Goadby's History Of Loughborough Chapter 3, Part 1

We continue with the transcription of Goadby's History of Loughborough which was serialised in 1864. In his Chapter 3, Part 1, Goadby now reaches the time of the Despenser family. 

As with previous chapters, I’ve kept both the text and the layout as it appeared in the newspaper, but have added one or two notes, where I have found useful information. As mentioned last week, in the 160 years since the original publication, there have been many more discoveries and revelations about Loughborough’s history, hence some of the information contained in these serials will be wrong. I have not tried to amend these in any way.

For previous chapters relayed in this blog, please see the 'Links to all blogposts' page. 

THE HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH, FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

Chapter 3, Pt 1 The family of the Dispensers

In: 'Loughborough Monitor' 11 August 1864, pg 5

Part 1 – How the town came into the hands of the Dispensers – Obscurity of their origin – Residence in the neighbourhood – Its likely effects – Rise of the burgh – Trading and military class – Grants of market and fair – erection of market cross – Old traditions.

Hugh Lupus, the first Norman Earl of Chester, was succeeded in his earldom and, as it would appear, in the possession of his other numerous and wide-lying territories by his son Richard, who was about nine years old at the time of his father’s death. For a little more than a hundred years, the manor of Loughboro’, with its several varying members, continued to be held by the successive earls of Chester, until it passed into the family of the Dispensers.

How it came into the hands of the Dispensers has generally been regarded as a mystery, which did not admit of being satisfactorily cleared up, but we are able, we think, to explain it in the easiest possible manner. A passage we have discovered in the Close Rolls of King John (so called from their being folded up, in contradistinction to the Patent Rolls, which were written upon open skins) and which has never been pointed out before, shows that this Hugh Dispenser, afterwards Earl of Winchester, came to certain lands by marriage with the widow of one of the Earls of Chester, and as we know that the manor belonged to them and was more likely to be apportioned to a widow than any integral part of the earldom itself, we may fairly conclude, in the absence of other evidence, that he came to it in this way, especially as no other hypothesis has anything like a historical basis, and those who image he came to the manor when he received a grant of a market and fair are very much mistaken, as will be presently seen. It may be true, as Dugdale [1] says, that he married Aliva, the daughter of Philip Bassett of Wycombe, without that fact at least affecting the authenticity of this an earlier or later marriage. The passage, besides disposing of a knotty question, is curious as showing in what unkingly affairs the feudal monarchs thought fit to intermeddle. A man could not trade as he chose, scarce marry whom he pleased, and not even pickle a few herrings without asking the king’s licence and protection, and paying him handsomely for them (See Hume, vol.ii, App.ii) [2] – The passage is as follows:

“Know ye that we give to Hugh Dispenser, the wife of Geoffrey of Chester, recently deceased, with the land and hereditament pertaining to her; and for that land and hereditament we receive his homage, or fealty. Whence we command you that you give full possession to him, without delay, as well as of the aforesaid wife, as of her lands. As witness me at Cliszon, the third day of August, in the eighth year of our reign.”

The date of this possession would therefore be 1206-7; and the homage required is further explained, as far as the manor of Loughborough is concerned, by an entry in the Testa de Neville, [3] compiled in the reign of Henry the 3rd and Edward the 1st, a record of the taxation whereby aid was granted the former king towards appropriately marrying his sister to Frederick the 2nd, Emperor of the Romans. From that entry we learn that Loughborough was a Knight’s Fee, [4] was held by Hugh Dispenser, and was taxed to the extent of two marks.

