From BATESON Hartley, THE HISTORY OF OLDHAM 1949
THE FORTY-FIVE REBELLION
In the Rebellion of 1745 the local Jacobites were more seriously implicated. Captain Beswick of Birchen Bower, Hollinwood, brother of Hannah Beswick afterwards notorious as the " Manchester Mummy," served as a lieutenant in the Pretender's Forces. Apparently he received a pardon, for he died at Birchen Bower many years later. On the other hand Edward Gregge of Chamber Hall served as a substitute for Robert Hopwood of Hopwood in the King's army against the Young Pretender. For this service Mr. Hopwood, being without heir, in 1773 devised the estate of Hopwood to Mr. Gregge after the death of his lady.
In the first week of December the whole district was agitated with alarms and panic. A party of Scotch Rebels were on their way from Manchester to Oldham. ”As thick as hail came post on post ". and every messenger brought his story of brawny Highland giants, who revelled in deeds of violence and outrage. It was told how a. foraging party of Rebels, in passing Lime Ditch Farm, were in the act of taking away the farm produce when the farmer and his sons set upon the foragers with pitchforks', and routed them. (This story, related by Old William Booth of Street Farm, Roman Road, b. 1779, d. 1866, is corroborated by Waugh in his R9ads of of Manchester) At Street Farm old Mrs. Booth was very anxious the Rebels should not take the six pecks of malt that she. was about to brew for the husbandmen, and she put it into the old oak cradle probably thinking that the bonny Scotch laddies would not be so cruel as to take the infant John Barleycorn.
The Rebels however did not come to Street Farm, but called at Jobb's Farm adjoining. The people of Oldham derived great consolation from these stories, and from another story from Failsworth. As the Pretender's followers with their white cockades were passing Fletcher Fold a farmer (it was alleged) shot one of them dead. He hid in a meal chest and thus escaped detection. All these stories were related with glee in. Oldham because the Highlanders in every case were discomfited and outwitted.
One less welcome story, however, provoked all owners of horses to feverish activity. It was repotted that as the Rebels passed through Kirkmanshulme near Gorton they had taken a valuable horse in exchange for an old emaciated nag. The story still echoes in the Steward's Book of Chamber Hall, where the Master was away from home fighting against the Rebels. In December 1745 the Steward paid the sum of 12s. for carrying away the horses to be secure from they Rebels." Every weaver and spinner of any moment, as well as every farmer, possessed a horse. The horse-stealing story spread like a prairie fire among the tradesmen, carriers and farmers f the district. The farmers of Lees and Shelderslow near Oldham drove their cattle into a dense wood called the Hurst Field. Joseph Wrigley of Stonebreaks, carrier, galloped in the dead of night with his horses post haste to Greenfield.
Unfortunately nothing can be gleaned about the arrival of the Rebels in Oldham and their reception. There were many local supporters of George II who had joined the militia, raised and trained to resist the Jacobites. A few entries in the Chamber Hall Steward's Book bear witness to this fact. A payment is made on November x3th to " John Bursell for appearing at Manchester on the Muster Day," and on November 23rd to " Robert Park for a pair of boots for John Hines, soldier." There were militia men at Chadderton Fold, but curiously (as we shall see) when the Rebels visited them they were not at home. Equally vague is the strength of the Jacobite cause in Oldham. One staunch supporter the Rebels would assuredly find in. Benjamin, Dawson, fustian weaver and grocer, who in the early years of the century had bought considerable property in Glodwick, Oldham and Hollinwood. Benjamin belonged to a family of unswerving Jacobite sympathies. According to Edwin Butterworth he was a kinsman of the ill-starred Captain James Dawson of Manchester who joined the Rebels, was captured, and condemned to death. The story goes that the lady to whom James was betrothed insisted on accompanying him to the scaffold when he was executed in 1746, The tragic sequel was commemorated by the poet William Shenstone
"The dismal scene was o'er and past,
The lover's mournful hearse retired ;
The maid drew back her languid head,
And, sighing forth his name, expired,"
No sure information is available concerning the elder Benjamin's dealings with the Rebels, but his grandson Benjamin of Glodwick acted as their guide when they scoured the district for arms. From the papers of the Horton family we leatn that young Dawson accompanied a patty of Scotch Rebels to Chadderton Fold.
