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 Mrs. Gaskell and Knufsford. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013346188 
 
MRS. GASKELL AND 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
MES. GASKELL AND KNUTSFOED 
 
 BY 
 
 EEV. G. A. PAYNE 
 
 Eleven Illustrations. Introduction by 
 Edna Lyall 
 
 Prick 2s. 6d. Net. 
 
 Manchester : Clarkson & Griffiths 
 
 London and Warrmgton : Mackie & Co., Ld. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 The Spliere .—"Every member of the Gaskell cult, both in 
 Great Britain and the United States, will at one time or 
 another visit Knutsford, and a visit to Knutsford will be 
 made much more interesting when it Is taken in the company 
 of Mr. Payne's volume." 
 
 The Academy.— "lie ha.s made a pleasant little book, with 
 an excellent portrait of Mrs. Gaskell as frontispiece." 
 
 Manclu'tiler Guardian.—" There is always some pleasure in 
 reading the expression of genuine enthusiasm, and such an 
 enthusiasm warms everything that Mr. Payne writes on his 
 subject." 
 MancJiester GouTicr.—" Delightful little volume." 
 Liverpool Daily Post. — *' A very beautiful book." 
 The Bookman .—" A. pleasant volume. We are grateful for 
 this picture, from the pen of one who knows the little town 
 so well." 
 
 The Jnquirer.—" I^his is a book pleasantly illustrated, 
 interestmgly written, and v/ell printed. In a book of 116 
 pages dealing with such a subject, everything has necessarily 
 to be put briefly, but the parts are fairly balanced, and Mr. 
 Payne well earns the gratitude of all who have a loving 
 memory of Mrs. Gaskeli's delightful and healthful stories, 
 for bringing together into a nutshell so much Interesting 
 information about her and her characters." 
 
 Literary World.—" Lovers of Mrs. Gaskeli's stories have 
 cause to thank Mr. Payne for his labour of love." 
 
 Tlie Christian World.-" These sketches of Knutsford will 
 be welcomed. An eminently workmanlike little volume." 
 
 Tlie Kidderminster Shuttle.— "Mr. Payne has produced a 
 very acceptable volume, which cannot fail to win its way 
 among lovers of literature," 
 
 Entitsford Guardian.—" The form in which he presents 
 his facts is pleasing, and this, allied with his "chatty" 
 appreciative criticism of her works, makes the book exceed- 
 ingly entertaining." "Everything Mr. Payne tells us about 
 Mrs. Gaskell is highly interesting and instructive." 
 
 Lancashire Faces and Places.-" This little book is 
 altogether acceptable because It is so entirely sympathetic. 
 It is a tribute from a disciple, who has been proud and care- 
 f ul and watchful to record and compress all that, within his 
 knowledge, others like him have said and done in relation to 
 the same subject, so that nothing should be lost." ■ 
 
Elizabeth Clkghorn ('. askkll 
 Dm II 29lh Si'iiliiiihir ISII) : Dial I'JIli Xm; iiih, r ],%.) 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 REV. GEORGE A. PAYNE 
 
 (Author of "Edna Lyall : an Appreciation," and 
 " Knutsford," in Dent's Temple Topographies). 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 CLARKSON & GRIFFITHS, Ltd. 
 
 65, Bridge Street 
 
 LONDON 
 
 MACKIE & Co. Ld. 
 
 59, Flkft Street, E.C. 
 
 at- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 No complete biography of Mrs. Gaskell 
 can be written, the Misses Gaskell feel- 
 ing strongly that their mother's wish- 
 that no biography should be written — 
 ought to be respected. 
 
 The author of this little book has 
 brought together from papers of his 
 which have already appeared in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine, the Sketch, the 
 Manchester Herald, and other magazines 
 and newspapers, as a nucleus, a great 
 deal of information about Knutsford, 
 which he thinks may be of interest to 
 all lovers of the writings of the gifted 
 authoress, who spent much of her time 
 here. 
 
 This is followed by a biography which 
 has been compiled from sources named, 
 with remarks on her stories long and 
 short, bibliographical notes, and a sketch 
 
PREFACE 
 
 of the Rev. William Gaskell, M.A., por- 
 tions of which are culled from the able 
 sketch written by the Rev. Alexander 
 Gordon, M.A., for the "Dictionary of 
 National Biography." 
 
 The author desires to express his 
 grateful thanks to the last named for 
 this valuable assistance, to " Edna Lyall " 
 for her invaluable aid in writing an in- 
 troduction, and for her great willingness 
 in so readily consenting to do so, and to 
 T. R. Wilkinson, Esq., for kindly read- 
 ing the proof-sheets. 
 
 Should any source of information be 
 unacknowledged, he would plead for 
 consideration in this his first venture. 
 His object has been to write a little 
 book which shall give as much informa- 
 tion as possible about Mrs. Gaskell. 
 
 Knutsford, October, igoo. 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND 
 EDITION 
 
 The first edition of my little book 
 having been so well received, I am 
 emboldened to issue a second edition, 
 with corrections and additions. 
 
 It was never my intention to write 
 a " Life of Mrs. Gaskell," but I am 
 glad, nevertheless, that this will be done 
 by Mr. Clement K. Shorter. 
 
 There has been a notable revival of 
 interest in Mrs. Gaskell and her stories. 
 
 The special Gaskell collection at Moss 
 Side, Manchester, has grown apace, 
 and now consists of 218 volumes, thanks 
 to the indefatigable labours of Mr. W. 
 E. A. Axon and Mr. J. A. Green, the 
 Librarian. A most carefully prepared 
 hand list has been compiled by Mr. 
 Green, which all admirers of Mrs. 
 Gaskell's work will be glad to have. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 " Edna Lyall," who very kindly wrote 
 an introduction to the first edition, has 
 since passed away, but her influence for 
 good will long remain. 
 
 With regard to Knutsford being the 
 original of " Cranford," my friend, Mr. 
 W. B. Tracy (who has also passed 
 away), put the matter most aptly in a 
 very kind review of my book, which 
 appeared in " Lancashire Faces and 
 Places," when he said, speaking of 
 drawing from the life, " When a writer 
 sits down to meditate and write, and 
 the mental constituents he represents 
 gather about him, the pleasures of 
 memory and the tempering of genius 
 are the chief factors in the subsequent 
 work." 
 
 In the " Cranford Notes " which I 
 have added to this edition, I have tried 
 to show that Knutsford was the " old 
 ancient place" which people smile about 
 when they read " Cranford." 
 
 Knutsford, 1905. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 All lovers of Mrs. Gaskell's books will 
 welcome the very interesting sketch of 
 Knutsford, and her connection with it, 
 which Mr. Payne has compiled with so 
 much care. 
 
 Among all our novelists there is 
 scarcely, we think, one so lovable as 
 the writer of " Wives and Daughters," 
 and all that has been told of her 
 beautiful character, and her simple, 
 practical way of living, makes us wish 
 very earnestly that she herself had not 
 forbidden the writing of any formal 
 biography. 
 
 However, since a complete life is out 
 of the question, it is well to have such 
 a faithful outline of facts as this little 
 book gives ; and Mr. Payne's work will 
 no doubt send many of us back to 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the novels themselves, to refresh our 
 memories with those delicate character 
 studies, and wholesome, humorous pic- 
 tures of life. 
 
 " EDNA LYALL." 
 
 Eastbourne, 
 November 3, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 KNUTSFORD 3 
 
 CHANGES IN KNUTSFORD .... 12 
 
 THE BELLMAN I5 
 
 THE RHYMSTER 30 
 
 IS KNUTSFORD THE ORIGINAL OF " CRAN- 
 
 FORD " ? 39 
 
 "CRANFORD" NOTES 39 
 
 BROOK STREET CHAPEL .... 44 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MRS. GASKELL 
 
 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM . . . 61 
 MEMORIALS OF MRS. GASKELL . . 102 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY IO5 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REV. WILLI AM GASKELL, M.A. 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM GASKELL, M.A. . .115 
 INDEX TO NAMES 135 
 
 xi 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MRS. GASKELL, COPY OF RICH- 
 MOND PICTURE . 
 
 THE ROSE AND CROWN INN, 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
 CHURCH HOUSE, KNUTSFORD 
 
 HOME OF HIGGINS, THE HIGH 
 WAYMAN 
 
 BROOK STREET CHAPEL, KNUTS 
 FORD . 
 
 MRS. GASKELL's GRAVE 
 
 SANDLEBRIDGE . 
 
 SANDLEBRIDGE MILL . 
 
 THE SCHOOL 
 
 BAS-RELIEF. 
 
 REV. WILLIAM GASKELL, M 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 to face page ii 
 >. 1. 36 
 
 „ ,. 38 
 
 „ „ 49 
 
 .. " 57 
 
 1) 1. 66 
 
 ,) >, 6g 
 
 „ „ 86 
 
 >. „ 103 
 
 ,> „ 115 
 
CHAPTER 1 
 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
MRS. GASKELL AND 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
 KNUTSFORD 
 
 This old-fashioned Cheshire town of 
 about five thousand inhabitants is situ- 
 ated between Manchester and Chester, 
 about fifteen miles from the former and 
 twenty-four from the latter place. 
 
 It is not only interesting on account 
 of its association with Mrs. Gaskell and 
 her writings, but also on account of its 
 antiquity, the picturesque beauty of its 
 rural scenery, and its proximity to several 
 ancient mansions and historic churches. 
 
 There is a tradition to the effect that 
 when Canute, or Knut, marched north- 
 wards against the King of Scotland, he 
 forded a small stream (now covered up) 
 which united the upper and lower morass, 
 and thus gave his name to the town. 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 The Rev. Henry Green, M.A., who in 
 1859 wrote "Knutsford: its Traditions 
 and History," one of the most interesting 
 and complete histories of a small town 
 that has ever been written, strongly be- 
 lieved that this was the correct derivation 
 of the name. He points out that the 
 very form of the word — for Cunetesford 
 is the name given to the place in the 
 Domesday Book — shows that it was de- 
 rived from the name of a person, and 
 also that as early as 1609, when William 
 Smith wrote his " Treatise on Cheshire," 
 he said, " Knutsford, I think, should be 
 called in Latin, Vadum Canuti, that is, 
 the ford of Canutus." The spelling of 
 the name varies from Cunetesford to 
 Knottesford, and from Knotsford to 
 Knutsford. 
 
 There was no separate parish of 
 Knutsford until the year 1741, the parish 
 church having been built in 1744. There 
 was a chapel of ease in the town, no 
 trace of which can now be found ; but a 
 heap of bricks and stones in the midst 
 of a very old and disused burying-ground, 
 lying about a mile to the east of the town, 
 marks the spot where the " Parochial 
 Chappel of Nether Knotsford," in the 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 parish of Rostherne, formerly stood. 
 This chapel had a peal of four bells, and 
 it is a curious fact that when the new 
 church was built they were melted down 
 and recast into a peal of five bells, which, 
 together with a sixth bell paid for by 
 public subscription, were hung in the 
 new tower. 
 
 The Saturday market, which to-day is 
 very small and unimportant, lasting only 
 for a few hours, was established so long 
 ago as 1292, and at one time, when it 
 was held in the market square, was very 
 large and flourishing. Strangers are 
 often at a loss to know what the people 
 do for a living, for there are no industries 
 except those whiclj are carried on on a 
 very small scale, such as basket-making, 
 mat - making, brick - making, and the 
 making of rustic summer-houses and 
 garden-seats. 
 
 The town was much more flourishing 
 when, as some of the old inhabitants 
 well remember, silk-weaving was carried 
 on in most of the cottages, and when as 
 much as 30s. per week could be earned 
 at the loom. The work was brought 
 from Macclesfield and given out to the 
 people, who sometimes had to carry the 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 finished product back a distance of 
 twelve miles. But while silk was brought 
 from Macclesfield, cotton was brought 
 from Manchester, and on many fustian 
 looms as much as from 25s. to 27s. per 
 week was regularly earned. Going back 
 again to an earlier period, about a hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago, the making of 
 linen thread was the staple industry. 
 
 The district is famous above all else 
 for its fine trees. Within a radius of two 
 miles from the parish church, delightful 
 avenues of oak, beech, and lime may be 
 found, the Lime Walk in Booth Park 
 being especially lovely. There are a 
 number of beautiful parks in the neigh- 
 bourhood, among them being Tatton 
 Park, the seat of Earl Egerton of Tatton ; 
 Tabley, the seat of Lady Leighton 
 Warren, whose brother, the late Lord 
 de Tabley, was the author of several 
 charming volumes of poetry, two of the 
 best known being " Poems : Dramatic and 
 Lyrical," First and Second Series. Other 
 parks are Toft, Booth, Peover, and Mere. 
 Though there is no river, some of the 
 largest meres in Cheshire are in the 
 immediate vicinity. Of these, Tatton, 
 Rostherne and Mere are each about 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 a mile in length, and Rostherne in 
 some places is over one hundred feet in 
 depth. 
 
 Knutsford is a grand field for the 
 archasologist, many of the mansions 
 dating back to very early times. One 
 of the most interesting of these is Tabley 
 Old Hall, situated about two and a half 
 miles from Knutsford, on the road to 
 Northwich.' The house, which is now 
 kept as a show place — a modern resi- 
 dence having been built in the centre of 
 the park in 1744 — is built on an island 
 in Tabley Mere, evidently with a view to 
 its security from attack. It lies a little 
 distance from the ancient Roman road — 
 Watling Street — which runs from Man- 
 chester to Chester. The present building 
 is a good specimen of Elizabethan archi- 
 tecture, with large stone windows having 
 mullions and transoms. The original 
 structure was built in the reign of 
 Richard II. It was a " many-gabled and 
 highly picturesque example of the half- 
 timbered style of building, and was 
 
 ^Reference may be made besides to " Knutsford : 
 its Traditions and History," by Rev. Henry Green, 
 M.A. ; Ormerod's " Cheshire " ; and " Old Halls in 
 Lancashire and Cheshire," by Henry Taylor, 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 restored and enlarged by Sir Peter 
 Leicester in 1671." 
 
 The old chapel, which is adjacent to 
 the Hall, was built in 1675, and the 
 high-backed oaken pews face north and 
 south ; the men, according to an ancient 
 custom, sitting on the one side, and the 
 women on the other. The father of the 
 late Lord de Tabley is said to have re- 
 marked that the women ought to allow 
 the men to rest at least one hour in the 
 week. The park, which is large and 
 well wooded, is closed to the public ; but 
 the Old Hall may be visited by procuring 
 an order from Lady Leighton Warren, 
 who is very kind to people who are 
 really interested. " Sir Nicholas De 
 Leycester, Knight, was Seneschall to 
 the greate subject & favourite Henry 
 Lacy, Earl of Lincoln & Constable of 
 Cheshire, in the reigne of K. Edward L, 
 about A.D. 1288. " 1 
 
 Tenth in descent from Sir Nicholas 
 was Peter Leycester, who married Alice, 
 daughter of Sir John Holford in 1529. 
 
 Holford Hall, a very pretty black and 
 white buildingjis not far from Tabley Hall. 
 
 1 " Travels in England," by Richard le 
 Gallienne, p. 261. 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Returning once again to the Old Hall, 
 we find that the great hall is a spacious 
 apartment, forty feet long by twenty-five 
 feet wide, with a gallery on three sides, 
 the roof being supported by huge timbers 
 roughly hewn. The walls are festooned 
 with old armour, spears, and pikes, and 
 with instruments of war and other 
 curios brought from foreign lands by 
 different members of the family. Sir 
 Peter Leicester who restored and en- 
 larged Tabley Old Hall, was created a 
 baronet in 1660. He it was who wrote 
 an invaluable " History of the Bucklow 
 Hundred of Cheshire." 
 
 Other halls in the neighbourhood date 
 back to a period far remote, that at Over 
 Tabley, now used as a farmhouse by Mr. 
 John Dean, having been built about 1291, 
 and the Hall at Toft, in the midst of a 
 beautifully wooded park, dating from the 
 reign of Richard I., while Higher Peover 
 Hall, about three miles from Knutsford, 
 has been " the homestead of the Main- 
 warings from times, perhaps, long anterior 
 to the Conquest." 
 
 Knutsford is to this day an old-world 
 sort of place. The cattle fair is still 
 partly held in the public streets, and 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 until quite recently the bellman, or town- 
 crier, prefaced any announcement he had 
 to make with, " God save the Queen and 
 the lord of this manor," in return for 
 which he received a new suit of clothes 
 each year. When the Queen ascended 
 the throne we are told that the old bell- 
 man, Jeremy Low, who was a noted 
 public character, found it difficult not to 
 make his customary prelude, " God save 
 the King and the lord of this manor," 
 and frequently had to correct himself. 
 On one occasion, being so exasperated 
 with himself for having to say " God 
 save the King — Queen," and forgetting 
 for the moment the loyalty due to his 
 sovereign, he turned round, and, in a 
 
 growling undertone, said, " God d 
 
 the Queen." 
 
 The old custom, which seems peculiar 
 to Knutsford, of " sanding " for marriages 
 and special occasions, is still most care- 
 fully observed. Designs, some of which 
 are extremely artistic, are worked out in 
 sand on the pavements and across the 
 streets in front of the houses. 
 
 Another old custom, the crowning of 
 the " May Queen," is carried out amid 
 great pomp and splendour. Thousands 
 
u 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 of people flock to Knutsford annually to 
 see the procession which passes through 
 the principal streets of the town to the 
 heath, where the coronation ceremony is 
 performed. The sedan chair, used in the 
 old Cranford days, is regularly carried in 
 the procession. 
 