The origin of the family of the Dispensers is involved in much obscurity. Barke [5] conjectures that it was descended from Robert Dispensator, the steward of William the Conqueror, and it is plainly evident from the surname itself that some ancestor really filled that post in a royal household. According to evidence collected by Potter [6] in his ‘Charnwood Forest’, several persons bearing the name are mentioned in documents connected with different places in Leicestershire; the earliest mentioned one, Thomas le Dispenser, probably the great grandfather of Hugh Dispenser, granting lands at Barton to the monks of Garendon between 1168 and 1189, so that the connection of the family with the county was not determined solely by the marriage of Hugh Dispenser, although the fact of their connection may have had something to do in determining the marriage. It is also conjectured by Mr. Potter that the family had residences in the immediate neighbourhood of the town of Loughborough, and probably their intimate connection with it had a good effect upon it, since we find it now gradually passing from the ‘burne’ and ‘burh’ into the ‘burgh’, as evidenced by curious etymological changes, as Luteburg, Lughteburg, Loutherburgh. The new terminal implies an amalgamation of freemen for civil and political purposes of a more local and imposing character than the mere tithing. The tithings or gyldes [guilds] were, indeed, the foundation of the citizenal constitution of almost every important town. They contained, rudimentarily, the burgher’s club and the more modern corporation. They were a sort of Association for the Prosecution of Felons, combined with a Benefit Sick Club. Promoting peace, justice, and cordiality between man and man, they secured liberty for commercial, enterprise, and substantially for social life. At a periodical meeting of the manorial court, these Frank pledges, or guarantees of the freemen for each other, were examined and affirmed, and such a meeting was usually styled the View of Frankpledge. One of these pledges, either the oldest, most respectable, or elected one, was known as the Headborough or Chief Pledge, and had authority equivalent to our constable.  

Co-extensive with this gradual rise of a semi-corporate character in the constitution of the town, the details of which have not come down to us further than as they are enveloped in the terminal burgh, there was a general elevation of the trading, and a depression of the strictly agricultural classes. This was in a great measure due to the oppression of the feudal customs upon the latter, and a change of life created by the new wants of a military age. The labourer left team and furrow to toil in the deadlier fields, and the arm of the smith no longer beat the coulter [7] or bent the sickle, but welded the shining mail, pointed the spear, or shod the proud tramping war-horse. The glover worked at his habergeons [8] and gauntlets, and the doughty yeoman stored his salted meats for service. Besides furnishing one knight well armed and accoutred to serve the king at home or abroad for the space of forty days – Loughborough being a Knight’s fee – doubtless many of the inhabitants were compelled to attend upon their Lord. Even the home-keeping population had its homely wits disturbed by the agitations of war and sanguinary raids. In 1215 Saer de Quincy was Governor of Mountsorrel Castle, and he and his men made so many marauding excursions in the neighbourhood that the castle was called a ‘nest of the Devil’. The peasantry incessantly complained of these plundering raids, and Henry III at last commanded the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire to collect forces and demolish it. It underwent a siege of several days, and was relieved by forces sent from London by Lewis the Dauphin, to whom it then belonged. In a few years afterwards it came into the hands of the English King, and was razed to the ground, the neighbours no doubt gladly assisting in its demolition.

The elevation of the trading class and the needs of the rising place soon rendered a market necessary, and no doubt the inhabitants addressed Hugh Dispenser for that purpose, who communicated their wishes to the King. The market and fair were granted some six years earlier than is ordinarily supposed, as appears from two passages in the Close Rolls of Henry III. Both were really granted in 1221-2, but only temporarily. It is stated that Hugh Dispenser shall have during his lifetime (usque ad aetatem suam) one market every seven days, on the Thursday at his manor of Luteburg, and that he shall have ‘during the life of our Lord the King (quod habeat usque ad aetatem Domin Regis) one fair every year at his manor on the eve of the Feast of St Peter’s Chains (i.e. Nov. 13 and 14). These conditions are curious, and have never been pointed out before. Probably the benefits arising from the market and fair were considerable, as we find a special grant made upon the subject in 1227, with additional privileges, liberating the inhabitants from local taxations of a somewhat troublesome character. The translation of the grant is as follows:

“The King to the Sheriff of Leicester sends greeting. Know thou that we have granted by our Charter to our trusty and beloved Hugh Dispenser, that he and his heirs may have for ever one market in every week, on Thursday, at his manor in Lucteburgh; and that they may have at the same place one fair every year, to last for three days, namely on the eve and day and morrow (in Vigilia et in die et in crostino) of St Peter’s Chains.

