Facebook post #055 (Feb 2021)
We left Alfred Squire last week at the point he left the family farm at Rest Park to find his way in the world. By 1841, at age 20, he was apprenticed to a druggist in Brotherton, 6 miles south. Ten years later, he was one of four shopmen living in at a linen draper’s at 24 Briggate, Leeds, about 20 miles from the farm. (He was Alfred ‘Squires’ in both censuses.) I photo’d the shop (pic) before I knew of any connexion (actually because it is Grade II star listed for its gilded time ball and other features added after Alfred’s time).
Rather abruptly, Alfred relocated to the less obviously prosperous linen weaving and mining town of Barnsley, five miles further from home. Curious – perhaps there was an unmissable business opportunity…? But no, the scandalous truth emerged when I found a note posted online:
“There had been a family story implicating a member of the Squire family of Rest Park, Sherburn-in-Elmet in the birth of my Great Grandfather George (but always called ‘Squires’) Fowler [son of Sarah Fowler, 18]… I am now in possession of information that convinces me that George ‘Squires’ father was, in fact, Alfred Squire, [32] son of John Squire”!
Apparently, Sarah was born and raised at her father’s farm in Little Fenton, about two miles from Rest Park. When Alfred was in central Leeds, so was Sarah – she was a domestic for another druggist. The Fowler family story was that Alfred’s family refused to allow him to marry Sarah, and sent him away!
Presumably, the family were not delighted when – no sooner had he relocated – Alfred married another shopgirl. And only fourteen months after Squires Fowler was born… Sarah remarried – and had a son named Alfred (Britton); in due course, ‘Squires’ had a son named Squire Fowler.
Our Alfred married Agnes Green in July 1853 at St Mary Barnsley. She had been born in Wigan, and her father was John Green, a bleacher. There is a good candidate for this John, also born in Wigan but now living in Barnsley Old Town (see map), a hand loom weaver. Agnes, however, had been living with her uncle George Traviss, a local hatter, for at least twelve years.
By the time John had arrived, Barnsley was a principal centre for linen weaving – flax spinning by water power having been introduced in the mid to late C18, and steam a century later. But much hand-looming still existed – perhaps half the output. Indeed the population was much expanded by an influx of such workers from Lancashire and Ireland, their higher quality and ‘fancy’ work giving Barnsley an edge over cheaper local competition.
The pic is The Loom (Tim Ward, 2015), Barnsley (photo: Barnsley Council)
Working conditions were poor though, and low rates for piece work meant long hours. From about 1839, unemployed weavers were begging in the street. I found this note from the Wigan authorities to those of Barnsley:
“I beg you will oblige by endeavouring to keep Wigan paupers who reside in your Township at the greatest distance imaginable. I fear your account will accumulate till we shall not be able to discharge it. I am of opinion that things are as bad here as they can possibly be with you at Barnsley. … I am sorry that you have very much trouble with our poor.”
Exports of ‘fancy’ goods to China helped, but the Crimean War led to a flax famine in the mid-1850s.
By the time Alfred arrived, the first of a large number of coal pits were opening, mostly in the villages surrounding the town. As time went on, the linen industry began to decline due to competition from Ireland and Scotland, and from cotton – a raw material produced with cheap labour – slave labour until the American Civil War of 1861. So coal eclipsed flax, as flax had overtaken wire drawing in earlier times. Notably the ratio of workers in the two industries in John’s neighbourhood in the Old Town tilted over this period – it was about even by 1861. Agnes’ family worked in both industries – see post #016 (‘Kes’) and the blog.
By then, Alfred was a master tailor, recorded in the census as a hatter and tailor employing eleven on Market Hill (pic – my photo, like the others of Barnsley). The eldest son, John Traviss Squire, was five years old. Ten years later, Alfred was still in business in Barnsley, but John was now a solicitor’s articled clerk, boarding with a dental surgeon in Sheffield city centre. More of this anon…
Alfred and Agnes remained in business in Market Street for many years. Their daughter Agnes married Alexander Brown Bell, a leader writer for the Sheffield Morning Telegraph and Yorkshire Evening Post. By the time he was 70, Alfred had become a coal agent, and Agnes let rooms.
After Alfred died, Agnes retired to a terraced house with her shopkeeper daughter, Sarah, whose fancy drapery suggesting that she bought from the hand-loomers. Poor John Bertram Harris (post 41) was staying with them in 1911. Agnes died late in WWI; according to other researchers, Sarah ended her days in Australia.