 The principal street — King Street — • 
 is picturesque and quaint, owing to the 
 irregularity of the buildings, some being 
 oak-timbered, and many having thatched 
 roofs. There is one old house, " The 
 Rose and Crown," which bears the date 
 1 04 1.' Strangers who do not know that 
 the top of the 6 (1641) must have been 
 taken off at some time, have been known 
 to remark that it is really astonishing 
 that such houses should have been built 
 in 1041. 
 
 ^The top of the 6 has now been restored. — G.A.P 
 
CHANGES IN KNUTSFORD 
 
 Knutsford is still in many respects 
 " the old ancient place, " but great changes 
 have been effected in its outward aspect 
 since the time when Elizabeth Cleghorn 
 Stevenson passed her girlhood here. 
 
 Among the most striking of these may 
 be mentioned : — 
 
 (i.) The railway was constructed in 
 1862,^ and a bridge in King Street built 
 upon the site of a few ancient cottages 
 and three magnificent elms, which the 
 oldest inhabitants can very well re- 
 member. 
 
 In one of these cottages an old milk- 
 vendor lived, and on a waste piece of 
 ground opposite stood the pump which 
 supplied the people in the immediate 
 vicinity with water. At one time, we are 
 told, a local wag — Georgie Barnwell 
 (Potter) — knocked the old man up in the 
 night and informed him that his favourite 
 cow had got a turnip in her throat, and 
 was " like to be choked ; " and his anger, 
 not to say his language, will be better 
 
 ' The Railway was publicly opened on May 
 I2th, 1S62. 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 imagined than described when he was 
 led across to the pump, the spout of 
 which had been stopped up with a turnip. 
 (2.) Where the house now stands in 
 which the governor of the gaol lives, the 
 ancient White Hart Inn formerly stood, 
 and the encouraging announcement, 
 " Good Provision for Man and Beast," 
 met ihe traveller's gaze. Adjoining this 
 were the village smithy, a wheelwright's 
 shop, and a few cottages, in one of which 
 lived John Eden, for many years the 
 sexton at the parish church. 
 
 (3.) A large number of detached and 
 semi - detached villas have been built, 
 thus bringing from Manchester a goodly 
 number of men to the home of the 
 " Amazons." 
 
 (4.) The stocks (long since removed) 
 stood under the church wall in King 
 Street. Here, we understand, the before- 
 mentioned Georgie Barnwell, less than 
 forty years ago, was spending a little 
 time. When his brother Samuel, seeing 
 him in this sad plight, said, "Tha looks 
 well naa," George, pointing over to the 
 churchyard, rejoined with, " And so will 
 thee when tha gets over th' wall." 
 
 (5.) The office of the bellman is now 
 
 13 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 extinct, and the court-house, under 
 which the bellman (who was also chief 
 constable) lived, is now, though still 
 standing in the market square, no longer 
 used for its original purpose. 
 
 (6.) A number of houses and five cotton 
 mills formerly stood at the " top of the 
 bottom street," but they were pulled 
 down by a gentleman who bought the 
 property and improved the entrance to 
 Tatton Park. 
 
 (7.) The river Lily, which Canute is 
 supposed to have forded (for is it not 
 Canute's ford ?), then ran across Brook 
 Street. 
 
 The two following sketches, "The 
 Bellman" and "The Rhymster," are here 
 introduced in order to give the reader a 
 clear idea what kind of place Knutsford 
 was, and showing types of the people to 
 be met with, together with illustrations 
 of the quaint customs which were strictly 
 observed. 
 
 14 
 
THE BELLMAN 
 
 In these days, when advertising is so 
 general, with miles of hoarding, cheap 
 and good printing, and apt illustration, 
 there is no need for the services of the 
 bellman or town crier, and consequently 
 we find the office falling into disuse. In 
 a few places, however, like Altrincham, 
 for instance, the prefatory announcement, 
 "Oyez! Oyez ! Oyez!" may still be 
 heard, though it is called " Oh yes ! Oh 
 yes ! Oh yes !" and then follows " God 
 bless the Queen and the lord of this 
 manor." 
 
 Concerning some of these bellmen 
 there were traits and peculiarities which 
 it seems to us we do well to recall. 
 
 Manchester has had her interesting 
 bellmen, but Knutsford has had one or 
 two which are almost equally interesting, 
 though it is a difficult matter to get any 
 authentic information concerning them. 
 
 Fifty years ago the bellman was very 
 much in evidence on bonfire night. The 
 carrying of the effigy of Guy Faux 
 
 15 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 through the public streets of Knutsford 
 at the head of a rabble of boys and 
 youths was made one of the leading 
 features of the festival. The boys for 
 weeks beforehand were busy gathering 
 together their piles of wood, and many a 
 paling was stripped of a stake and many 
 a tree was robbed of a bough. 
 
 The effigy was made by the leading 
 tailor, and was a full-sized figure, which 
 was carried by Bill Smith, the bellman, 
 mounted on a mule. On such an occasion 
 as this, of course, Bill Smith would wear 
 his livery, for he was not only bellman 
 but constable too. 
 
 He lived in the old market-place 
 where, years before, the bonfire used to 
 be kindled, at the lock-up, which to this 
 day may be found beneath the now dis- 
 used court-house. His under-garments 
 the outside world knew little about, for 
 they were covered by a huge overcoat 
 reaching down nearly to his heels. He 
 wore, if we may say so, a tall hat which 
 was very short, broad-brimmed, and sur- 
 rounded by a silver band, and he was a 
 tall, burly man. 
 
 There must have been quite a stir in 
 this quaint town in the good old time 
 
 i6 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 when Bill mounted his charger, and at 
 the head of a rowdy gang led the way 
 through the principal streets to the Com- 
 mon, where Guy was raised high up 
 on the pile, and eventually brought down 
 amid the roaring of the flames and the 
 shouting of the boys. 
 
 But this was not the end of the festival. 
 There was a feast, " The BifF Stake 
 Atin," at the " George," for Bill went 
 round to the butchers with a big basket, 
 into which they each put a steak or a 
 chop as their contribution to the fun of 
 the evening, and for a small charge the 
 townspeople could join in eating and 
 drinking, especially drinking, to the 
 memory of the traitor Guy. Bill Smith 
 was succeeded in his office by Moses 
 Coppock, whom many will remember, 
 but his predecessor was a much more 
 interesting man. 
 
 He is the Jeremy Low of whom the 
 Rev. Henry Green, M.A., speaks in his 
 "History of Knutsford." A lady had 
 kindly undertaken to knit some woollen 
 hose for Jeremiah, but, bethinking himself 
 of the spindle-like condition of his legs, 
 with great consideration he went to the 
 lady to beg she would not trouble herself 
 
 17 B 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 to make any cawlves to his stockings, 
 "Because," said the old man, "because 
 I have no cawlves to my legs." He was 
 a very old man when the Queen ascended 
 the throne, and made many a blunder, to 
 the intense amusement of the bystanders, 
 in repeating the familiar phrase, which 
 was the preliminary to any announce- 
 ment he had to make, " God bless the 
 King, and the lord of this manor," to 
 which the boys added, " And John Long, 
 the tanner." Bill Smith, who was a tall, 
 courtly man, used to take off his hat 
 when he made this announcement. Not 
 so Jeremy ! 
 
 Jeremy Low was short and thin, a 
 cripple with a short leg, and wore a boot 
 with a high heel. He was a hunchback, 
 the hump being made, it would appear, 
 to carry his bell on. He had very thin 
 legs and a wall eye, and was dressed in 
 a drab coat with red collar, knee breeches, 
 and a broad-brimmed silver-laced hat, and 
 was assisted in his peregrinations with a 
 stick and a crutch. 
 
 The fish sold in Knutsford used to 
 be brought hither by coach, and Jeremy 
 on the morning of its arrival used to 
 do his rounds shouting out the kinds 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 of fish to be purchased at Frederick 
 Moult's, while the boys added their 
 portion — 
 
 " Frederick Moult has fish to sell, 
 
 And Jeremy Low goes round with his bell." 
 
 19 
 
THE RHYMSTER 
 
 The number of those who remember 
 Knutsford as it was before the railway 
 was opened up from Altrincham to 
 Northwich, and when Chelford verily 
 was " Chelford for Knutsford," is rapidly 
 diminishing, and we fear some of the 
 "characters" of that distant time are 
 gradually being forgotten. 
 
 The one we wish to revert to has 
 claims upon our attention which we are 
 unwilling to pass over. He was a silk 
 weaver who had seen more prosperous 
 times for the people of old Knutsford. 
 
 His father lived at that quaint cottage, 
 which was afterwards occupied by old 
 John Hough, at the junction of Adam's 
 Hill and King Street, where now stands 
 a huge station wall, and opposite to 
 which, on the site of the parochial 
 school (now disused) and the lecture 
 hall, stood eleven cottages. These cot- 
 tages were demolished in 1829, some of 
 the old bricks being used in the building 
 of the parochial school in 1830. An 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 ancient photograph which yfe are fortu- 
 nate enough to possess shows the front 
 of old Hough's house, next to which was 
 an outhouse, used at one time as a 
 cooper's workshop, and before that as 
 a weaving shop, while, facing a row of 
 seven (out of the eleven cottages), stood 
 a cowshed. 
 
 It was in this weaving shop that 
 Tommy Witter used to work at his loom, 
 when he was sober. A small sliding 
 door was the means of communication 
 between the house and the shop, and 
 many a time has old Betty Witter pushed 
 aside the door to see if her ne'er-do-well 
 son was at work or not. Her husband 
 (old George) looked after the cattle and 
 did odd jobs about the town, while 
 she herself looked after the home — and 
 Tommy ; for, though he did not live at 
 home for some reason, he worked at 
 home, lodging in a cottage hard by. 
 They were getting on in years, being 
 born respectively in 1769 and 1765; and 
 in 1842 old George, who had survived 
 his wife three years, was laid to rest in 
 the parish churchyard. It was in vain 
 we looked for Tommy's tombstone. He 
 who had written so many epitaphs for 
 
 21 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 pints of beer, and had composed verses 
 and sung songs for a like remuneration, 
 was laid to rest by the parish. But we 
 do not wish to bring him to mind on 
 account of his " toping " propensities, 
 but because he was a clever rhymster, 
 and because his verses, such as we have 
 seen, will give to the younger generation 
 a pretty good idea of the Knutsford of 
 long ago, when (he tells us in a poem 
 which was written about the time) it was 
 thought that the railway would be laid 
 down, and that it would be the means of 
 opening up trade. 
 
 " Seventy years with me have passed away, 
 Great changes in that time I've seen 
 
 In this little town of Knutsford, 
 Where I was born and still remain.'' 
 
 [" Remain," by the way, must be pro- 
 nounced "remeen," just as the Cheshire 
 native talks of " teeters " and " pleets.''] 
 
 " I can remember well the day, 
 When in wages there was paid 
 
 Near three hundred pound per week. 
 Then in the town we had good trade. 
 
 Five cotton mills were running then, 
 A great deal of thread was made ; 
 
 A poor man with his family 
 For his labour then was paid. 
 
 22 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 To make this an independent town 
 They would banish the cotton trade ; 
 
 A great man pulled the factories down, 
 And a great mistake he made. 
 
 Now Knutsford men and men of Knutsford, 
 
 Let us hope the worst is past ; 
 We shall have a trade when the railway's 
 made, 
 
 And that time is approaching fast." 
 
 This, like four other poems we have, 
 was printed on cards and circulated, and 
 probably sold at a small charge. There 
 is nothing very polished about his verse, 
 but it is homely, and he tells his story in 
 a straightforward way. When old John 
 Eden, who had been the sexton at the 
 parish church for many years, met 
 Tommy, he was told right away what his 
 epitaph should be : — 
 
 " Here lies the body of Eden John, 
 Who in his time had buried many a one ; 
 Rejoice ye young men in his fall, 
 For, if he'd lived, he'd a-buried you all." 
 
 His facility in verse-making must have 
 been hereditary, for we find that old 
 Joseph Witter, of Toft, who was born in 
 1 715, and died at the age of eighty in 
 1795, left as his epitaph : — 
 
 23 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 " Farewell, my wife and children dear, 
 Whilst here you do remain. 
 The Lord of Hosts be your defence 
 Till we shall meet again." 
 
 In 1845 he wrote a poem of six verses, 
 which is as good as anything we have seen 
 of his. It is entitled : " On the lamented 
 death of Miss Egerton. Died November 
 loth, 1845, aged 21 years." Two verses 
 will suffice to show its quality : — 
 
 " Death hath stepped on the hearth with so 
 rapid a stride 
 That none thought his shadow was nigh ; 
 He had sought out a victim, and found one pre- 
 par'd, 
 And has borne her in triumph on high. 
 
 But to sorrow is mortal in those left behind, 
 And who witness her premature flight ; 
 
 To see one so young, and so gentle and good, 
 Pass away hke a dream of the night." 
 
 Another " In Memoriam " was written 
 in 1853. This was " In Memory of Mrs. 
 Egerton, of Tatton Park, who died Feb. 
 28th, 1853, aged 74 years. Interred in 
 Rostherne Church, March 7th." This 
 also contains six verses, but we will give 
 the first and last, which will indicate the 
 type :— 
 
 24 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 " Death has been, and borne away 
 The widows' and orphans' friend ; 
 
 With a generous heart her bounty 
 To the poor she did extend. 
 
 And, speaking of " Her aged partner left 
 behind " :— 
 
 " God be his shield and comfortfer ; 
 His life's short journey through ; 
 And may the good that she has done 
 Be always kept in view." 
 
 The next card we take up contains 
 seven verses, but it is this time on the 
 occasion of a marriage : " Lines on the 
 Marriage of the Honourable Meriel War- 
 ren, to Allen A. Bathurst, Esq., M.P." 
 
 The railway has done a great deal in 
 opening up the country to the influences 
 of the town, but at the same time it has 
 done a good deal also in breaking down 
 many of the simple manners and customs, 
 and has been the means of introducing a 
 new element which has been a disturbing 
 factor in the relations between the cottage 
 and the Hall. We regret the little we 
 have lost, but gladly accept the large 
 balance of gain. But to the marriage ! 
 
 The metre in this poetical effusion — 
 we were going to say poem — is like 
 Tommy Witter himself, unsteadier than 
 
 25 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 formerly ; but here are a few of the 
 verses, rugged as they are : — 
 
 " On the thirtieth day of January, 
 In eighteen hundred and sixty-two ; 
 
 It was the joyful wedding-day — 
 The marriage ceremony was gone through. 
 
 In that ancient chapel in Tabley Park, 
 Some hundreds there were met. 
 
 For to witness a procession 
 That they will not soon forget. 
 
 It was the second daughter 
 
 Of that noble line, De Tabley ; 
 We trust the bride and bridegroom 
 
 May for ever happy be. 
 
 Her virtue, wit, and charity meet — 
 
 All her merits we do admire ; 
 To crown the whole, to be complete, 
 
 To relieve the poor it is her desire." 
 
 The last card is entitled " Free Trade 
 and the Railway," and among ten verses 
 are the following : — 
 
 " In Ashley, Mobberley, and Knutsford, 
 
 Stations there will be made ; 
 We hope and trust from Manchester 
 
 We shall have commerce and trade. 
 
 The poor of Cheshire for many years. 
 They have greatly been distress'd ; 
 
 For want of trade they are paupers made. 
 And ratepayers are much oppress' d. 
 
 26 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 When this line is made there will be trade, 
 As to coals you will have plenty — 
 
 For the starving poor brought to his door, 
 You will never find them scanty." 
 
 The next verse is singularly appro- 
 priate to our own time : — 
 
 " The town of Knutsford you soon will see 
 With water well supplied ; 
 An advantage for both rich and poor, 
 Whate'er may be their wants beside." 
 
 In March 1862, Knutsford seems to 
 have been thoroughly roused by what 
 appears, at this distance of time, a very 
 small matter. George Gallop, the then 
 governor of the prison, had daughters 
 who were said to be very haughty, and 
 who it was alleged behaved in a very 
 giddy way in church. One Sunday they 
 were reproved by the curate from the 
 pulpit by name, and immediately left the 
 church. 
 
 Mr. Gallop protested in a poster headed 
 ' Public Notice," a tattered copy of 
 which we have seen, and in which he 
 said he had reported the whole matter 
 to the bishop of the diocese, who pro- 
 mised to investigate the unjustifiable and 
 outrageous proceeding of the Rev. D. S. 
 
 27 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 Spedding. The curate, however, had 
 the sympathies of the people, by whom 
 he was much beloved ; and Tommy wrote 
 several counterblasts, from one of which 
 we quote : — 
 
 " It had been rumoured for many a day 
 These young ladies were very unsteady and 
 
 gay, 
 In church laughing, talking, reading, and 
 
 sketching, 
 Which to the curate was very vexing. 
 So one Sunday morning he mounted the 
 
 pulpit, 
 Gave out the text and then (he could not help 
 
 it) 
 Said he, ' I'm sorry to see Miss Gallops doing 
 
 wrong. 
 But this has been continued sadh' too long.' " 
 
 Two lines from another declare : — 
 
 " For when the truth the bishop comes to know 
 He will not wish our minister to go.'' 
 
 Tommy was a curio we thought worth 
 preserving. Drunken he was, no doubt, 
 especially in his later years, but he pos- 
 sessed qualities which made people re- 
 cognise him as the village poet, punster, 
 and wag, and who can say that he had 
 not a work to do in the world ? 
 