We have also granted to the same Hugh that he and his people (or vassals) of Lucteburgh, Burton, Huklescote, Fritheby, and Ernesby, be for ever free from all suits of county and Hundred and Sheriff’s aids, and view of Frankpledge, as is more fully contained in the aforesaid charter to him thereon made. And therefore we command that you cause the aforesaid charter to be read in your full Court, and the aforesaid market and the aforesaid fair to be proclaimed and strictly observed in the whole of your Bailiwiek. Witness the King at Westminster, 28 of April 1227.”

On the sixth of February in the succeeding year another charter was granted to his beloved and trusty subject, whereby he received permission to hold another Fair upon the second day of November, and it was also expressly declared that neither he nor his heirs should be put upon the Assizes, Juries, and Recognizances.

The setting up of the market-cross, no small event in the history of any community, was usually attended by some special religious ceremonies.

Where some great deed had been achieved, or upon any spot sanctified by religion or custom, this sacred symbol was erected. It was particularly the case when a market or a fair had been instituted by Royal Charter, and upon the open surrounding space, the people usually met for both trade and pleasure. Thus amidst the clamour of the market, and the tumultuous din of the holyday, this elevated symbol might serve to remind them of their religious duties and privileges. It also served to fix in their memories, and grateful, the fleeting images of a former faith. Reverential old men. Gathering their children around them on that eventful day, would recount the familiar village story received from their fathers; how the inhabitants were once Pagans, and were one day surprised by seeing a dusky-vestured, wild-eyed pilgrim enter their streets, pause at the crossway, strike a few notes on a rude harp, and then pour forth to the hastily assembled people the good tidings of the great joy of a new salvation by Jesus Christ; and how following him to the river side they were buried beneath its waters as a sign of their newness of life. Such was the old story often told over the erection of the market-cross, and so the symbol had its significance for our forefathers. It was meant to be at once the centre of their religious and secular life. Here all public notices were proclaimed by the town crier, the banns of marriage were published, and royal proclamations declared. Shakespeare alluded to this when he makes Henry IV say to Worcester:

“These things, indeed, you have articulated,

Proclaimed at market-crosses, read in churches.”

It is right we should mention a tradition here that was once very much believed in the neighbourhood. It was to the effect that prior to the above grants, Barrow-upon-Soar was the market village for Loughborough, the one being called High Borough, the other Low-Borough!

An ancient road, it is also believed, connected the two places, passing through what was called the Catsick meadow [9], the stones in the river that constituted the ford being said to be observable at low water less than 20 years ago. On a site between the two places, now scarcely identified, the tradition goes on, and called gaol-bank in the memory of living persons, there was once a gaol for their mutual convenience. The legend is evidently based upon a rude etymological guess, and needs no serious consideration, although it may strengthen the indications of an early relationship between them such as may have survived the destruction of the Saxon Mark.

END OF CHAPTER 3 PART 1

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NOTES

[1] This is probably a reference to William Dugdale (1605-1868), an English historian who specialised in the study of Mediaeval history.

[2] This reference is probably to a ‘History of England’, a series of works written by philosopher, economist, and historian David Hume (1711-1776)

[3] The ‘Testa da Nevill’, originally called the ‘Book of Fiefs’ (Latin title ‘Liber Feodorum‘  was a listing of feudal landholdings. The edition likely to have been known to Goadby is from 1807, but a new edition was published in three volumes, between 1920 and 1931

[4] A knight’s fee was a unit of land measurement that was enough land to sustain a knight and his entourage. These varied across the country as soil variations had an effect on what and how much crop could be grown.  

[5] I cannot say for certain who Barke was, but perhaps he might be Edmund Barke who was Paymaster General of the Forces in 1782.  

[6] A reference to Thomas Rossell Potter (1799-1873), who wrote ‘History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest’, published in 1842.