The story was afterwards given in evidence by a certain Ann Lee and a certain Mary Matthew before William Horton, Esq., of Chadderton Hall, an active young magistrate of 23. We will tell the story in our own. way, not untruly, but trying to free it from the frigid legal style which freezes the life out of it. Chadderton Fold had for some days been in the grip of cold fear and it may be imagined that Ann Lee's heart was in her mouth when on that grey November day she saw tiding across Chadderton Green a party of five Rebels (Mary Matthew afterwards counted six), dressed in plaid, and two of them wearing blue coats over their plaid, They were accompanied by a young Englishman whom Mary Matthews afterwards identified as the grandson of Benjamin Dawson of Oldham. Young Dawson appeared to be acting as guide. Followed by the five Scots he went up to the door of an avowed supporter of King George, John Matthew by name, who had joined the militia and was away on active service. Dawson knocked loudly. The door opened slightly to show the terror-stricken face of Mary, wife of John. Matthew. Young Dawson demanded John Matthew's arms with the threat that unless they were delivered to him the house would be burned down. The distraught wife protested that her husband was absent from home and had taken the arms with him. Dawson motioned the Scots, who brushed the wife aside and entered to search the house. She escaped in an agony of fear.
While the terrified Ann Lee stood gazing at Matthew's house, she was joined by a certain Robert Ogden of "ye wood in ye Township of Chadderton." Evidently nature had not cast Robert in heroic mould. He explained to Ann that the Rebels must have arms. Ann, fatuously confident of male valour, implored him "that he will let them go away quietly." Robert replied that he did not intend to hinder, them. As he spoke the Rebels emerged from Matthew's house after a fruitless search. Thereupon Robert (apparently himself a militia man) ran up to them crying, " You have not been where I delivered my arms!You have not been to that house !” (pointing to the house of Joshua Partington., another militia man). One of the Rebels on horseback replied, "That house ! I do not believe there is any such thing as arms in that house Nevertheless " ye rebels came up to ye said house trid did search for arms and found none.' As they departed certain James Scholes, otherwise " James of ye Butler's in Chadderton," came up to Ann, wife of Joshua Partington, and Mid that if the arms were not brought to Oldham by two o'clock the Rebels would return and burn her house. There is reason to believe that Chadderton Hall was ransacked. St. James' Evening Post for December 19th, 1745, reported that " Mr. Horton of Chadderton, the late Sheriff of Lancashire, has suffered very much."
A tradition still extant in the early nineteenth century claimed that a part/ of Rebels, after visiting Jobb's farm, struck across the country to Chamber Hall and ransacked it. in view of the owner's activity on the King's behalf, the story bears the stamp of truth. According to another tradition Old Jacob Tweedale of Waterhead, living about 1820 (an ancestor of Alderman Frank Tweedale), was the soil of a forty-five Borderer who in passing through the village was beguiled by the beautiful eyes of a Waterhead lassie, married her and settled in the village. There can be little doubt that one party of Highlanders reached the village of Lees.
The story goesthat one night the villagers were startled from sleep by the droning voice of the watchman : " It's hawve past four in t’morning and it's raininge and t' Rebels are between here and Owdam! " In a few moments the streets were agog with excited tradesfolk and farmers, anxious women and barking dogs. Soon after dawn a party of "yellow-haired laddies arrived and proceeded to search the larger houses and buildings for King's men." They came to the Grapes Inn at Hey, where the landlady, Mrs. Haughton, was ill in bed of a new-born baby.
Just before the arrival of the Highlanders her husband had brought her a drink of warm wine and eggs in a silver tankard. From the commotion in the adjoining room she knew too well that the Rebels were in the house, and she plunged the silver vessel into a large cream mug which had been standing before the fire. When at last the brawny Scats entered the room, she lay with the babe clasped to her breast and great drops of sweat pouring from her One of the Rebels, whose fierce exterior belied his kindly heart, observing her distress, exclaimed, “ Dinna be afraid, guid woman. Naebody is going to hurt ye " The silver tankard was preserved and treasured, along with all the circumstantial. details of the story, and handed down to Mrs. Haughton's descendant, Samuel Andrew the antiquarian. For aught we know it still remains in. the Andrew family, a sole survivor of the visit of Scotch rebels in the Forty-five Rebellion