IS KNUT3F0RD THE ORIGINAL 
 OF "CRANFORD" ? 
 
 Into such a place as we have described 
 entered Mrs. Gaskell, brought hither as 
 a baby. Knutsford was the home of her 
 childhood and early youth, the place in 
 which she was married, the place she 
 regularly visited from her home in Man- 
 chester ; and it contains the ancient 
 chapel, in the graveyard of which her 
 mortal remains were buried. 
 
 It is generally believed to be the 
 original of " Cranford," and there is 
 something to be said both for and 
 against this view. It is just as likely 
 to be the " Buncombe " of "Mr. Har- 
 rison's Confessions," the " Hollingford " 
 of " Wives and Daughters," the " El- 
 tham " of " Cousin Phillis," the " Hamley " 
 of "A Dark Night's Work," and the 
 " Barford "' of " The Squire's Story." In 
 any case we think it is pretty certain that 
 her Knutsford experiences were woven 
 into the fine texture of these and other 
 works. 
 
 1 There is a Barford near Warwick. Mrs. 
 Gaskell would hear this name while at school at 
 Byerley. 
 
 29 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 The Rev. Henry Green, M.A., in his 
 " Knutsford: Its Traditions and History," 
 published in 1859, says : — 
 
 " There is one work of hers, ' Cran- 
 ford,' which in my judgment, while 
 depicting life in almost any country 
 town, is especially descriptive of some 
 of the past and present social character- 
 istics of Knutsford. I know that the 
 work was not intended to dilineate this 
 place chiefly or specially, but a little 
 incident within my own experience will 
 show the accuracy of the pictures as 
 applied to our town. A woman of 
 advanced age, who was confined to her 
 house through illness about three years 
 ago, asked me to lend her an amusing or 
 cheerful book. I lent her ' Cranford,' 
 without telling her to what it was sup- 
 posed to relate. She read the tale of 
 ' Life in a Country Town,' and, when I 
 called again, she was full of eagerness to 
 say, ' Why, sir ! that " Cranford " is all 
 about Knutsford. My old mistress. Miss 
 Harker, is mentioned in it ; and our 
 poor cow, she did go to the field in a 
 large flannel waistcoat because she had 
 burned herself in a liraepit.' For my- 
 self I must say that I consider ' Cran- 
 
 30 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 ford' to be full of good-natured humour 
 and kindliness of spirit." 
 
 It would appear that there is here 
 some show of reason for holding the 
 belief that Knutsford is the original of 
 " Cranford." 
 
 Also the writer of a notice in the 
 " Record of Unitarian Worthies " begins 
 by quoting the words used by Mrs. 
 Gaskell in her estimate of Charlotte 
 Bronte as a novelist, viz. : " She went 
 to the extreme of reality, depicting char- 
 acters as they had shown themselves in 
 actual life." 
 
 " These words," continues the writer, 
 "are equally applicable to herself; for 
 seldom have characters been more truly 
 drawn, or scenes in common life more 
 graphically described than by her pen." 
 
 There seems to be no doubt in this 
 writer's mind as to Knutsford being the 
 original of " Cranford." " In that quiet, 
 old-fashioned little town, among the good, 
 unsophisticated people to whom she in- 
 troduces her readers in her story of 
 ' Cranford,' she spent her early life. 
 Her relations attended the quaint Presby- 
 terian chapel which stands in the suburbs ; 
 with that chapel, which she describes 
 
 31 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 in ' Ruth,' her earliest recollections 
 must have been connected." 
 
 Again in " Celebrities of the Century " 
 (1887) Mr. T. Hall Caine says: "It 
 is easy to see from whence came the 
 incidents that chiefly brighten her pages ; 
 they came out of her own life. And 
 what she gives of personal experience is 
 always the best she has to offer." 
 
 Regarding originals we will here quote 
 what Edna Lyall says in her "Sketch 
 of Mrs. Gaskell," which we shall refer 
 to later : — 
 
 " How far the characters in the novels 
 were studied from life is a question 
 which naturally suggests itself ; and Mrs. 
 Holland (a daughter of Mrs. Gaskell) 
 replies to it as follows : ' I do not think 
 my mother ever consciously took her 
 characters from special individuals, but 
 we who knew often thought we recog- 
 nised people, and would tell her, " Oh, 
 so and so is just like Mr. Blank," or 
 something of that kind ; and she would 
 say, "So it is, but I never meant it for 
 him." And really many of the characters 
 are from originals, or rather are like 
 originals, but they were not consciously 
 meant to be like.' " 
 
 32 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 On the other hand, it is well to re- 
 mind people like the Honourable Mrs. 
 Tollemache, who said in an article en- 
 titled " Cranford Souvenirs " in Temple 
 Bar for August 1895 • " But though I 
 never met Mrs. Gaskell I have known 
 the original of at least one of her char- 
 acters, and heard my mother speak of 
 others," that Mrs. Gaskell was too great 
 a writer to sit down and deliberately copy 
 either people or places. But this has 
 already been very nicely expressed by 
 Mrs. Ritchie in the preface to the illus- 
 trated edition of 1891 : " This power of 
 living in the lives of others and calling 
 others to share the emotion does not 
 mean, as people sometimes imagine, that 
 a writer copies textually from the world 
 before her. I have heard my father say 
 that no author worth anything deliber- 
 ately and as a rule copies the subject 
 before him. And so with Mrs. Gaskell. 
 Her early impressions were vivid and 
 dear to her, but her world, though col- 
 oured by remembrance and sympathy, 
 was peopled by the fresh creations of 
 her vivid imagination, not by stale copies 
 of the people she had known." Mrs. 
 Gaskell never consciously drew from life. 
 
 33 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 and repeatedly said so. It is only 
 natural, however, to expect that many 
 of the early scenes, and events, and 
 places, should have been indelibly im- 
 pressed on her memory, and that they 
 should afterwards have appeared, though 
 dressed in a different garb, in her many 
 stories. Whether this be so or not, it 
 is interesting to be able to point to many 
 strange coincidences. For instance, the 
 ancient Brook Street Chapel (built 1689, 
 in which Matthew Henry has many times 
 preached), with its graveyard, is pro- 
 bably the model from which the des- 
 cription of Mr. Benson's chapel in " Ruth " 
 was drawn ; or to put it in another way, 
 the one which was present to her mind 
 when she described Mr. Benson's chapel. 
 Indeed, there is no other chapel which 
 so nearly answers to the description, 
 though Dean Row and Macclesfield, 
 built about the same time, are somewhat 
 hke it. 
 
 " It was built when the Dissenters were 
 afraid of attracting attention or observa- 
 tion, and hid their places of worship in 
 obscure and out-of-the-way parts of the 
 towns in which they were built. Ac- 
 cordingly it often happened, as in tha 
 
 34 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 present case, that the buildings immedi- 
 ately surrounding, as well as the chapels 
 themselves, looked as if they carried you 
 back to a period a hundred and fifty 
 years ago. The chapel had a picturesque 
 and old-world look, for luckily the con- 
 gregation had been too poor to rebuild 
 it or new-face it in George the Third's 
 time. The staircases which led to the 
 galleries were outside, at each end of 
 the building, and the irregular roof and 
 worn stone steps looked grey and stained 
 by time and weather. The grassy hil- 
 locks, each with a little upright headstone, 
 were shaded by a grand old wych-elm 
 (in reality a sycamore).' A lilac bush or 
 two, a white rose tree, and a few labur- 
 nums, all old and gnarled enough, were 
 planted round the chapel-yard ; and the 
 casement windows of the chapel were 
 made of heavy-leaded, diamond-shaped 
 panes, almost covered with ivy, producing 
 a green gloom, not without its solemnity 
 within. The interior of the building was 
 plain and simple, as plain and simple 
 could be. When it was fitted up oak 
 
 1 This sycamore, which was one of the interest- 
 ing features of the graveyard, being dead, was 
 removed in August 1903. 
 
 35 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 timber was much cheaper than it is now, 
 so the wood-work was all of that des- 
 cription, but roughly hewed, for the 
 early builders had not much wealth to 
 spare." 
 
 Standing a little distance from the 
 chapel is Brook House, which tradition 
 says was the home of the Hon. Mrs. 
 Jamieson ; and if it be kept in mind that 
 what is now a garden at the front of the 
 house was in the old day an open space, 
 it will be found to exactly correspond 
 with the description given of it in 
 "Cranford." "That lady lived in a 
 large house just outside the town. A 
 road, which had known what it was to 
 be a street, ran right before the house, 
 which opened out upon it without any 
 intervening garden or court. Whatever 
 the sun was about, he never shone on 
 the front of that house." This is where 
 that wonderful story about puss swallow- 
 ing the lace was so inimitably told by 
 Mrs. Forrester. 
 
 In the parish church, built in 1744, 
 Mrs. Gaskell was married in 1832, the 
 Dissenters then being unable to marry 
 in their own chapels. Church House, just 
 outside the parish churchyard, was the 
 
 36 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 home of Mr. Peter Holland,^ surgeon, tha 
 father of Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D., 
 F.R.S. (1788 to 1873), and grandfather 
 of the present Lord Knutsford. It is 
 believed by many old inhabitants that the 
 character of Mr. Gibson, in "Wives and 
 Daughters," was suggested to Mrs. Gas- 
 kell by her acquaintance with Mr. Peter 
 Holland, whom she used to accompany 
 on his rounds. We can only add that 
 Miss Gaskell says : " No two people could 
 be more unlike than Dr. Gibson and Mr. 
 Holland." The old Cann Office on the 
 Heath, where weights and scales at one 
 time were tested, is now covered with 
 ivy. Here lived Edward Higgins, the 
 highwayman, information concerning 
 whom may be found in the Rev. Henry 
 Green's book already referred to. (See 
 also De Quincey's '"Highwayman.") 
 The story of Higgins is reproduced in 
 Mrs. Gaskell's extremely well-written 
 story, " The Squire's Tale." 
 
 Not far from this is the house in which 
 Mrs. Lumb lived, with whom Mrs. Gas- 
 kell spent her childhood and early youth. 
 This is a tall red-brick house (facing the 
 
 1 Peter Holland, of Knutsford, surgeon, was 
 born 3rd June, 1766, and died 19th January, 1855. 
 
 37 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 heath), and it has been considerably 
 altered since that time. The old school, 
 up to a very recent date used as a girls' 
 school, just outside the entrance gates of 
 Cumnor Towers (now the residence of 
 Earl Egerton of Tatton), may be that 
 described in " Wives and Daughters," in 
 which Miss Cynthia took so great an 
 interest. 
 
 "The countess and the ladies, her 
 daughters, had set up a school, not a 
 school after the manner of schools now- 
 adays — where far better intellectual 
 teaching is given to the boys and girls 
 of labourers and workpeople than often 
 falls to the lot of their betters in worldly 
 estate — but a school of the kind we 
 should call ' industrial,' where girls are 
 taught to sew beautifully, to be capital 
 housemaids, and pretty fair cooks, and, 
 above all, to dress neatly in a kind of 
 charity uniform devised by the ladies of 
 Cumnor Towers — white caps, white tip- 
 pets, check aprons, blue gowns, and 
 ready curtseys, and ' please ma'ams ' 
 being de riguetir." 
 
 The Royal George Hotel, where the 
 visitor is charmed by " the shining oak 
 staircase and panelled wainscot, the old 
 
 38 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 oak settles and cupboards, Chippendale 
 cabinets, and old bits of china," and its 
 County Assembly Room, mentioned in 
 several novels, and the house at the top 
 of the George Yard— a public thorough- 
 fare leading from one street to the other 
 —said to have been used by ' ' Miss 
 Matty " as the shop in which she sold 
 her tea, and from the window of which 
 (the said window now being built up) 
 she threw "comfits" to the children— 
 these are two of the oldest Cranford 
 houses now recognisable. 
 
 CRANFORD NOTES. 
 
 I. " The surgeon has his round of thirty miles and 
 skips at Cranford." 
 
 The surgeon of Knutsford in ' ' Cranford ' ' times 
 was Mr. Peter Holland, whose daughters were 
 Miss Lucy and Miss Mary Holland. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Holland, in "Letters of Mary 
 Sibylla Holland," says that "Aunt Lucy" and 
 " Aunt Mary " were sometimes alleged to have 
 served Mrs. Gaskell as the models of Miss Matty 
 and her sister. 
 
 39 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 There were no doubt certain resemblances. 
 Miss Lucy Holland certainly did wear a very large 
 muff, which often used to contain more than 
 her hands. On many occasions an old friend of 
 ours remembers Miss Holland bringing potatoes, 
 which were then very dear in price, as a gift 
 which the poor appreciated, hidden away in her 
 muff. 
 
 2. Mrs. Gaskell refers to the ladies of Cranford 
 being quite sufficient "for rushing out at the geese 
 that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates 
 are left open ; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial i to 
 the poor, etc." 
 
 At that time the Heath was quite open, the 
 fences having been placed round and trees planted 
 during recent years, and many of the old inhabi- 
 tants kept geese which wandered about in flocks 
 on the Common, the name by which the Heath is 
 still generally known. 
 
 3. The story of the Alderney cow and the 
 limepit is quite true. Miss Harker lived at what 
 is now Mr. Pass's shop in Princess Street, where 
 it is alleged Miss Matty kept her little tea shop, 
 and the limepit was along the Northwich Road, 
 and in front of what is now the Grammar School. 
 There were a number of pits along that side of the 
 Heath, one of them being known as the Colonel's 
 pit. We heard of a man who once fell into this 
 particular pit, which was about the largest. He 
 was far from sober when he got in , but the cold 
 douche seemed to bring him round rather rapidly, 
 so that when he was asked by a person, who was 
 attracted to the spot by the vigorous splashing, 
 what he was doing there, he wittily replied that he 
 
 40 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 was on his way to Lower Peover Church to sinp; 
 bass against so and so, and wanted to get a deep 
 note. 
 
 The pit being beside the highway, and 
 unfenced, it was an easy matter on a darls night to 
 walk in. 
 
 In most of the Cheshire fields there are pits, 
 which are much too useful for watering cattle 
 to be filled up by the farmer. They were made 
 before the days of chemical manures, when marl 
 was dug out and spread upon the land together 
 with natural farmyard manure and lime. Later 
 again guano and bone manure took the place of 
 marl, and the pits gradually filled with water, and 
 in many cases were stocked with fish by the 
 farmers. 
 
 4. Lord Mauleverer stayed at the Angel Hotel, 
 which, not far from the Royal George Hotel (with 
 County Assembly Room attached), still stands in 
 King Street. 
 
 5 . The Shin Lane spoken of in " Cranford' ' must 
 be MinshuU Street. 
 
 6. The Benefit Society for the Poor, which Deborah 
 and her mother had started, is still in existence. 
 It is known as the Female Benefit Society, the 
 funds of which, through careful investment, have 
 grown considerably. This society is still 
 managed by the ladies of Knutsford. It was 
 founded in 1806 by Mrs. Holland (mother of Miss 
 Holland and Miss Lucy Holland), of Church 
 House, and a few other of the influential ladies 
 of the town and neighbourhood. 
 
 7. " / counted seven brooches myself on Miss Pole's 
 dress. ' ' 
 
 41 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 We have seen a good number of these old 
 Cranford brooches, some of which were quite 
 large, and we fortunately possess a few silver shoe 
 buckles. 
 
 8 . " Such a piece of gaiety was going to happen as 
 had not been seen or known of since WombweU's lions 
 came." To this day the appearance of a menagerie 
 or travelling show is the cause of great excitement, 
 and crowds usually flock in. 
 
 g. " We comforted ourselves with the assurance 
 which we gave to each other, that the robberies could 
 never have been committed by any Cranford person.'^ 
 
 " The Cranford people respected themselves too much 
 and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so 
 hind as to live near the town, ever to disgrace their 
 bringing up by being dishonest or immoral." These 
 two passages might be written to-day with the 
 same irony which we fancy Mrs. Gaskell put into 
 them. The town has not changed much from that 
 old time. 
 
 10. Over Place, we think, must be Cross Town. 
 
 11. " The little wayside public-house, standing on 
 the high road to London, about three miles from 
 Cranford," must be the Mainwaring Arms or 
 ' ' Whipping Stocks. ' ' The large sign used to hang 
 from a tree on the opposite side of the road to 
 the public-house, which stands at the junction of 
 the Holmes Chapel, Chelford and Knutsford roads. 
 
 12. With regard to the Bank which stopped 
 payment we find that there was a Bank failure at 
 Macclesfield in 1823, viz.. The Royal and Dantery 
 Bank. 
 
 13. "The post-woman brought two letters to the 
 house. I say the post-woman, but I should say the 
 postman's wife," 
 
 42 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Years ago a post-woman officiated in what was 
 a very small office in Princess Street. 
 
 14. With regard to the "Ladies' Seminary, to 
 which all the tradespeople in Cranford sent their 
 daughters," this was probably Heath House pre- 
 sided over by a Mrs. Stokes. 
 
 This house (the Highwayman's House) was 
 once occupied by Jack Mytton, a famous sporting 
 character, whose adventures were celebrated in 
 song and in a series of sporting prints once 
 exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. He rode a 
 race in his shirt on one occasion, and performed 
 various wild feats. 
 
 15. Before Miss Matty could think of selling 
 tea she went down to consult Mr. Johnson, the 
 grocer, to see if the project would injure his 
 business. 
 