[7] A coulter is a knife-like vertical blade on a plough

[8] A habergeon was a sleeveless jacket made from chain mail, that was worn under a hauberk (breast plate) in Mediaeval times.

[9] There is certainly evidence of an area called Catsick between Loughborough and Barrow, particularly in the name Catsick Hill which is located on the River Soar, adjacent to the Grand Union Canal, about midway between Top Bridge and Pillings Lock.

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Transcribed and presented here with the kind permission of the British Newspaper Archive. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ 

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2024). Goadby’s History of Loughborough, Chapter 3, Part 1. Available from: [https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/06/goadbys-history-of-loughborough-chatper-3-Pt-1.html] [Accessed 23 June 2024]

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Goadby's History of Loughborough Chapter 1, Part 1

About 18 months ago on this blog, I shared with you the very interesting life story of Edwin Goadby, who had made the leap from being an apothecary to editor of the ‘Loughborough Monitor’.

Goadby’s interest in the history of Loughborough led him to serialise his writings on the topic, in the ‘Loughborough Monitor’. As you can see from the title of the serialisation -  ‘The History Of Loughborough, From The Time Of The Britons To The Middle Of The Nineteenth Century’ – this was likely to be an extensive set of articles, covering a huge period of time!

As Goadby’s career was really on the up at the time he was with the Monitor, he was only with the paper for about 2 years. Thus, although his history of Loughborough was serialised, the twelve chapters, that were published in 21 pieces, only reached the time of Henry, Third Earl of Huntingdon (1535-1595)!

Today begins a hosting of Goadby’s History of Loughborough, following the serialisation pattern of 1864 to 1866. The text is transcribed as seen, and it should be remembered that in the ensuing 160 years, there have been many more discoveries and revelations about Loughborough’s history, hence some of the information contained in these serials will be wrong. I have not tried to amend these in any way. However, where possible, if names are mentioned I have tried to indicate in the notes field below the article, who these people might have been.

And so we begin …

THE HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH, FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Chapter 1, ‘Loughborough Monitor’, 5 May, 1864, pg. 5

CHAPTER I.

LOUGHBOROUGH IN THE TIME OF THE BRITONS, ROMANS, AND SAXONS.

Part I. – Mythical Origin of Towns – History enveloped in Name – The Coritavi, their Settlements – British Roads – Meaning of Oldest Name – Conjectures about its being a Roman Station and Praetorium – Curious Etymology – Its probable Occupation by the Romans.

A poetic haze hangs over the origin of most cities and towns. History has little to tell us in the matter, and less that is satisfactory. The poets and romancists appear to have had it all their own way. The former could usually discover some deity who commanded the building of a place, when he did not actually assist in person, as was frequently the cause, for Callimachus, the Alexandrian, puts it to the honour of Apollo that he “takes delight always in the foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone;” and the latter, who were often saintly monks, could easily import a hero from classic shores when they could not find one sufficiently divine and dignified at home. For instance, Stersichorus assures us that Apollo told Cadmus to follow a young heifer and found a city where she should lie down in the grass, and that the city was Thebes; and Geoffrey of Monmouth, a British chronicler, affirms, with equal confidence, that Brutus, a Trojan, being commanded by Diana in a vision to come to our island and raise a second Troy, came and travelled hither and thither until “at last he pitched upon a place very fit for his purpose,” where he built Trinovautum, afterwards Kaer-Lud, now London. Such myths are very harmless because very few persons believe them, but the puzzle they indicate and thus pleasantly smooth over is interesting. “Here,” for instance, some curious intelligent Nomad might say, “are houses, public buildings, streets, and men and women, with local attachments, social life, and community of interests. When did these begin? How were they formed? What power was it, visible or invisible, that organised all this? I can understand the use of a house in your damp and changeful climate, but what pleasure of necessity do these acres of brick and mortar represent? What centuries of existence do they speak of? What great names cluster around them? What institutions have grown up with them?”  Such questioning is both healthy and laudable, even when the questioner himself may be a unit in the mysterious aggregate, and all topographical history is more or less and answer to it.

