search in the Coalbrookdale and Broseley areas which was at
the focus of the Midland ironmaking developments with established water
transport south down the Severn, as opposed to Wrexham and Bersham which
looked north to Liverpool and the Dee ports. It also placed some thirty
miles distance between his own and his father's activities and that might
have been important to him.
As early as 1756 Wilkinson had been in
discussion with Brooke Forester about the design of a new Blast Furnace on
the Forester estates at Willey, just across the river from Coalbrookdale,
and destined to become the first furnace of what would be their New Willey
Company. Wilkinson by this time would have made himself familiar with the
extensive Darby activities in Coalbrookdale, widely acknowledged as the
foremost iron-making concern in the kingdom. With his ear to the ground to
pick up local talk of their activities and processes he would know that the
Coalbrookdale lease was up for renewal in 1759 and that the landlords were
in dispute with the Darbys over renewal conditions.
With astonishing confidence for a young and
relatively unknown new arrival in the area Wilkinson then decided, no doubt
with Brooke Forester standing behind him and with the New Willey Company
well forward in its planning but not yet established, to compete with the
Darbys for the lease. Articles of Agreement with the Darbys' landlords,
John and Rose Giffard, were completed, though not disclosed, on 12 September
1757 for a lease to the New Willey Company to take effect at Michaelmas 1759
when the old Darby lease terminated.
There followed almost five years of
litigation between John and Rose Giffard, and Thomas Goldney and Abraham
Darby II for the Coalbrookdale Company, in a series of claims and counter
claims from which Wilkinson and the New Willey Company were largely absent.
The action ran its course through the Court of Chancery and eventually into
the Court of Common Law at Shrewsbury where it was eventually resolved in a
compromise agreement in the late summer of 1762.
The Coalbrookdale Company had no doubt been
outraged when they heard of the Giffards' undisclosed Agreement with
Wilkinson whose only appearance in the dispute was at a number of informal
meetings with Darby and Goldney where each side tried, and failed, to buy
off the other. A later suggestion by Wilkinson that the two companies
should jointly run the Coalbrookdale works was also rejected outright.[l]
It is interesting that at this early stage in his
iron-making career, and at a time of much uncertainty in his personal
affairs, Wilkinson chose to take on the might of the Darbys rather than to
cultivate them in a co-operative way. He must have known that his actions
would alienate them and he must have believed therefore, that either he had
a good chance of acquiring the lease of what was after all a prime
iron-making site with its infrastructure already established, or that at
least he would come out of the confrontation with something of value.
It is fascinating to speculate what that something
might have been. Did he see the Coalbrookdale works as a possible
alternative, or as an addition, to his plans for the New Willey Company? Or
did he simply seek to divert the Coalbrookdale management from proper
supervision of their works and hence slow down production during this period
when he was seeking to establish his New Willey Company? Perhaps he knew
that Abraham Darby II was under serious financial pressure at this time and
had to rely on Thomas Goldney to bankroll the litigation. And perhaps he
was able to apply pressure to the Coalbrookdale Company as a result of his
actions here to release to him on more favourable terms the old furnace at
Willey on Forester land which had been leased to the Company for years. It
is of course an early example of that characteristic which recurs so
constantly in his later business life, the shrewd exploitation of a timely
opportunity, in this case to establish his name as a force to be reckoned
with alongside some of the foremost personalities in the iron-making world.
Certainly there was a huge task in front of
his New Willey Company. The old furnace had been operating at marginal
profit through shortage of water for the bellows for the past twenty years
and as a consequence Richard Ford and Thomas Goldney were prepared to
release it. The furnace made only pigg iron for the Bristol market, which
is where Wilkinson now found prospective partners with the necessary
capital.
Edward Blakeway, a wealthy Shrewsbury
business man, joined Wilkinson in this new venture and Blakeway probably
brought in John Skrymster also of Shrewsbury; and there was of course that
shrewd Wilkinson touch in securing Brooke Forester as a partner along with
the land-owning Forester family's mining agent William Ferriday.
Eventually six Bristol merchants took an
interest in the business providing the broader capital base the new venture
required, and establishing a link between the Wilkinsons and Bristol at this
date. This is the first appearance, too, of William Ferriday in the
Wilkinson story.
The lease between George Forester and the
Willey Company was dated 13th June 1757[li]
and was for 42 years. It included clauses giving authority to build new
furnaces, to take large quantities of clod coal and ironstone from
the Forester lands as well as clay, sand an