 The same feeling exists to-day, and no welcome 
 is offered to a stranger who dares to set up in 
 business. 
 
 16. "Atiditwas race-time, and all the post-horses 
 at Cranford were gone to the races." 
 
 Knutsford Races were held on the Racecourse, or 
 Heath, or Common, from 1729 to 1873. 
 
 17. "The Spring evenings were getting bright and 
 long when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss 
 Barker's door. Do you know what a calash is ? It is 
 a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened 
 on old-fashioned gigs. ' ' 
 
 No illustrator of Cranford so far as we know has 
 drawn a calash. (Seep, in.; 
 
 43 
 
BROOK STREET CHAPEL 
 
 Inteviov 
 
 The ancient chapel at Knutsford was 
 erected in 1689, and was built by Pro- 
 testant Dissenters " for the said congre- 
 gation to assemble and meet in for 
 praying, preaching, and other religious 
 exercises." So says the first trust deed 
 of 1694, which was in every way a free 
 and open trust. 
 
 Dissent was strong in Cheshire, as will 
 be noticed by the fact that sixty-two 
 Cheshire ministers were ejected under 
 the Act of 1662. Within seven miles of 
 Knutsford there were ejected from their 
 livings Mr. John Ravenshaw of Holmes 
 Chapel, Mr. James Livesey of Great Bud- 
 worth, Mr. John Buckley of Goostrey, 
 Mr. Robert Norbury of Over Peover, 
 and, above all, Mr. Adam Martindale 
 of Rostherne. 
 
 The Cheshire Association was formed 
 in 1691, and the first meeting held at 
 Macclesfield. It continued until 1745, 
 when the last meeting was held in Knuts- 
 
 44 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 ford, on September 3rd. During this 
 time 122 meetings were held — one at 
 Chelford, one at Chester, one at Dean 
 Row, 104 at Knutsford, three at Maccles- 
 field, eight at ministers' houses, two at 
 Nantwich, one at Stockport, one at War- 
 rington. At these meetings Matthew 
 Henry preached eight times, and was 
 seven times moderator. The second 
 meeting of this classis was held in 1692 
 at Knutsford, when Matthew Henry was 
 the preacher. An ordination service was 
 then held, when six candidates were ex- 
 amined and admitted to the ministry. 
 
 From i68g to the present time there 
 have been, in 210 years, only fifteen 
 ministers, giving an average pastorate 
 of fourteen years. Several of these mini- 
 sters are buried inside the chapel, and 
 a few in the graveyard adjoining. The 
 ministry of the Rev. Robert Lord ex- 
 tended to fifty years ; that of the Rev. 
 Henry Green, M.A., to forty-five years. 
 
 The building itself is oblong in shape, 
 with a gallery on three sides and the pul- 
 pit on the fourth. The old three-decker 
 pulpit and the square family pews were 
 removed in 1859, but the gallery remains 
 in its original state. On entering the 
 
 45 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 chapel from the vestry end a long cup- 
 board will be noticed. Here the "bier" 
 is kept. Many visitors, knowing of the 
 close proximity of the village inn to many 
 a parish church, have been interested to 
 hear of the "bier " being kept inside the 
 chapel. 
 
 From the inside, the diamond panes, 
 with their background of ivy, stained as 
 they are by green and brown hues, give 
 a subdued light, which adds to the general 
 solemnity of the building ; and the quiet- 
 ness and peacefulness, together with the 
 entire absence of decoration and orna- 
 mentation, make it an ideal place for the 
 worship of Almighty God. 
 
 The choir sit in the gallery, where also 
 the organ sits, as the Irish would have it. 
 In the olden time the choir was led by a 
 man who played upon a pitchpipe, and 
 later again this gave place to a barrel 
 organ, which was wound up for a certain 
 number of verses. The old clock in the 
 gallery, facing the pulpit, used to strike 
 twelve towards the close of the morning 
 service, but it was found necessary to 
 call in the aid of the clockmaker, who 
 arranged that it should strike one instead. 
 In a recess opposite the pulpit an old 
 
 46 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 stove used to crackle away during ser- 
 vice, but fourteen years ago this was 
 changed by the introduction of a heating 
 apparatus. 
 
 On the whitewashed walls there are 
 two brasses and three other mural tablets. 
 But the attention of the visitor is taken 
 up with the stones which fill the aisles 
 and entrance-hall. Two of these stones 
 are of earlier date than the chapel, having 
 been brought from the parochial chapel- 
 yard in 1859. One of these records the 
 following : — 
 
 " E. Long dyed 
 The I of April 
 
 1651 
 & John Long 
 her husband 
 1674." 
 
 Another stone is not without in- 
 terest : — 
 
 " Here was interred ye 
 body of Mr. Samuel Low 
 Faithful minister of 
 Jesus Christ in this 
 place for the space 
 of 13 years & depated 
 this Ufe the 19 day 
 of April An : Dom. 1709." 
 
 47 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 The " r " was omitted from departed, 
 but a correction was afterwards made. 
 Another stone is to the memory of the 
 
 " Rev. Mr. Turner, 
 Sometime Minister of ye 
 Gospel in this place. 
 Died 1737, aged 48." 
 
 Of Mr. Turner, Mr. Green says : 
 " During the Rebellion of 1715 Mr. 
 Turner, then pastor of Preston, was 
 publicly thanked in the presence of King 
 George's army for his bravery and for 
 the service he had rendered to the 
 Hanoverian cause. It appears he had 
 armed the young men in his congrega- 
 tion, and one night when on patrol he 
 had taken prisoner a messenger from the 
 rebels, who was the bearer of important 
 dispatches and letters." 
 
 The date given for the gathered church 
 at AUostock is 2nd March 1690, and the 
 first chapel was built before 1705. In 
 those early days it must have been an 
 important congregation. In 1822 the 
 chapel was restored and the galleries 
 removed, and from that time there has 
 been no separate ministry, the minister 
 of Knutsford Chapel being also the 
 
 48 
 
c/) 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 " preaching minister " of Allostock Chapel. 
 It is said that both Lord Clive and 
 General Wolfe received part of their 
 education in the parsonage of one 
 of the early ministers of Allostock 
 Chapel, probably Dr. Samuel Eaton, 
 1728-1737.' 
 
 The Chapel-Yard 
 Sitting on a gravestone in the ancient 
 burying-ground, we could not help reflec- 
 ting on the changes which had been 
 brought about since the first stone had 
 been raised to mark a spot which ever 
 afterwards was sacred ground, though 
 no rites of consecration had ever been 
 performed. We were undoubtedly on hal- 
 lowed ground. A little distance away we 
 could hear the whistle of the engine as 
 it entered the station, and so near were we 
 that we could hear the name of the station 
 shouted by the porters, and the banging 
 of the carriage doors, as the train was 
 about to leave Knutsford and speed on- 
 ward towards Plumbley. Far away we 
 
 1 See " Knutsford : its Traditions and History." 
 By Rev. H. Green, M.A.,p. log. 
 
 The Rev. George Eyre Evans, in "Antiquarian 
 Notes," says it was during 1738-1739 that Lord 
 Clive was a pupil of the Rev. William Turner 
 (1737-1746). 
 
 49 D 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 could see the Tatton Mere, with the tall 
 trees reflected on the deep water under- 
 neath. Within twenty yards ran the 
 highway, and yet notwithstanding this we 
 appeared to be miles away, so peaceful 
 was the scene. The land on which we 
 stood, and on which the chapel adjoining 
 stood, had been given for the use of 
 Protestant Dissenters in 1688 by Isaac 
 Antrobus, who lies buried in the chapel 
 aisle. 
 
 Long before Knutsford became a parish 
 (church erected 1744) the minister of the 
 chapel in the fields, which was in the 
 parish of Rostherne, was a Mr. Turner, 
 whose^ " conversation was so eminently 
 holy and discipline so strict, that few or 
 none attempted to come to the Lord's 
 table but who were persons of sober and 
 blameless lives. Some of the inhabitants 
 that were for a greater strictness in the 
 rituals of religion, and a greater liberty 
 in morals than Mr. Turner had approved 
 of, were very industrious to have a mini- 
 ster of their own temper, and they were 
 successful in securing the appointment 
 of Mr. Holmes, who had been chaplain to 
 
 '"Knutsford: its Traditions and History." By 
 Rev. H. Green, M.A. 
 
 50 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Lord Delamere. Many of the inhabitants 
 that had never been dissenters refused to 
 own him as their minister, and joined 
 with others that had been always dis- 
 senters in judgment to set up a meeting 
 and invite a dissenting minister to come 
 and preach to them." 
 
 The seats at each of the four entrances 
 (above and below), while they may be 
 used by late comers to the services, or 
 by tired pilgrims, suggest that they in 
 those stormy times may have been in- 
 tended for other purposes, for it is signi- 
 ficant that in the original trust deed 
 provision is made for any possible con- 
 tingency : — 
 
 " It is hereby mutually covenanted de- 
 clared and agreed by and between all the 
 parties to these presents for themselves 
 severally and respectively and for their 
 severall and respective heirs executors 
 Administrators and Assignes that if the 
 tolleration and liberty granted by a late 
 Act of Parliament entituled an Act for 
 exempting severall of theire Maj"^= pro- 
 testant subjects from the penalties of cer- 
 taine laws should be at any time hereafter 
 taken away or withdrawne that then and 
 from thenceforth it shall and may be law- 
 
 51 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 full to and for the said Isaac Antrobus 
 his heirs or Assignes peaceably and 
 quietly to have hold occupy possess and 
 enjoy the said chappell or meeting-house 
 and the said parcell of land with the Ap- 
 purtenancies for and during soe many of 
 the before granted terme of one thousand 
 yeares as the said toleration or liberty 
 shall be soe taken away or withdrawne 
 and to Imploy the same for a dwelling- 
 house or outbuilding to his or theire owne 
 use and behoofe at his or theire owne 
 will and pleasure (keeping and maintain- 
 ing the said buildings in sufficient re- 
 paire) and that in such case it shall and 
 may be lawfuU to and for the said Peter 
 Coulthurst John Leadbeater John Bos- 
 tocke John Beard Peter Wood and Robert 
 Kell and the survivor of them and the 
 executors and assignes of the survivor 
 of them to take and carry away the 
 Pulpitt and all the pewes within the 
 said building and to dispose of them 
 to such persons as haue been at the 
 charge of them anything before herein 
 to the contrary in any wise notwith- 
 standing." 
 
 The chapel, which Mrs. Gaskell is be- 
 lieved to have faithfully described in 
 
 52 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 "Ruth," is one of three built about the 
 same time, and probably by the same 
 architect. Dean Row, Macclesfield, and 
 Knutsford Chapels, all have their en- 
 trances to the gallery from the outside, 
 and the grey stone steps are stained by 
 time and weather. 
 
 One of the first stones we look upon 
 bears an inscription written in that quaint 
 style which at one time seemed quite 
 fashionable : — 
 
 " Upon this Stone who fix their Eyes, 
 To learn whose Dust beneath it Lyes ; 
 Her Name, her Age, her Family 
 May i' th' following Letters See, 
 Anna Colthurst, &o., &c." 
 
 And then follows a verse which shows 
 that the aforesaid Anna must have been 
 the compendium of all the virtues : — 
 
 " The Vertues of th' Exalted Mind 
 That Left its Partner Here behind 
 Nor mouldering Stone, nor Mournful! Verse 
 Are fitt or worthy to Rehearse." 
 
 In close proximity to this there are 
 other stones erected to the memory of 
 members of the same family. We will 
 quote the epitaph from one of these, 
 
 53 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 in order to show their many sterling 
 qualities : — 
 
 " This Stone over the Remains 
 of Peter Colthurst of Sandlebridge, 
 
 who died June i6 1741 aged 72. 
 And of Elizabeth his Wife 
 
 who died June 15 1740 aged 74. 
 In His Mind were assembled 
 all the Virtues which rendered Him 
 happy in Himself, usefull to the World 
 an Ornament to human Nature, 
 She was truly worthy of such an Husband 
 in all Goodness, a kind Assistant 
 
 and generous Rival. 
 Their lives were stained with no Dishonour 
 but Piety and universal Benevolence 
 recommended Them to the Friendship 
 
 of the Wise and Good. 
 And those valued Them most 
 
 who knew Them best 
 The Bad avoided Them 
 except they wanted Relief." 
 
 As we stood, paper and pencil in hand, 
 a starling which had built under the 
 chapel eaves came home to its hungry 
 and noisy brood with a worm in its 
 mouth, and its croaking, discordant notes 
 startled the sparrows, busy among the 
 ivy which almost covers the building. 
 A thrush was singing near by, and now 
 
 54 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 and again a swallow would skim past, 
 while the spotted flycatcher, tamer than 
 most other birds, darted now and again 
 from the boundary wall in search of his 
 winged prey. 
 
 It was an ideal place for the birds. 
 Seldom frequented save on the Sabbath 
 and by an occasional visitor from afar, 
 and being well sheltered by an ancient 
 sycamore — older, perhaps, than the chapel 
 itself — and by a few thorn bushes, a 
 weeping ash, one or two rose trees and 
 dark-leaved yews, it was the haunt of 
 many birds which made music among 
 the boughs. 
 
 Under one of the yew trees stands a 
 headstone which attracts the attention 
 of many visitors : — 
 
 "In 
 
 Memory 
 
 of 
 
 Samuel Leicester, 
 
 Of Cross Town, Knutsford." 
 
 [And then there is a space left for the 
 date of death to be filled in.] 
 
 Old Samuel is still alive, at the ripe age 
 of eighty-nine ; and before he became too 
 
 55 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 feeble to walk down, it was his custom to 
 go and carefully weed his own grave, 
 where his wife was laid to rest twenty- 
 three years ago.^ 
 
 A little distance away is a stone to the 
 memory of the Rev. Henry Green, M.A., 
 
 " Minister of this chapel 1827 to 1872." 
 
 But there is one grave we have not 
 mentioned, which is the most frequented 
 of all. It is marked by a simple stone 
 cross, under which lie the mortal remains 
 of 
 
 " Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, 
 Born September 29, 1810 ; 
 Died November 12, 1865. 
 And of William Gaskell, 
 Born July 24, 1805 ; 
 Died June 11, i884.'' 
 
 Here the visitor to Cranford, the lovers 
 and admirers of the works of the gifted 
 authoress, the friends of the saintly man 
 whose memory lives in many minds to- 
 day, all unite in paying homage to the 
 shrine of a noble pair of workers in God's 
 vineyard. 
 
 ' The old man passed away January 19, 1900. 
 
 56 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 This ancient graveyard, hallowed by 
 sacred associations, still bears its silent 
 testimony to the worth of many noble 
 souls who have brought sunshine and 
 gladness into the hearts of the living, 
 and who "live again in minds made 
 nobler by their presence." 
 
 Mrs Gaskell's Grave 
 
 57 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MRS. GASKELL 
 
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM 
 
 It is to be regretted that no full and 
 complete biography of Mrs. Gaskell has 
 been or can be written. It is con- 
 stantly stated by writers on this sub- 
 ject that the reason for this was that her 
 experiences connected with " The Life 
 of Charlotte Bronte" were so painful 
 as to cause her to forbid it ; but we 
 understand that this is not so, and that 
 the resolution was made prior to the 
 publication of that " Life," which Mr. 
 Clement Shorter says " ranks with Bos- 
 well's ' Life of Johnson ' , and Lockhart's 
 ' Life of Scott.' " Thackeray had ex- 
 pressed a desire that no biography of 
 himself should be written, and Mrs 
 Gaskell was none the less earnest in 
 making a similar request. The best 
 that has been published is that written 
 by Miss Hamilton in her " Women 
 Writers " (second series), which is 
 considered an accurate account. An- 
 other was written by the late George 
 T. Bettany as an introduction to the 
 
 6i 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 " Minerva " edition of " Mary Barton." 
 Both writers received considerable help 
 from Dr. Ward's article on Mrs. Gaskell 
 in the " Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy" and from the article by Miss 
 Flora Masson in the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica," and we, in our turn, must 
 express indebtedness to each of the above- 
 named writers for many facts. 
 
 When Mrs. Gaskell started to write 
 " The Life of Charlotte Bronte " she 
 found it necessary to visit Haworth for 
 local colour, and her first chapter very 
 faithfully describes the journey from 
 Keighley to Haworth. Its seems only 
 a right and proper thing to do, in 
 writing a biography, to visit the old 
 haunts, but it is this freshness and 
 interest which are wanting in the bio- 
 graphies of Mrs. Gaskell we have named. 
 Neither Miss Hamilton nor Mr. Bettany 
 appear to have visited Knutsford. Mrs. 
 Ann Thackeray Ritchie, before she wrote 
 the introduction to the i8gi edition of 
 " Cranford," did visit Knutsford, and, 
 though it was only a visit of two days, 
 she managed to gain a great deal of in- 
 formation even in that short space of 
 time. Hugh Thomson, the artist who 
 
 62 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 illustrated this edition, made a great 
 mistake in not visiting Knutsford and 
 taking a few original drawings. But he 
 profited by experience, and when later 
 he illustrated Miss Mitford's " Our Vil- 
 lage," a companion volume to " Cranford " 
 in the same series, he took care to in- 
 clude a number of drawings of the 
 original places mentioned in the story, j 
 
 Proceeding now to the biography, it 
 appears that Elizabeth Cleghorn Steven- 
 son was born on September 29th, 1810, 
 in a house in Lindsey Row, now a part 
 of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where Thomas 
 Carlyle lived. She was the daughter by 
 a first marriage of William Stevenson. 
 He was a native of Berwick-on-Tweed, 
 who, after quitting the Unitarian ministry, 
 had taken to agricultural pursuits (com- 
 pare the minister farmer in " Cousin 
 Phillis "), had written upon commerce, 
 and finally settled as keeper of the 
 Records to the Treasury of London, 
 where he continued to write. 
 