As far as the origin of the town of Loughborough is concerned, we are not aware that such questions have been, or indeed can be, more than approximately answered. There is plenty of haze and plenty of uncertainty which might make a very good mythe [sic] were the place important enough and the mythical spirit extant in some rhyming chronicler or monastic recluse, Fortunately, or unfortunately, we have not even the least bit of a mythe [sic] concerning its origin or formation. Nor have we so much as a bald, literal declaration that in a certain year any Henry, the City-Builder – as the first German King was named from his tendencies that way – called together some wandering families upon its site, erected a castle to protect them, and gave them special privileges. We must be content with something much less imposing than that, unromantic as it might be. We must, in fact, be content to gather up some scattered threads of history, some casual notice and plausible conjectures, and let philology help us to ascertain what history nay be enfolded in the name itself, as it has helped to discover some germs of fact in many a beautiful mythe [sic].

The first historical germ yielded us by philology leads us to infer that Loughborough was a settled place of human abode before the invasion of the Romans B.C. 54. At that period the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, and Nottingham were almost entirely covered with woods, and the whole district was called Caledonia (from calyddon, a thicket), a name commonly applied to most of the woods in Britain. It was also known as the Forest of Arden, and extended from the Avon below Warwick almost [un?] interruptedly to the Trent. The inhabitants of these counties were therefore appropriately known as the Coritavi, or People of the Woods. Their firm and massive limbs and long red hair attested their German origin, and strongly confirmed the statement of the Welsh triads, which described them as having emigrated from a marshland in the country of the Teutons. Their chief city, according to Richard of Cirencester, was Ragae [sic], now Leicester. Predatory in their general habits, with extraordinary facilities for all the excitements of the chase, the wild horse, the buffalo, the boar, and the deer roaming at large in valley and wood, the instinct of self-preservation alone appears to have led them to settle in definite localities. Without laws, they were free to do as they chose, and each tribe or collection of families must protect itself from other even of the same name who might at any time assail and despoil them. Their places of settlement were usually upon some cleared portion of ground, adjoining a river or a lake, protected by the woods at its back, and capable of being easily fortified by a ditch of a fence of fallen timber. The woods, besides furnishing them with the means of subsistence, offered retreats which history shows to have been formidable even to Caesar himself.

Such were unquestionably the first settlers on the site where subsequently a small town arose. The natural advantages of the situation were considerable. It offered unusual facilities for supplying them all with the necessaries of life. Water, as necessary to them as a salt spring to Eastern tribes, was here abundant. The neighbouring forest abounded with objects of the chase. There was also easy communication in at least two directions, inward and seaward, At the distance of only a few miles, through the present village of Barrow-upon-Soar in fact, there passed an old British road, which probably threw out a branch road to or near it, and then crossed the Charnwood Forest between the hills of Beacon and Broombriggs. This was called the Upper Salt Way, and it is a curious fact, as we learn from Mr. Potter [note], that a field in Quorndon was called Salt Gate so late as 1607. Commencing on the coast of Lincolnshire, the road extended through Leicestershire to the borders of Warwickshire, and then by Birmingham across the Lickey to the salt mines of Droitwich, then called Salinae. The prefix Stan in the name of the neighbouring village of Stanford [on Soar], is the British term for road, and suggests that a branch of a British road of some kind passed that way, probably the road from Barrow through Cotes, known as the Catsick lane, which derives additional probability from the fact that the old British roads usually wound along the sides of hills and continuous elevations.