 Concerning Mr. Stevenson, a note 
 appeared in the Athemmm for 
 September 12, 1891, by " E.V.T." who 
 
 iWe are to have shortly a "Cranford" with 
 original drawings by Mr. E. H. New. 
 
 63 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 quotes from the Annual Obituary for 
 1830 (Longmans). 
 
 This note we here reproduce, as it very 
 conclusively proves that a great deal 
 of Elizabeth's cleverness was inherited 
 from her father. 
 
 "The literary and scientific world has 
 sustained a great loss in the death of 
 Mr. Stevenson, a man remarkable for 
 the stores of knowledge which he 
 possessed, and for the simplicity and 
 modesty by which his rare attainments 
 were concealed." The article then gives 
 a long account of his career. His father 
 was a captain in the Royal Navy, but 
 his son seems from boyhood to have 
 inclined only to intellectual activity. 
 His earliest post was that of classical 
 tutor in the Manchester Academy, so 
 well known through the Aikins and 
 Barbaulds. After preaching for a short 
 time at a neighbouring Unitarian chapel, 
 and making an unsuccessful attempt at 
 farming in Scotland, he settled in 
 Edinburgh, talcing in students for Jhe 
 University to board with him, but at the 
 same time editing the Scots Magazine, 
 and '-contributing largely to the Edin- 
 burgk Review." Here he was introduced 
 
 64 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 "to the Earl of Lauderdale, who had just 
 been appointed Governor General of 
 India, and was selected by him to 
 accompany him as his private secretary. 
 But upon repairing to London to make 
 preparations for his voyage, the decided 
 opposition of the East India Company 
 rendered Lord Lauderdale's appointment 
 nugatory. Through his interest, how- 
 ever, Mr. Stevenson obtained the office 
 of Keeper of the Records to the Treasury." 
 This appointment as Lord Lauderdale's 
 secretary took him up to London, where 
 he lived in Mayfair and then in Chelsea. 
 " He laboured with unremitting diligence," 
 contributing to the Edinburgh Review, 
 the Oxford Review, the Westminster 
 Retrospective, and Foreign reviews, and 
 writing articles for Dr. Brewster's "En- 
 cyclopaedia " and for the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Knowledge. " He had," the 
 Annual Obituary continues, " the true 
 spirit of a faithful historian, and con- 
 trary to the practice too prevalent in 
 those days, dived into original sources 
 of information." It is interesting that Mr. 
 Stevenson's nephew, Father Stevenson, 
 S.J., of Farm Street, should have shown 
 the same turn for historical research. 
 
 65 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 Mis. Gaskell's mother was a daughter 
 of Mr. Holland, of Sandlebridge, three 
 miles from Knutsford (probably the 
 Heathbridge of "Cousin Phillis"), Mr. 
 Holland being the descendent of an 
 ancient Lancashire family. 
 
 Early in 1899 the David Lewis trustees 
 purchased the estate of Sandlebridge 
 for the purposes of founding an epileptic 
 colony. Writing to the Manchester 
 Guardian of March 4, 1899, a corre- 
 spondent described it as " sufficiently 
 removed from any great highway to 
 enjoy the privacy which is to be desired 
 in a colony of the kind proposed, and 
 yet it is very accessible by good roads, 
 and is adjacent to the Chelford station 
 on the main line of the London and 
 North Western Railway from Manchester 
 to London. The situation of the estate 
 is healthy in the extreme. The land 
 stands high, and the subsoil is of the 
 kind best suited for human habitations. 
 Its undulating character lends charm 
 and variety to the landscape, which is 
 well wooded, and has its beauty con- 
 siderably enhanced by the clear brook 
 which runs along the valley and ripples 
 under the bridge at the forge." 
 
 66 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Mrs. Ritchie charmingly describes 
 Sandlebridge, where, until quite re- 
 cently, a very fine old shuffleboard could 
 be seen. The farmer was allowed the 
 use of this pretty and useful piece of 
 furniture, which contained many drawers 
 and cupboards underneath, until it was 
 required by the Holland family. 
 
 "The old house stands lonely in a 
 beautiful and tranquil position, with a 
 waving prospect of fields and shady trees 
 and hedges, reaching to the hills which 
 rise in the far distance. As we stood 
 there we could see Alderley Edge clear 
 painted against the stormy sky. Just 
 before reaching the house the road dips 
 into a green hollow, where stands a forge 
 which has been there for over two hun- 
 dred years, handed down from father to 
 son. Just beyond the forge is an old 
 mill, shaded by beautiful trees ; we could 
 hear the peaceful sounds of labour, the 
 clanking blows of the anvil, the soft 
 monotonous thud of the mill. Sandle- 
 bridge is now given up to a farmer ; a 
 pretty flagged stone path leads up to the 
 front door." 
 
 Miss Alice Brown " By Oak and 
 Thorn " must here be allowed to add her 
 description : — 
 
 67 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 " Such far reaches of field and valley 
 are here as to make a not unpleasant 
 loneliness in the land, even under full 
 sunlight ; and when, approaching the 
 farm, you come to a smithy and mill' 
 dedicated to the uses of life, still the illu- 
 sion is not dispelled. For in the smithy 
 two or three leisurely men lean and look 
 in the intervals of smiling talk, and the 
 mill, sweet and dusty from the breath of 
 grain, goes on working quite by itself. 
 Great wooden beams, heavy wheels, and 
 dusty hoppers seemed that day to be 
 living a life of uncompanioned yet happy 
 activity, and from without came the plash, 
 plash, of willing water and the trickle of 
 the feeding stream." 
 
 It is a place which is assuredly well 
 worth visiting. There is no doubt in 
 our mind that it was the Woodley re- 
 ferred to in "Cranford" where the old 
 bachelor Mr. Holbrook lived. He it was 
 who supplied the ladies at dinner with 
 two-pronged, black-handled forks, and 
 made it difficult for them to know how 
 they were to manage with their peas, 
 while he shovelled them up into his capa- 
 
 ' Colter's Mill bears the following inscription 
 and date : M S.C. : 1659. 
 
 68 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 cious mouth with his large round-ended 
 knife. We have been there on several occa- 
 sions, sometimes with American visitors 
 who are always immensely interested. 
 On one occasion we were able to point out 
 a cuckoo flying near. As our friends had 
 never heard a skylark's song we pulled 
 up occasionally to give them an oppor- 
 tunity of hearing one. 
 
 An aged couple who live a few miles 
 from Boston {the Boston we mean, need we 
 say, Mass., U.S.A. ?) called to see us and 
 to inquire the way thither. They leisurely 
 strolled out, taking a few sandwiches with 
 them, and had returned to within a mile 
 of Knutsford, when they were met by a 
 cyclist who informed them that he had 
 come all the way from Manchester to see 
 Knutsford, and that it was his intention, 
 if they could direct him, to go over to 
 Sandlebridge. His daughter had been 
 so charmed with " Cranford " that he 
 must needs tuin out on his bicycle so 
 long a distance, poor martyr ! He was 
 somewhat surprised when our friends 
 told him they had travelled across the 
 Atlantic to see this same charming " Cran- 
 ford." 
 
 Within a month after her birth the 
 
 69 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 child lost her mother, and after being 
 entrusted for a week to the care of a 
 shopkeeper's wife, was by a family friend 
 (a !\Irs. Whittington) brought over to her 
 own mother's sister, Mrs. Lumb, of the 
 Heathside, Knutsford.^ Her aunt, but 
 recently married, was obliged for painful 
 reasons to live alone with her daughter, 
 and Elizabeth was to be a companion to 
 this child, who had become a cripple. 
 She found a second mother in her aunt, 
 more especially after the death of her 
 cousin. When about fifteen years of age 
 she was sent to a school kept by Miss 
 Byerley at Stratford-on-Avon, where she 
 was taught Latin as well as French and 
 Italian. Her knowledge of the Midlands 
 may be found in " Ruth." Here she 
 remained two years. The disappearance 
 of her only brother, John Stevenson, on 
 his third or fourth voyage as a lieutenant 
 in the merchant navy about 1827, sug- 
 gested the "Poor Peter" episode in 
 " Cranford " and probably the character 
 
 1 We have a lantern slide of Hannah, relict of 
 Samuel Lumb, of Wakefield, and daughter of 
 Samuel and Anne Holland, who died May ist, 1837, 
 aged 6g, taken from a picture in the possession of 
 the Rev. S. A. Steinthal. 
 
 70 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 of '■ Poor Frederick " in " North and 
 South." She occasionally visited Lon- 
 don, and spent two winters at Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne in the family of Mr. Turner, a 
 public-spirited Unitarian minister (pro- 
 bably the Mr. Benson of "Ruth") and 
 another at Edinburgh, the society of 
 which afterwards suggested " Round the 
 Sofa," the introduction to " My Lady 
 Ludlow." 
 
 The Mr. Turner here spoken of was 
 the Rev. William Turner, who ministered 
 in Newcastle-on-Tyne at the Church of 
 the Divine Unity, then in Hanover 
 Square, from 1782 to 1841, and who in 
 January 1793, at the age of thirty-one, 
 founded the Literary and Philosophical 
 Society in that town, which is, after 
 Manchester, the oldest society of the 
 kind in England. His portrait may be 
 found in Mr. Welford's "Men of Mark," 
 as well as in Dr. Spence Watson's inter- 
 esting history of that society. For many 
 years he gave lectures and contributed 
 papers on the most abstruse scientific 
 subjects. George Stephenson freely 
 acknowledged that a great deal of his 
 scientific knowledge was obtained from 
 William Turner, who died in Manchester 
 in 1859, at the age of ninety-seven. 
 
 71 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 "Mr, Turner," he said, "was always 
 ready to assist me with books, with in- 
 struments, and with counsel, gratuitously 
 and cheerfully. He gave me the most 
 valuable assistance and instruction ; and 
 to my dying day I can never forget the 
 obligations which I owe to my venerable 
 friend." We make this extract from a 
 funeral sermon on the Rev. William 
 Turner by the Rev. William Gaskell, 
 M.A., preached at Upper Brook Street 
 Chapel, Manchester, on May i, 1859. 
 
 Mr. Turner's successors in Newcastle 
 have been the Revs. Joseph M'AIlister, 
 George Harris, William Newton, James 
 Christopher Street, Alfred Payne, and 
 Frank Walters. It is curious that the 
 Rev. John Turner, the grandfather of 
 William Turner, should have been the 
 minister at Knutsford from 1735 to 1737, 
 and that he lies buried only a few yards 
 from the grave of Mrs. Gaskell in the 
 ancient Brook Street Chapel at Knutsford. 
 Also William Turner's father, William 
 Turner, ministered at Allostock, only 
 live miles from Knutsford, from 1737 to 
 1746. 
 
 In 1832 Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson 
 was married in the Knutsford parish 
 
 7:: 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 church to the Rev. William Gaskell, 
 the minister of Cross Street Chapel, 
 Manchester. It was a happy marriage, 
 and each was able to help the other 
 very considerably. She was ready at 
 all times to engage in works of charity 
 and mercy, and, during the cotton famine 
 in Manchester — for here they lived to- 
 gether, first in Dover Street, then in 
 Rumford Street, and afterwards at Ply- 
 mouth Grove — she showed a practical 
 sympathy among the deserving poor, 
 which won for her a place in their 
 hearts. Her first known publication 
 appeared in William Howitt's " Visits to 
 Remarkable Places," in 1840, and was 
 a description of Clopton Hall, near Strat- 
 ford-on-Avon.^ In 1844, while on a 
 
 1 A correspondent in the Manchester Guardian of 
 Nov. 20, 1897, gives the following : " What wa,s 
 probably Mrs. Gaskell's first appearance in print was 
 a poem. in Blackwood's Magazine of January 1837. 
 The_re is some reason to think that this was written 
 An collaboration by the Rev. William Gaskell and 
 his accomplished wife. It is in what would now be 
 regarded as old-fashioned verse.but contains a vivid 
 and sympathetic sketch of a poor woman living in a 
 great town.who is always hoping for a return to the 
 home of her childhood in the pleasant country, and 
 always putting off the realisation of that dream in 
 order to help the poor and the sick. When she is 
 too old to go back, she lives in memory." 
 
 73 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 visit to Festiniog, Mrs. Gaskell lost her 
 only boy Willie, who died of scarlet 
 fever. In order to turn her thoughts 
 from this deep grief she, at her husband's 
 advice, attempted to write, and her prac- 
 tical experience among the poor in one of 
 the worst districts of Manchester (Ancoats) 
 proved to be of great service in depicting 
 in " Mary Barton " the hard conditions 
 of life under which the poor lived. The 
 work was written at this sad time and 
 sent to a publisher in London, who re- 
 turned it unread. Messrs. Chapman and 
 Hall, after keeping it so long a time that 
 Mrs. Gaskell says she had forgotten all 
 about it, offered her ^loo for the copy- 
 right, and it was published anonymously 
 in 1848. It was exceedingly well re- 
 ceived, and everybody asked who the 
 writer could be, and some, we are told, 
 discussed the question with Mrs. Gaskell 
 
 ' No sense had she of change, or loss of thought, 
 With those around her no communion sought ; 
 Scarce knew she of their being. Fancy wild 
 Had placed her in her father's house a child ; 
 It was her mother sang her to her rest ; 
 The lark awoke her springing from his nest ; 
 The bees sang cheerily the livelong day, 
 Lurking 'mid flowers wherever they did play ; 
 The Sabbath bells rang as in years gone by, 
 Swelling and falling on the soft winds' sigh, 
 
 74 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 herself. It has been translated into 
 French, German, and several other lan- 
 guages. 
 
 A writer in Macmillan's Magazine for 
 December 1865 says : — 
 
 " Seldom has any author attained cele- 
 brity so rapidly as Mrs. Gaskell. Like 
 Byron, she might almost say that she awoke 
 one morning and found herself famous. 
 Of all recent literary successes ' Mary 
 Barton,' with the exception perhaps of 
 ' Jane Eyre,' was the most signal. Dur- 
 ing the period that its authorship re- 
 mained a secret, there were few people, 
 even among her own friends and neigh- 
 bours, who suspected the quiet lady, 
 whose home lay in Manchester, of having 
 written a book of which the world was 
 talking.'' 
 
 When it became known that the writer 
 was Mrs. Gaskell she received many 
 
 Yes ! angel voices called her childhood back, 
 Blotting out life with its dim sorrowy track ; 
 Her secret wish was ever known in heaven, 
 And so in mystery was the answer given. 
 In sadness many mourned her later years, 
 But blessing shone behind that mist of tears ; 
 And as the child she deemed herself, she lies 
 In gentle slumber till the dead shall rise. " 
 
 75 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 letters of congratulation, including one 
 from Thomas Carlyle. She believed in 
 a higher classification of men than into 
 rich and poor. 
 
 " You cannot read the lot of those who 
 daily pass you by in the street. How do 
 you know the wild romances of their 
 lives, the trials, the temptations they are 
 even now enduring, resisting, sinking 
 under ? You may be elbowed one in- 
 stant by a girl desperate in her abandon- 
 ment, laughing in mad merriment with 
 her outward gesture, while her soul is 
 longing for the rest of the dead, and 
 bringing itself to think of the cold flow- 
 ing river as the only mercy of God re- 
 maining to her here. You may pass the 
 criminal meditating crimes at which you 
 will to-morrow shudder with horror as 
 you read them. You may push against 
 one, humble and unnoticed, the last upon 
 earth who in heaven will for ever be in 
 the immediate light of God's countenance. 
 Errands of mercy — errands of sin — did 
 you ever think where all the thousands of 
 people you daily meet are bound ? " 
 
 It was the striking contrast between 
 the lives ot ease and luxury of the manu- 
 facturers, and the extreme poverty of the 
 
 76 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 men, which compelled her to write so 
 strongly what she felt. 
 
 " Large houses are still occupied, while 
 spinners' and weavers' cottages stand 
 empty because the families that once 
 filled them are obliged to live in rooms 
 or cellars. Carriages still roll along the 
 streets, concerts are still crowded by sub- 
 scribers, the shops for expensive luxuries 
 still find daily customers, while the work- 
 man loiters away his unemployed time in 
 watching these things and thinking of 
 the pale, uncomplainiiig wife at home, 
 and the wailing children asking in vain 
 for enough of food — of the sinking health, 
 of the dying life of those near and dear 
 to him. The contrast is too great. Why 
 should he alone suffer from bad times ?" 
 
 Hers was not a one-sided view, as some 
 have maintained. She drew faithful cha- 
 racters, the types of both good and bad 
 workmen — and manufacturers. The con- 
 trast between the proud, domineering, 
 insolent young Mr. Carson, of " Mary 
 Barton," and the thoughtful, consistent, 
 and honest Mr. Thornton of " North and 
 South " will be apparent to the reader. 
 Great power is shown in this first novel, 
 " Mary Barton." What a reahstic picture 
 
 77 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 we have of the mill on fire ! We can see 
 the ghastly faces of the two men as the 
 fire begins to surround them ; we can 
 hear the crackle, and almost uncon- 
 sciously sit back in our chair as we read 
 for very fear of being scorched. And 
 again, towards the end of the book, we 
 can almost hear the splash of the oars 
 which carries the frail boat all too slowly 
 out to sea ; we can almost see the 
 " gloomy, leaden sky, the cold, flat, yel- 
 low shore in the distance ; " we can al- 
 most feel " the nipping, cutting wind ; " 
 but the lights of the John Cropper flash, 
 the news of the trial is shouted out to the 
 only witness, and Mary's lover is saved. 
 
 The Prospective Review of 1849 says 
 of "Mary Barton" :— 
 
 "It is a charming book; after every 
 deduction, rich in wisdom and truth. It 
 shows us what a deep poetry may be 
 lying hid under the outward meanness 
 and triviality of humble life ; what strong 
 and pure affections, what heroism and 
 disinterestedness, what high faith in God 
 and immortality under all the sorrow and 
 trial of a hard world may be nursed in 
 the homes of poor and unpolished men. 
 We rise from its pages with a deeper 
 
 78 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 interest in all our fellow-beings ; with a 
 firmer trust in their great and glorious 
 destiny ; and with a strengthened desire 
 to co-operate with its gifted authoress, 
 and with all of kindred spirit, in every 
 effort to ennoble and bless them." 
 
 From the " Reminiscences of Henry 
 Crabb Robinson" we quote the following: — 
 
 " Sunday night, Oct. 14, 1849, 
 " Froude has been here this summer 
 (at the Lakes). He was lodged, as I was 
 informed — for I did not see him — at a 
 farmhouse at or near Skelwith Bridge." 
 
 " Mrs. Gaskell, the author of ' Mary 
 Barton,' was also for some weeks in that 
 neighbourhood, and I got Mr. Words- 
 worth to meet her and her husband (a 
 Unitarian minister at Manchester). She 
 is a very pleasing, interesting person." 
 
 After the publication of " Mary Barton " 
 she made many friends on her visits to 
 London, amongst whom were Charles 
 Dickens, Lord Houghton, Mrs. Beecher 
 Stowe, Ruskin, and Florence Nightingale ; 
 and at Oxford she became known to Pro- 
 fessor Jowett and Mr. (afterwards Dean) 
 Stanley. In 1850 she wrote " Lizzie 
 Leigh" and "The Moorland Cottage," 
 
 79 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 and in 1853 these were followed by 
 "Ruth" and' " Cranford." "Ruth" is 
 an extremely well-written story. In this 
 and in " Lizzie Leigh " we have every- 
 day characters. Here we see two other- 
 wise beautiful characters marred by 'an 
 early blemish, which hung as a pall over 
 their lives, truly more sinned against 
 than sinning, yet always afterwards, as 
 if in some measure to atone for a former 
 sin, giving up their lives to works of love 
 and service. 
 
 When " Mary Barton " came out it was 
 remarked by some that the writer had no 
 humour, but this idea was soon dispelled 
 upon the publication of " Cranford." It 
 abounds from beginning to end in droll. 
 dry humour, and sparkles with wit. It 
 has been described as ' ' the purest piece 
 of humoristic description which has been 
 added to British literature since Charles 
 Lamb." We will, just in passing, point to 
 one or two of its quaintnesses. 
 
 "When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, 
 gave a party in her baby-house of a 
 dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed 
 the ladies on the sofa by a request that 
 she might get the tea-tray out from, under- 
 neath, every one took this novel proceed- 
 
 80 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 ing as the most natural thing in the 
 world, and talked on about household 
 forms and ceremonies as if we all be- 
 lieved that our hostess had a regular 
 servants' hall, second table, with house- 
 keeper and steward, instead of the one 
 little charity-school maiden, whose short 
 ruddy arms could never have been strong 
 enough to carry the tray upstairs if she 
 had not been assisted in private by her 
 mistress, who now sat in state, pretend- 
 ing not to know what cakes were sent up, 
 though she knew, and we knew, and she 
 knew that we knew, and we knew that 
 she knew that we knew, she had been 
 busy all morning making tea-bread and 
 sponge-cakes." And again, " Miss Jessie 
 sang ' Jock o' Hazledean ' a little out 
 of tune ; but we were none of us 
 musical, though Miss Jenkins beat time, 
 out of time, by way of appearing to 
 be so." 
 
 The petty deceptions, so well hit off, 
 are extremely amusing. One more quota- 
 tion must suffice, and this as showing how 
 elegant economy was practised. "The 
 greatest event was that the Miss Jenkinses 
 had purchased a new carpet for the draw- 
 ing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 and I had in chasing the sunbeams as 
 they fell in an afternoqn right down on 
 this carpet through the blindless window ! 
 We spread newspapers over the places, 
 and sat down to our book or our work ; 
 and lo ! in a quarter of an hour the sun 
 had moved and was blazing away on a 
 fresh spot, and down again we went on 
 our knees to alter the position of the 
 newspapers." 
 
 Mr. Axon remarks : " There is a 
 curious typographical error in various 
 editions of " Cranford." That delightful 
 story appeared piecemeal in Household 
 Words, and in the number for May 7, 
 1853, occurs the description of a pud- 
 ding originally " made in most wonderful 
 representation of a lion couchant that 
 ever was moulded," and served up a 
 second day — " a little of the cold lion 
 sliced and fried." But in the reprinted 
 form lion has been turned into loin. 
 Through how many editions this error 
 has run is not known, but the circum- 
 stance was pointed out in the Nation 
 (February 1892). 
 
 "North and South" was published in 
 1855, and all through 1856 Mrs. Gaskell 
 was employed in collecting and working 
 
 82 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 up the scattered fragments of the "Life 
 of Charlotte Bronte." When the first 
 edition of the " Life of Charlotte Bronte " 
 appeared in 1857, certain assertions 
 which had been made on the faith of 
 statements made by Branwell to his 
 sister were challenged, and the result 
 was a retraction and the withdrawal 
 of the unsold copies from circulation. 
 This has made the first edition a rare 
 book. In this unpleasant experience 
 Mrs. Gaskell's attitude was absolutely 
 blameless. 
 
 In " North and South " her truth of 
 portraiture as shown in the characters 
 of Margaret, Nicholas Higgins, and Mr. 
 Thornton is especially worthy of note. 
 This story, almost as much as " Mary 
 Barton," shows Mrs. Gaskell's knowledge 
 of the conditions of the poor, and the way 
 in which her ready sympathy was shown. 
 Observe how well the contrast is pointed 
 and maintained between the characters of 
 Edith Shaw, afterwards Mrs. Lennox, and 
 Margaret. Again, the pith of the whole 
 question of the relations which should 
 exist between employers and employed was 
 spoken by Mr. Thornton in a few brief 
 sentences. " I have arrived at the con- 
 
 83 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 viction that no mere institutions, how- 
 ever wise, and however much thought 
 may have been required to organise 
 and arrange them, can attach class to 
 class as they should be attached, unless 
 the working out of such institutions 
 bring the individuals of the different 
 classes into actual personal contact. 
 Such intercourse is the very breath of 
 life. We should understand each other 
 better, and I'll venture to say we should 
 like each other more." Mrs. Gaskell had 
 made the acquaintance of Charlotte 
 Bronte at the Lakes in 1850, and a great 
 attachment had sprung up between the 
 two writers. She spent a fortnight in 
 Brussels in careful investigations into the 
 early school-life of Miss Bronte in that 
 city. In 1863 she wrote " A Dark 
 Night's Work" and also "Sylvia's 
 Lovers." 
 
 Dr. Ward says : " The plot of ' Sylvia's 
 Lovers ' turns on the doings of the press- 
 gang towards the close of last century. 
 She stayed at Whitby (here called Monks- 
 haven) to study the character of the 
 place, and personally consulted such 
 authorities as Sir Charles Napier and 
 General Perronet Thompson on the 
 
 84 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 history of impressment. In its earlier 
 portions the story maintains itself at 
 the writer's highest level ; the local 
 colouring is true and vivid, the pathetic 
 charm of the innocent Sylvia is admirably 
 contrasted by the free humour of the 
 figures of her father and his man Kester, 
 although the effect is rather marred by 
 the coincidences introduced to insure a 
 symmetrical conclusion." 
 
 " Cousin Phillis," too, was published 
 in this same year. It is a story well 
 worth reading, for it contains, as some 
 one has expressed it, a combination of 
 the sunniest humour with the tenderest 
 pathos. Early in 1865 appeared the 
 "Grey Woman," which we shall speak 
 about later. Her last work, " Wives 
 and Daughters," was an unfinished pro- 
 duction. The story appeared in the 
 Comhill Magazine, and was finished 
 by the editor of that magazine. He 
 says: "Here the story is broken off, 
 and it can never be finished. What 
 promised to be the crowning work of 
 a life is a memorial of death. A few 
 days longer, and it would have been a 
 triumphal column, crowned with a capital 
 of festal leaves and flowers ; now it is 
 
 85 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 another sort of column — one of those 
 sad white pillars which stand broken 
 in the churchyard." It is an extremely 
 good story, and should be read by 
 every one. Here, again, we get a great 
 deal of the life of old Knutsford, though 
 some no doubt will regard it as a faithful 
 picture of life in any small country town. 
 
 " The Towers," we are convinced, is 
 Tatton Hall ; the park, the lake, the 
 school just outside the gates, the gates 
 themselves, all are exactly as we may 
 see them now. 
 
 Out of the proceeds of one of her 
 works she bought a house called " Holy- 
 bourne," at Alton in Hampshire, thinking 
 that it would be a very nice surprise-gift 
 to her husband. She was staying there 
 with her daughters engaged in writing 
 " Wives and Daughters," when quite 
 suddenly one evening she died of heart 
 disease. .She was carried away without 
 a moment's warning (according to the 
 epitaph) while conversing with her 
 daughters, and was buried in the grave- 
 yard of Brook Street Chapel, Knutsford. 
 
 The funeral sermon was preached in 
 Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, by the 
 Rev. James Drummond, B,A. (now Dr. 
 Drummond). 
 
 86 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 On the front page the following words 
 may be found : — ■ 
 
 " This sermon is offered by his col- 
 league and his congregation to the Rev. 
 William Gaskell, M.A., and dedicated 
 to the memory of Elizabeth Cleghorn 
 his wife, whose genius as a writer has 
 endeared her to the public, and whose 
 constant affection and thoughtful kind- 
 ness will be ever held in loving remem- 
 brance by those who shared her friendship, 
 or needed her help." 
 
 It is much to be regretted that no 
 satisfactory portrait of Mrs. Gaskell ex- 
 ists. The best, which is described as the 
 least unpleasing picture, is that drawn 
 by the late George Richmond, a copy 
 of which appears in Miss Hamilton's 
 " Women Writers." (See Frontispiece.) 
 
 Besides the works already mentioned, 
 Mrs. Gaskell wrote a large number of 
 short stories, some of which it will be 
 necessary for us to speak about. One 
 of them, written in that light, humorous 
 vein which gained for her " Cranford " 
 an immediate popularity, seems to us 
 almost to excel "Cranford" itself. It is 
 a little story of about seventy pages, and 
 yet it contains so many well-defined 
 
 87 
 
MRS GASKELL 
 
 plots, its characters are so well drawn, 
 that it seems to us to be equal at least 
 to her best work. It is full of fun from 
 beginning to end. We refer to " Mr. Har- 
 rison's Confessions." Edna Lyall, writing 
 on May 20th, 1895, says of this : " I agree 
 with you in thinking ' Mr. Harrison's 
 Confessions ' one of her very best short 
 stories." Also Miss Frances H. Low, 
 writing in the Fortnightly Review of 
 October 1899 on " Mrs. Gaskell's Short 
 Tales,'' says: " Some of the tales, notably 
 ' Cousin Phillis ' and ' The Crooked 
 Branch,' the one for grace and perfection 
 of workmanship, the other for powerful 
 and dramatic presentation, have never 
 been surpassed by any of the longer 
 novels written by Mrs. Gaskell. And 
 there is another story, ' Mr. Harrison's 
 Confessions,' which, infinitely slighter 
 and lighter, both in motive and execu- 
 tion, is of peculiar significance, inasmuch 
 as it reveals the same spontaneity and 
 freshness, the same abundance and flow 
 of that humour, with its almost Lamb- 
 like radiance and soft beneficence, that 
 pervade ' Cranford,' and render it a unique 
 achievement from a woman's pen." 
 
 A young doctor (Mr. Harrison) came 
 
 88 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 to Duncombe {i.e. Knutsford) to assist 
 the aged Mr. Morgan, and to receive, in 
 return for his services, a certain propor- 
 tion of the profits. Acting on the advice 
 of Mr. Morgan, he strove to acquire " an 
 attentive, anxious politeness, combining 
 ease and grace with a tender regard and 
 interest," and, as a natural consequence, 
 so ably was he helped by the gossip and 
 exaggeration which at that time exisited 
 in this ancient town, that in a few months 
 he was supposed to be engaged to three 
 different ladies at one and the same time. 
 The delightful little mistakes are intensely 
 amusing. Here is one of them : — 
 
 " One day Miss Caroline told me she 
 thought she had a weakness about the 
 heart, and would be glad if I would bring 
 my stethoscope the next time, which I 
 accordingly did ; and, while I was on my 
 knees listening to the pulsations, one of 
 the young ladies came in. She said, 
 ' Oh, dear ! I never ! I beg your pardon, 
 ma'am,' and scuttled out. When I went 
 down I saw two or three of the girls 
 peeping out of the half-closed schoolroom 
 door ; but they shut it immediately, and 
 I heard them laughing." 
 
 Among other characters we have the 
 
 89 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 bland Mr. Morgan ; the gossipy, mischief- 
 making Miss Horsman ; Sophy, the vicar's 
 daughter, a grand and noble character ; 
 Mrs. Munton, who did not get out much, 
 but whose room was the centre of the 
 gossip of Buncombe, rather deaf, but very 
 fond of talking ; Miss Tomkinson, severe, 
 gaunt, tall, and masculine-looking ; and 
 the sentimental Miss Caroline, with her 
 " Oh, sister, how can you ? " when Miss 
 Tomkinson came out with any of her 
 startling speeches. 
 
 Again in " My Lady Ludlow " there 
 are many humorous passages to be found 
 which remind us of ''Cranford." There 
 is no doubt in our mind that Miss 
 Galindo, that most interesting and amus- 
 ing character, lived in Knutsford. There 
 is no doubt also that she honoured her 
 friend. Lady Ludlow. 
 
 " If Lady Ludlow," she said one day, 
 " ever honours me by asking for my right 
 hand, I'll cut it off, and wrap the stump 
 up so tidily she shall never find out it 
 bleeds " 
 
 Miss Galindo was nearly an authoress 
 once, but she found when she sat down 
 to write she had nothing to say. 
 
 Here is an instance of her hatred 
 towards Dissenters ; — 
 90 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 '"A Baptist baker!' I exclaimed. I 
 had never seen a Dissenter to my know- 
 ledge; but, having always heard them 
 spoken of with horror, I looked upon 
 them almost as if they were rhinoceroses. 
 I wanted to see a live Dissenter, I believe, 
 and yet I wished it were over. I was 
 almost suprised when I heard that any 
 of them were engaged in such peaceful 
 oocupations as baking." 
 
 There is a great similarity between 
 the characters of Miss Galindo and Miss 
 Jenkins, and the lemon-stain incident 
 might have taken place in the case of 
 Miss Jenkins just as well as in the case 
 of Miss Galindo. 
 
 " Miss Galindo was dressed in her best 
 gown, I am sure ; but I had never seen 
 anything like it except in a picture, it 
 was so old-fashioned. , She wore a white 
 muslin apron, delicately embroidered, and 
 put on a little crookedly, in order, as she 
 told us, even Lady Ludlow, before the 
 evening was over, to conceal a spot 
 whence the colour had been discharged 
 by a lemon stain." 
 
 " This crookedness had an odd effect, 
 especially when I saw that it was inten- 
 tional ; indeed, she was so anxious about 
 
 91 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 her apron's right adjustment in the wrong 
 place that she told us straight out why 
 she wore it so, and asked her ladyship if 
 the spot was properly hidden, at the same 
 time lifting up her apron and showing 
 her how large it was." 
 
 Lady Ludlow, whose invitations were 
 like royal commands, did not believe in 
 the established order of society being 
 disturbed. The children in the elemen- 
 tary schools, she feared, would gain too 
 much knowledge. Her position may be 
 summed up in a sentence : " Making reli- 
 gion and education common — vulgarising 
 them, as it were — is a bad thing for a 
 nation." After making this speech we 
 are not surprised, though we cannot help 
 ieeling amused, to hear her say, when 
 she had been told that Harry Gregson 
 had fallen from a tree and broken his 
 thigh-bone, and is like to be a cripple for 
 life : " Harry Gregson ! that black-eyed 
 lad who read my letter? It all comes 
 from over-education." 
 
 "The Grey Woman" and "A Dark 
 Night's Work " are among the best of 
 her short stories. Their weirdness and 
 their rapid and telling descriptive power, 
 while they are the chief, are not the only 
 
 92 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 strildng characteristics, for they contain 
 well-drawn characters, whom but to know 
 is to love. We refer more particularly to 
 the faithful Amante of the former, and to 
 the equally faithful Dixon and the noble 
 Ellinor of the latter work. 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell's reputation as a writer 
 of fiction was made upon the publication 
 of her first work, " Mary Barton " ; but 
 she was not only successful in her longer 
 stories, " North and South," " Wives and 
 Daughters," " Cranford," and " Ruth," 
 but also in her shorter ones. She was 
 a successful short-story writer. " The 
 Doom of the Griffiths," " Half a Life- 
 time Ago," "Lois the Witch" (much 
 on the lines of Whittier's " The Witch's 
 Daughter "), " Right at Last," " The Man- 
 chester Marriage " (which closely resem- 
 bles the plot of Tennyson's "Enoch 
 Arden "), and " The Well of Pen Morfa," 
 are each and all worthy of mention. In 
 "Lizzie Leigh" and " Libbie Marsh's 
 Three Eras" we catch glimpses of the 
 intimate acquaintance which Mrs. Gaskell 
 must have had with the poor and outcast 
 and down-trodden. She knew their diffi- 
 culties, and sympathised with them in 
 all their troubles. Here we see the 
 
 93 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 beautiful, tender, loving sympathy shown 
 by the poor towards each other. She 
 found heroes and heroines in daily life, 
 and it is because of this fact that such 
 stories as these are treasured in the 
 minds of the poor more especially, among 
 whom they are destined to produce a 
 great and lasting good. 
 
 None of her works, whether great or 
 small, were written without a purpose, 
 and that purpose was always educative. 
 She was a keen observer of manners 
 and customs, and a profound student of 
 human nature. Nothing escaped her 
 eye. She not only pointed to the faults 
 and follies of man and womankind. She 
 did more than this. She found the good 
 qualities inherent in every individual. 
 She saw character and love beneath un- 
 amiable outward appearances. She had 
 a thorough hatred of cant and hypocrisy, 
 and gossip and slander were alike under 
 her ban. There is a good and high 
 moral tone in all her writings. She did 
 not beheve in perpetual condemnation, 
 but thought, and rightly too, that those 
 who were stricken or had fallen should re- 
 ceive the help and sympathy which would 
 assist them to regain their position as 
 useful and honourable members of society. 
 
 94 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Remorse for past misconduct shown in 
 strict devotion to some difficult task may 
 be traced in " The Well of Pen Morfa," 
 where Nest's unloving demeanour to- 
 wards her mother is in some way atoned 
 for, after she feels her mother's great 
 loss, by befriending a poor half-witted 
 woman. Also in " Ruth," where the 
 heroine devotes herself to nursing the 
 sick; and in "The Poor Clare," where 
 the aged Bridget, after having uttered a 
 curse upon Mr. Gisborne, which fell upon 
 the head of her own daughter, joined the 
 Convent of the Poor Clares, and attended 
 to the wants of the sick and needy. Mrs. 
 Gaskell was very observant. She re- 
 membered everything she had seen or 
 heard, and turned it to advantage. If 
 there is one thing more apparent than 
 any other in her writings, it is her tender, 
 loving sympathy with the poor. She 
 understood their ways, and listened feel- 
 ingly to their wants. 
 
 Dr. Ward says : " Mrs. Gaskell had 
 at one time been very beautiful ; her 
 head is a remarkably fine one in the 
 portraits preserved of her, and her hand 
 was always thought perfect. She had 
 great conversational gifts, and the letters 
 
 95 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 in her ' Life of Charlotte Bronte ' show 
 her to have been a charming correspon- 
 dent. The singular refinement of her 
 manners was noticed by all who became 
 acquainted with her." 
 
 Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe said of her in 
 " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," 
 " She has a very lovely, gentle face, and 
 looks capable of all the pathos that her 
 writings show." 
 
 To readers of '■ The Moorland Cottage " 
 it will be unnecessary to remark that 
 she loved the children. Her honesty of 
 purpose, her love of justice, her truthful- 
 ness offended the tender susceptibilities 
 of some of her readers. The Aihenautn, 
 for instance, of November i8, 1865, 
 called " Ruth " a powerful tale, though 
 based upon a mistake ; and said that in 
 " North and South " the author's intense 
 but prejudiced desire to right what is 
 wrong found utterance. But we have 
 testimony which we believe is far more 
 just and much more weighty. The Pall 
 Mall Gazette of about the same date 
 says : " Her books will be studied in 
 years to come both for their merits of 
 style and incident, and as a faithful 
 picture of good English life and sound 
 
 95 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 English manners, beyond the incidents 
 of class or fashion. She will be herself 
 remembered with affectionate regret by 
 all who knew her as a most genial and 
 delightful lady, who gave light and com- 
 fort to her home, and pleasure to every 
 society she entered." The Comhill 
 Magazine said of her : " It is unnecessary 
 to demonstrate to those who know what 
 is and what is not true literature that 
 Mrs. Gaskell was gifted with some of 
 the choicest faculties bestowed upon 
 mankind ; that these grew into greater 
 strength and ripened into greater beauty 
 in the decline of her days, and that she 
 has enriched us with some of the truest, 
 purest works of fiction in the language. 
 And she was herself what her works 
 show her to have been — a wise, good 
 woman." 
 
 She wrote for Household Words, the 
 Comhill Magazine, and All the Year 
 Round, and was also a contributor to 
 the columns of the Daily News. Edna 
 Lyall declares Mrs. Gaskell to be her 
 favourite novelist. "She is quite my 
 favourite author, and I can read her books 
 over and over again." In " Women 
 Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign," 
 
 97 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 Edna Lyall further says of the works 
 of Mrs. Gaskell : " They are not only 
 consummate works of art, full of literary 
 charm, perfect in style, and rich with 
 the most delightful humour and pathos 
 — they are books from which that morbid 
 lingering over the loathsome details of 
 vice, those sensuous descriptions of sin too 
 rife in the novels of the present day, are 
 altogether excluded. Not that the stories 
 are namby-pamby or unreal in any sense ; 
 they are wholly free from the horrid 
 prudery, the Pharisaical temper, which 
 makes a merit of walking through life 
 in blinkers, and refuses to know of 
 anything that can shock the respectable. 
 Mrs. Gaskell was too genuine an artist 
 to fall either into this error or into the 
 error of bad taste and want of reserve. 
 She drew life with utter reverence ; she 
 held the highest of all ideals, and she 
 dared to be true." Also in a letter 
 which we received in July 1898 from 
 Edna Lyall, she says : " You will be 
 amused to hear that six weeks ago, on 
 the evening after I had undergone an 
 operation for abscess in the ear, the only 
 book I cared for them to read to me was 
 ' Cranford.' One never wearies of its 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 quiet humour."! George Eliot wrote in 
 1859 thanking her for her "sweet, en- 
 couraging words," and addng, " While 
 the question of my powers was still 
 undecided for me, I was conscious that 
 my feeling towards life and art had 
 some affinity with the feelings which 
 had inspired ' Cranford' and the earlier 
 chapters of ' Mary Barton.' " Charles 
 Dickens, when he thought of starting 
 Household Words, wrote to the effect 
 that there was no living English writer 
 whose aid he would desire to enlist so 
 much as the authoress of " Mary Barton." 
 Charlotte Bronte postponed the publi- 
 cation of "Villette" so that it might not 
 interfere with the welcome which she 
 hoped would be accorded to " Ruth." " 
 Thomas Arnold, in his " Manual of 
 
 1 Speaking of a visit to Ruskin, Blanche Atkinson 
 in " Ruskin's Social Experiment at Barmouth " 
 says : "He was smiling happily over the book he 
 was reading when we went in to see him. It was 
 ' Cranford,' the ever fresh, and he spoke of it 
 with warm admiration." 
 
 2 Madame Mohl, writing to Madame Scherer, 
 said : "If you had known what a heart she had. 
 But no one did. She was a singularly happy 
 person, and her happiness expressed itself in an 
 inexhaustible flow of high spirits." 
 
 99 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 English Literature," says : " Mrs. Gaskell 
 is one of the most distinguished female 
 novelists of this century, and this, in 
 an age which has produced Jane Austen 
 and George Eliot, is no slight praise." 
 George Sand observed to Lord Houghton : 
 "Mrs. Gaskell has done what neither 
 I nor any other female author can 
 accomplish — she has written novels 
 which excite the deepest interest in 
 men of the world, and yet which every 
 girl will be the better for reading." Mr. 
 Herbert Paul in an article in the A'mc- 
 teenth Century of May 1897, entitled "The 
 Apotheosis of the Novel," says: "If in 
 creative power and imaginative range she 
 hardly ranks with Dickens or Thackeray, 
 with George Eliot or Charlotte Bronte, 
 she is one of the most charming and 
 exquisite writers of English fiction that 
 have ever lived. In the grace of her 
 style and the quaintness of her humour 
 she reminds one of Charles Lamb. But 
 Mrs. Gaskell's admirers, including the 
 whole educated portion of the English- 
 speaking world, usually prefer her still 
 life to her scenes of action. ' Cranford ' 
 is in their eyes pure and perfect gem. 
 Mrs. Gaskell's popularity, never of quite 
 
 100 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 the widest sort, has not waned. With 
 the numerous novel readers whose single 
 desire is to kill time she does not rank 
 high. For these she does not paint in 
 sufficiently glaring colours. To appre- 
 ciate Mrs. Gaskell one must have a real 
 love of literature. To care about her at 
 all one must have some liking for it. But 
 that is almost the only limit upon the 
 circle of her readers. The art is never 
 obtruded, though it is always there." 
 
 With all this testimony, this weight of 
 evidence, what have we to say of her 
 place in literature ? It is sufficient for 
 us that her works have done a vast 
 amount of good in the past, and we doubt 
 not are destined to do even more in the 
 future. 
 
MEMORIALS OF MRS. GASKELL 
 
 There are a few memorials to Mrs. 
 Gaskell which the admirer of her writings 
 may Hke to see. 
 
 In Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, 
 there is a tablet to the memory of the 
 gifted writer, which was erected by a 
 number of friends. 
 
 It runs thus : — 
 
 " In memor}' of 
 
 Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, 
 
 wife of the Rev. William Gaskell, M.A., 
 
 one of the ministers of this chapel, 
 
 widely honoured for her genius and the spirit 
 
 in which it •i\as exercised. 
 
 Endeared by her rare graces of mind and heart 
 
 to all by whom she was known, 
 
 she fulfilled the duties of a wife and mother 
 
 with a tenderness and fidelity which secured for 
 
 her undying lo\e, 
 
 and so lived in Christian faith and hope that 
 
 death, which came without a moment's warnin.i;, 
 
 had for her no sting. 
 
 Born Sept. 29, 1810. Died Nov. 12. 1865. 
 
 Erected by the congregation in token of their 
 respect and regard." 
 
 102 
 
Bas-Relief 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 At the Moss Side Public Library, Man- 
 chester, Mr. W. E. A. Axon is making a 
 collection of books and pamphlets written 
 by or relating to Mrs. Gaskell. 
 
 In February 1898 a beautiful bas-relief 
 was erected on the front of the Knutsford 
 Post Office, at the Tatton Gates end of 
 King Street, by Mr. R. H. Watt. 
 
 The work was admirably carried out 
 by an Italian artist, Cavaliere Achille 
 D'Orsi, Professor of the Fine Arts in the 
 Royal Academy of Naples. The portrait 
 is a bust of Mrs. Gaskell from the photo- 
 graph which was taken in Edinburgh a 
 year or two before her death, and is 
 worked in bronze. Sufficient indication 
 is given of the name in the fact that a 
 copy of " Cranford " lies at the base of 
 the figure, together with a quill pen and 
 a laurel wreath. A lifelike expression is 
 given to the beautiful face, and the sculptor 
 has been highly successful in his render- 
 ing of the whole. The likeness is usually 
 considered by those who are competent 
 to judge to be a good one, though a copy 
 of the Richmond picture would have been 
 far more pleasing. 
 
 The Christie Library at Owens College, 
 Manchester, contains a bust of Mrs. 
 
 103 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 Gaskell, being a replica by Mr. Hamo 
 Thorneycroft of the Edinburgh bust by 
 Dundas. 
 
 The original stands in the drawing- 
 room of 84 Plymouth Grove, the home of 
 the Misses Gaskell, who in i885 gave 
 ^500 to this library for the purchase of 
 books on the subjects of English Language 
 and Literature, and Greek Testament. 
 
 In 1900 they also gave ;£500, this time 
 towards the purchase by the Manchester 
 Corporation of a piece of land in Plymouth 
 Grove, to be used as an open space. 
 
 They are ladies who possess a great deal 
 of the charm which made their mother so 
 attractive. 
 
 They are well known in the public life 
 of Manchester. 
 
 104 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A COMPLETE bibliography (up to Sep- 
 tember 1895) ^^s been complied by Mr. 
 W. E. A. Axon, of Manchester, showing 
 the separate editions of her various 
 works, including eighteen dififerent edi- 
 tions of " Mary Barton," twelve of 
 " Cranford," nine of " The Life of 
 Charlotte Bronte," seven of " Wives and 
 Daughters," seven of " North and South," 
 and six of " Sylvia's Lovers," while there 
 is a French version of " Mary Barton " 
 which passed through two editions and 
 a Spanish version. 
 
 "Cranford " was translated into French 
 and Hungarian, and " Sylvia's Lovers " 
 was the only story translated into Ger- 
 man. 
 
 Books by Mrs. Gaskell 
 
 The following list of works by Mrs. 
 Gaskell comprises forty stories, long and 
 short :— 
 
 Mary Barton. 
 Cranford. 
 
 105 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 North and South. 
 
 Wives and Daughters. 
 
 Life of Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 Sylvia's Lovers. 
 
 Ruth. 
 
 A Dark Night's \Vork. 
 
 My Lady Ludlow. 
 
 My French Master. 
 
 The Old Nurse's Story. 
 
 Bessy's Troubles at Home. 
 
 Christmas Storms and Sunshine. 
 
 The Squire's Story. 
 
 Curious if True. 
 
 The Moorland Cottage. 
 
 Disappearances. 
 
 Right at Last. 
 
 The Manchester Marriage. 
 
 Lois the Witch. 
 
 Cousin Phillis. 
 
 The Grey Woman. 
 
 The Heart of John Middleton. 
 
 Traits and Stories of the Huguenots. 
 
 Six Weeks at Heppenheim. 
 
 Lizzie Leigh. 
 
 The Crooked Branch. 
 
 The Sexton's Hero. 
 
 Round the Sofa. 
 
 The Accursed Race. 
 
 The Doom of the Griffiths. 
 
 Half a Lifetime Ago. 
 
 The Poor Clare. 
 
 The Half-Brothers. 
 
 The Well of Pen Morfa. 
 
 1 06 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Mr. Harrison's Confessions. 
 Libbie Marsh's Three Eras. 
 Morton Hall. 
 Hand and Heart. 
 Company Manners. 
 
 Mr. Axon, in his " Bibliography," says : 
 " There is, indeed, enough of excellent 
 material for a supplementary volume of 
 her works, if we include the graphic 
 account of ' Clopton Hall' (1840), the 
 ' Review of Fauriel's Modern Greek 
 Songs ' (1854), • The Cage at Cranford ' 
 (1863), 'An Italian Institution' (1863), 
 and three articles on ' French Life ' 
 (1864). That other contributions of 
 hers remain buried in magazines is not 
 unlikely. Thus, ' One of our Legal 
 Fictions' (April 29, 1854), is possibly 
 the article mentioned in Dickens' 
 ' Letters,' under date April 21. It is 
 evidently a statement of the unhappy 
 experiences of the Hon. Mrs. Norton." 
 
 A pretty little edition of " Cranford " 
 has recently been issued by Messrs. 
 Methuen & Co., with a memoir of the 
 author, and introduction and notes by 
 E. V. Lucas. Mr. Lucas unfortunately 
 follows the Hon. Beatrice L. Tollemache 
 in the mistaken notion that Mrs, Gaskell 
 
 107 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 drew from the life. Speaking of Captain 
 Hill, he says, " Although he may have 
 sat to Mrs. Gaskell," &c. No one ever 
 sat to Mrs. Gaskell. 
 
 Also, speaking of Miss Alice Brown, 
 the author of " By Oak and Thorn," he 
 says, " She walked along Darkness Lane." 
 He might have said more correctly, " She 
 walked along a lane which may have 
 been Darkness Lane." 
 
 Magazine Articles Concerning 
 Mrs. Gaskell 
 
 The June number, 1894, °^ Atalanta 
 contained an article entitled "The Human 
 Novel as Exemplified by Mrs. Gaskell." 
 This was followed in 1895 by an article 
 in the August Gentleman s Magazine on 
 " Mrs. Gaskell," by Miss Hompes, which 
 was chiefly biographical, and did not add 
 much to existing biographies, though it 
 summarised them. In the same year, 
 and in the same magazine, appeared an 
 article on " Knutsford in Fiction," by the 
 author, which, besides giving a descrip- 
 tion of the town and neighbourhood, 
 proceeded to identify several houses and 
 other buildings as being those which were 
 not only well known to the writer of 
 
 108 
 
AND KNUTSFORD. 
 
 "Cranford," but which were probably 
 the models from which she (perhaps un- 
 consciously) drew. To the September 
 number of Good Words, 1895, Miss Mar- 
 garet Howitt contributed a paper entitled 
 " Stray Notes from Mrs. Gaskell," with 
 illustrations of Knutsford and the neigh- 
 bourhood, among them being pictures of 
 the parish church, in which Elizabeth 
 Cleghorn Stevenson was married to the 
 Rev. William Gaskell, M.A., of Cross 
 Street Chapel, Manchester, in 1832; of 
 the house on the Heathside in which she 
 lived for several years ; and of Brook 
 Street Chapel, in the graveyard of which 
 she was laid to rest in 1865. In Temple 
 Bar for August 1895, the Hon. Mrs. 
 Tollemache claimed to have known the 
 original of at least one of Mrs. Gaskell's 
 characters. (See p. 33.) 
 
 Possibly characteristics of people whom 
 Mrs. Tollemache knew were noted by 
 Mrs. Gaskell, who allowed nothing to 
 pass unobserved ; but to believe that she 
 consciously drew from life is to vastly 
 underrate her true artistic taste, and her 
 marvellous imaginative faculty. In the 
 April i8g6 Atlantic Monthly, Miss Alice 
 Brown (who, with Miss L. I. Guiney, 
 
 109 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 author of "A Roadside Harp," " A Little 
 English Gallery," &c., visited Cranford 
 in 1895) contributes a charming paper 
 on " Latter-day Cranford." This essay, 
 together with a number of others, was 
 published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in 
 a neat little volume entitled " By Oak 
 and Thorn." 
 
 In the Woman at Home for May 1896, 
 a writer, under the heading " Mrs. Gaskell 
 and Charlotte Bronte," says that "in 
 the whole of English literature there is 
 no book that can compare in wide- 
 spread interest with the ' Life of Char- 
 lotte Bronte,' by Mrs. Gaskell," while 
 the same magazine for June 1897 pub- 
 lished an illustrated article by Marion 
 Leslie on "Mrs. Gaskell's House and 
 its Memories " ; but the truest and best 
 appreciation of our author was written 
 by Edna Lyall, and is contained in 
 " Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's 
 Reign," published in June 1897. 
 
 In the Fortnightly Review for October 
 1899, Miss Frances H. Low contributed 
 an article on " Mrs. Gaskell's Short 
 Tales." An illustrated article, entitled 
 " A Cranford Evening," by Luise ?*I. 
 Torrance, appeared in the August 1900 
 
 110 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 number of Munsey's Magazine. A wrong 
 impression may be formed of the shape of 
 the calash from the illustration given on 
 page 632. Mr. Hugh Thomson does not 
 give any picture of this ancient head- 
 dress which was worn over the cap, but 
 we have seen two in Knutsford which were 
 worn about the time Mrs. Gaskell lived 
 here, and they are very large, and struck 
 us as being very similar to perambulator 
 hoods, except that they were somewhat 
 smaller in size. 
 
 Two very able articles by Mr. Basil 
 Champneys appeared in the Pilot of 
 June 28 and July 5, 1902, in which he 
 claimed that " Wives and Daughters " 
 was the best purely domestic novel in the 
 English language. " Mrs. Gaskell," said 
 Mr. Champneys, "had the admirable faculty 
 /Of seeing life generally and her individual 
 characters with tolerant and loving eyes." 
 
 In the Manchester Quarterly for July 1902, 
 Mr. John Mortimer had a most admirable 
 paper on " Mrs. Gaskell." 
 
 A writer under the "Contributor's 
 Club " in the Atlantic Alonthly for December 
 1900, says : " No American woman (except 
 possibly Miss Jewett) has written with the 
 playfulness and tenderness that one so 
 loves in Mrs. Gaskell." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM GASKELL.M.A 
 
 H 
 
RliV. \\lLLIAM GASKELL, M.A. 
 
THE REV.WILLIAM GASKELL, M.A. 
 
 A LITTLE book about Mrs. Gaskell would 
 be incomplete without some notice, how- 
 ever brief, of her accomplished husband. 
 Among the thousands who know the 
 works of Mrs. Gaskell, and have enjoyed 
 reading " Cranford," there are few who 
 know that her husband was in many 
 ways a remarkable man. It may be said 
 that the world knew Mrs. Gaskell, and 
 that Lancashire knew Mr. Gaskell. In 
 the Manchester district he was well 
 known and deeply respected, and if 
 there be any who would cast a shadow 
 of a doubt upon this statement, we would 
 strongly recommend them to read the 
 little volume that was published in com- 
 memoration of the jubilee of his Man- 
 chester ministry. On that occasion 
 addresses were presented not only by 
 students, associations, and churches, but 
 by representatives of learned societies and 
 institutions in which he had taken a deep 
 interest. He received some tangible proof 
 of affection and regard, but by his own 
 
 115 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 express wish the chief portion of the gift 
 was utilised in the foundation of a scholar- 
 ship at Owens College bearing his name. 
 
 " William Gaskell, eldest son of Wil- 
 liam Gaskell, sail-canvas manufacturer, 
 was born at Latchford, near Warrington, 
 on July 24, 1805.' Of an old Noncon- 
 formist family, he was early destined 
 for the ministry, and after studying at 
 Glasgow, where he graduated M.A. in 
 1824, was admitted in 1825 to Manches- 
 ter College, then at York, being nominated 
 by Thomas Belsham as a divinity student 
 on the Hackney Fund. Leaving York in 
 1828, he became colleague with John 
 Gooch Robberds at Cross Street Chapel, 
 Manchester, and this proved to be his 
 lifelong charge. Becoming senior mini- 
 ster in 1854, he had successively as col- 
 leagues James Panton Ham, 1855-59 ; 
 James Drummond, LL.D., 1860-69 ; s-^d 
 Samuel Alfred Steinthal. In his own 
 denomination Gaskell held the highest 
 positions. At Manchester New College 
 (then in Manchester) he was Professor 
 of English History and Literature from 
 1846 to 1853, and Chairman of Com- 
 
 ' See Article in " Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy, ' by Rev. A. Gordon, M.A. 
 
 116 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 mittee trom 1854, having previously been 
 Secretary from 1840 to 1846, Of the 
 Unitarian Home Missionary Board he 
 was one of the tutors from 1854, and 
 principal from 1876, succeeding John 
 Relly Beard." 
 
 " Gaskell exercised great influence in 
 Manchester, especially in the promotion 
 of education and learning. Though an 
 effective and polished speaker, he rarely 
 appeared on platforms." 
 
 " At Owens College he conducted the 
 classes of Logic and English Literature 
 during the illness of Principal Scott. On 
 the formation of a Working Man's Col- 
 lege in 1858 he was appointed lecturer 
 on English Literature, and retained that 
 office on the amalgamation in 1861 of 
 this scheme with the evening classes of 
 Owens College. His prelections were 
 remarkable for their literary finish, and 
 for the aptness and taste with which he 
 drew upon an unusually wide compass of 
 reading."' 
 
 iMr. W. E. Adams, in his " Memoirs of a Social 
 Atom," says : " There was a Working Men's College 
 in Manchester too, The classes I attended were 
 conducted, the one by a Unitarian Minister, the 
 other by a curate of the Church of England The 
 
 117 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 " Gaskell died at his residence, Ply- 
 mouth Grove, Manchester, on June ii, 
 1884, and was buried at Knutsford. His 
 portrait, painted in 1872 by W. Percy, 
 is in the Memorial Hall, Manchester ; 
 another, painted in 1878 by Annie Robin- 
 son, is in the possession of the family. A 
 marble bust, by J. W. Swinnerton, v.as 
 placed in 1878 in the reading-room of the 
 Portico Library, Manchester, of which for 
 thirty years he had been Chairman. In 
 1832 he married Elizabeth Cleghorn 
 Stevenson, by whom he had a son (died 
 in infancy), a daughter, Florence (died 
 1 881), married to Charles Crompton, Q.C., 
 and three daughters who survived him."i 
 
 Mrs. Ritchie, has said of him, " Mr. 
 Gaskell was one of those ministers whose 
 
 Unitarian minister was the Rev. William Gaskell, 
 husband of the famous novelist ; the curate of the 
 Church of England was the Rev. W. J, Marriott. 
 Mr. Gaskell was a master of literature. I thought 
 at the time that he was the most beautiful reader 
 I had ever heard. Prose or poetry seemed to 
 acquire new lustre and elegance when he read it. 
 Our literary evenings under Mr, Gaskell were 
 ambrosial evenings indeed. Bir. Marriott's class 
 was devoted to the History of England." 
 
 1 See Article in "Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy," by Rev. A. Gordon, M.A. 
 
 118 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 congregations are outside as well as in- 
 side chapel walls, for I have heard his 
 name mentioned again and again by dif- 
 ferent people, and always with affection 
 and respect." 
 
 He published a considerable number 
 of sermons and " controversial tracts " 
 (Mr. Ernest Axon gives a list of thirty- 
 one), including funeral sermons on Sir 
 Thomas Potter, 1845 ; the Rev. John 
 Gooch Robberds, 1854 ; Sir John Potter, 
 1858 ("The Duties of the Individual to 
 Society. A sermon on occasion of the 
 death of Sir John Potter, M.P., preached 
 at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, 
 October 31, 1858, with the address at 
 the interment on the day preceding ") ; 
 and on the Rev. William Turner, 1859. 
 
 Among his other publications may be 
 noted " Temperance Rhymes," 1839, and 
 " Two Lectures on the Lancashire Dia- 
 lect." He wrote a large number of 
 hymns. Mr. Ernest Axon in the " Gas- 
 kell Bibliography " has given an index of 
 first lines of eighty-five, including such 
 well-known hymns as " Forth went the 
 heralds of the cross" and " Not on this 
 day, O God, alone," most of which were 
 contributed to a collection edited by the 
 
 119 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 Rev. John Relly Beard, D.D., 1837. The 
 best of these may be found in " Hymns 
 of Prayer and Praise," by the late Dr. 
 James Martineau, compiled in 1874. ^'^^ 
 many more could be added to this collec- 
 tion, including "To Thee, O God, we 
 raise," " O God, by whose kind care 
 we live," " Do with thy might that 
 which is right," "Day after day, life 
 fleets away," and that most beautiful 
 of all— 
 
 " Though lowly here our lot may be, 
 
 High work have we to do — 
 In faith and trust to follow Him 
 
 Whose lot was lowly too. 
 
 Our lives enriched with gentle thoughts 
 
 And loving deeds may be, 
 A stream that still the nobler grows 
 
 The nearer to the sea. 
 
 To duty firm, to conscience true, 
 
 However tried and pressed, 
 In God's clear sight high work to do, 
 
 If we but do our best. 
 
 Thus we may make the lowliest lot 
 
 With rays of glory bright ; 
 Thus we may turn a crown of thorns 
 
 Into a crown of light." 
 
 120 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 Concerning Mr. Gaskell as a hymn 
 writer, Mr. W. E. A. Axon makes the 
 following remarks : " Those who knew 
 William Gaskell will feel that the fugi- 
 tive tracts which were printed in his 
 lifetime, excellent as they are in their 
 way, do not adequately represent the 
 intellectual power and refinement of his 
 nature. His hymns, which offer a 
 singular combination of devotional fire 
 and lucidity of expression, have not, 
 unfortunately, been collected. These 
 sacred lyrics are the fitting expression 
 of a noble spirit." 
 
 The Rev. J. J. Wright thus describes 
 Mr. Gaskell : "In appearance Mr. Gas- 
 kell was somewhat tall, rather slender, 
 and he walked and stood with stately 
 graciousness. There was something 
 clean and sweet and refined and pure 
 in his very presence. It used to be said 
 that his appearance in the pulpit was 
 a sermon in itself, as certainly it was a 
 benediction." 
 
 Yet, though he was a saintly man, it 
 must not be imagined that he was as 
 dull and uninteresting as many saintly 
 men are. He had, we are told, a wonder- 
 ful fund of anecdote, and could not only 
 
 121 
 
MRS. GASKELL 
 
 tell a good story himself, but could 
 appreciate to the fullest extent a good 
 story told by another. 
 
 We will let Mr. Wright ("Young Days," 
 November 1899), ^ student under Mr. 
 Gaskell, tell two college stories. " One 
 morning, before Mr. Gaskell came into 
 the lecture-room, the students became 
 somewhat lively. Perhaps it was cold 
 and they wanted exercise ! However 
 it was, a few leathern cushions from the 
 chairs got flying about. The bell rang, 
 signal for the incoming of Mr. Gaskell. 
 There was hurry and scurry to get all 
 the cushions on the chairs again. The 
 door from his room into the lecture-room 
 opened a few inches — he was coming — 
 when a flying cushion hit it and slammed 
 the door to again. There was silence, and 
 every student was gravely seated when 
 Mr. Gaskell with quiet dignity appeared, 
 and significantly said, ' Gentlemen ! 
 Gentlemen ! If I may say gentlemen ! ' " 
 
 Not another word was said or needed. 
 
 But the best story of all — and well 
 known among his old students — is one 
 which shows the readiness of Mr. Gas- 
 kell's mind. One day Mr. Gaskell 
 happened to seat himself in a chair 
 
 122 
 
AND KNUTSFORD 
 
 whose joints were very loose. He 
 crossed his legs as usual, opened his 
 book, and called upon Mr. So-and-So 
 to begin reading, Before this young 
 gentleman had read very far he made 
 a regular "howler" of a mistake. Mr. 
 Gaskell sprang from his seat (whether 
 in real or partly affected amazement, I 
 do not know), but as he sprang up, the 
 chair fell to pieces on the floor, and 
 Mr. Gaskell, looking first behind him 
 in surprise as he stood there, now looked 
 at the blundering student, and exclaimed, 
 " Mr. So-and-So, the very chair can't 
 stand it ! " 
 
 The funeral service at Knutsford was 
 conducted by the Rev. S. A. Steinthal, of 
 Manchester, and the little chapel was 
 crowded, among those present being a 
 large number of men representing various 
 Manchester institutions in which Mr. 
 Gaskell took an interest. 
 
 123 
 
INDEX TO NAMES 
 
 Adams, Mr. W. E., 117 
 Arnold, Thomas, gg 
 Axon, Ernest, iig 
 Axon.W.E. A., 82, 103, 
 
 105, 107, 121 
 Barnwell, Georgie, 12, 
 
 13 
 Beard, Dr. John Relly, 
 
 117, 120 
 Bettany, George T., 61, 
 
 62 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 84, 
 
 99 
 Brown, Miss Alice, 67, 
 
 108, tog 
 Caine, T. Hall, 32 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 76 
 Champneys, Mr. Basil, 
 
 III 
 Olive, Lord,4g 
 Colter's Mill, 68 
 Colthurst, Anna, 53 
 Colthurst, Peter, 54 
 Delamere, Lord, 31 
 De Quincey, 37 
 Dickens, Charles, 7g, gg 
 Drummond, Dr. James , 
 
 85 
 
 Eaton, Rev. Samuel, 4g 
 Egerton, Earl, 6, 38 
 Eliot, George, gg 
 Evans, Rev. G. E., 4g 
 Gaskell, Misses, 104 
 Gordon, Rev. Alex., vi., 
 
 116, 118 
 
 Green, Rev. Henry, 4, 
 
 17. 30. 37. 43- 48, 49. 
 
 50. 56 
 
 Guiney, Miss L. I., 109 
 
 Hamilton, MissC. J. ,61, 
 
 62, 87 
 Henry, Matthew. 34, 45 
 Higgins, Edward, 37 
 Holland, Sir Henry, 37 
 Holland, Mr. Peter, 37 
 Holmes, Mr., 50 
 Hompes, Miss, 108 
 Houghton, Lord, 79, 100. 
 Howitt, Margaret, log 
 Jowett, Professor, 7g 
 Knutsford, Lord, 37 
 Leicester, Samuel, 35 
 Leicester, Sir Peter, g 
 Leslie, Marion, no 
 Long, E., 47 
 Long, John, 47 
 
 125 
 
INDEX TO NAMES 
 
 Lord, Rev. Robert, 45 
 Low, Miss Frances H,, 
 
 88, no 
 Low, Jeremy, 10, 18 
 Low, Rev. Samuel, 47 
 I^ucas, Mr. E. V., 107 
 Lumb, Mrs., 37, 70 
 Lyall, Edna, 32, 88, 97, 
 
 98, no 
 Masson, Miss Flora, 62 
 Mitford, Miss, 63 
 Mohl, Madame, gg 
 Mortimer,Mr. John, in 
 New, Mr. E. H., 63 
 Nightingale, Florence, 
 
 79 
 Paul, Mr. Herbert, 100 
 Railway, Opening of, 12 
 Richmond, George, 87 
 Ritchie, Mrs, 33, 62, 67 
 
 n8 
 Robberds, Rev. J. G. 
 
 n6 
 Robinson, Henry Crabb, 
 
 79 
 Ruskin, Mr., 79, 99 
 Sand, George, 100 
 Shorter, Mr. Clement 
 
 K., 61 
 
 Steinthal, Rev. S. A., 
 
 70, 116, 123 
 Stephenson, George, 71 
 Stevenson, Mr. William, 
 
 63, 64. 65 
 Stowe, Mrs. Beecher,79 
 
 96 
 Tabley, Lord de, 6 
 Thomson, Hugh, 62, in 
 Tollemache, the Hon. 
 
 Mrs., 33, 107, 109 
 Torrance, Louise M.,iio 
 Turner, Rev. John, 48, 
 Turner, Mr., 50 
 Turner, Rev. Wm., 71, 
 
 72 
 Ward, Dr. A. W., 62, 
 
 84.95 
 Warren, Lady Leigh- 
 ton, 6, 8 
 Watson, Dr. Spence, 71 
 Watt, R. H., 103 
 Wilkinson, T. R,, vi 
 Witter, Tommy, 21, 25 
 Wolfe, General, 49 
 Wordsworth, Mr., 79 
 Wright, Rev. J. J., 121 
 122 
 
 126 
 
 Printed by MACKIE & Co., Ld. 
 London and Warrington.