The British settlement of Loughborough appears to have received the name of Locteburn, or Loctebur, the earliest name yet known to history, from its being situate near the junction of the river with the lake, which geologists affirm once covered the greater portion of the meadows in the adjoining valley. The last remnant of this lake seems to have been in the extensive tract known as the Loughborough Moors, which, as we shall show further on, has not been brought under cultivation more than three or four hundred years. The word Locte, or Lucte, signifies a pool of sheet of water, and is preserved in Icelandic as Laugh. It also exists in the north of Britain in various synonymous forms, as Lag, Legan, and Loch. The terminal borne, or burne, was generally applied by the Britons, to those rivers that were the tributaries of others, and is frequently met with in the composition of old local names, as Cranbourne, Wimbourne, Sittingbourne, Burnley, &c. A few rudely-constructed huts, perhaps, with some simple fishing apparatus, and a few coracles on the water-side, with a barricade of trees or  ditch on that towards the forest, would be all that would exist to dignify it with the character of a settlement. And here it should be noticed that eminent geologists, are unanimous in declaring that all rivers anciently flowed over a greater breadth of land than they do now, and with shallower streams. The woad-stained forms of these wild-haired woodsmen grouped amidst the semi-excavated cors would make a very picturesque scene, and the primeval forest whose rugged retreats and natural altars made it the sacred home of the mystic and venerable Druids, would form a most magnificent background.

Whether Loughborough was occupied by the Romans or not during their stay in Britain, we have now few means of ascertaining, although many learned antiquarians and commentators have assigned to it the character of a Roman station. The similarity of its supposed Latinized names, Lactodurum, Lactodoro, and Lactodrodo, for which Lyttleton [1] appears to be [the] only good authority, to that given to the Roman station of Towcester, has often caused it to be mistaken for that place, and originated many curious suppositions. Robert Talbot [2], says Burton [3] in his commentary on the Itinerary of Antoninus, affirms that the place so named alludes to Lutterworth and Loughborough. He explains the meaning of the name rather curiously. He afterwards doubted the fact of the reference, because the place “hath not any token else of Roman antiquity, although sometime he thought it to be so by reading it Lectodorum, and deducing it from Letters, [check as difficult to read] that is in British, diversoria, Innes; and dur aqua; as if the name had been Lettidur or diversoria ad aquam” – the inns by the water. He adds, “Lactorate, the old town in Gaul differs as you see in the termination only, perhaps this may have had some relation, or dependence thereupon, like others in Britain.” Baxter, [4] in his Glossary, has another conjecture which rests upon even slighter evidence. He expressly states that Loughborough “appears to be” the Roman station of Condate, and to have been called by the people of the words Ligaroburgus, or the fortification, or castle upon the Ligur, the latter being our earlier form of Leire, the old name for the river Soar. He further asserts it to have been, “without doubt,” a royal town or Prastorium (prima scilicet Domus Regia sive praetorium). The grounds of this broad supposition are soon given, In the cosmography of the anonymous writer of Ravenna, Condate is placed between Nantwich and Leicester, but that treatise, as antiquarians have subsequently discovered, is not arranged into distinct journeys, so that the names of places are mingled in the most erratic confusion, and indeed are so corruptly written as not to be easily recognised. The evidence for the statement about its being a king’s residence, is nothing but the reference found in Camden [5] to its being a Saxon royal Vill, which will be presently considered. The two stations of Lactodoro and Condate have been more correctly placed, by a comparison of various itineraries, at Berry Mount, Towcester, and at Kinderton, on the Watling Street. The former station is placed by some at Stony Stratford, but wherever it was we may safely say that it was not at Loughborough, without in the least invalidating any other testimony as to its being occupied by the Romans. Dr. Gale, [6] for instance, thought he discovered traces of the British word guera, an alder in Vernometum (Willoughby), in Quorndon, Garendon, and Charnwood, and of Roman names in Loughborough, Burleigh, and Barrow.

There are indeed several reasons for believing that Loughborough was occupied by the Romans. It was the custom of the Roman commanders in their gradual conquest of our island, especially where resistance was lengthy and determined, as chroniclers assure us it was in the midland districts – to erect fortifications on the captured territory, which served to secure what they had gained, and formed a basis for further conquests. Such was the line erected by Oscarius Scapula between the rivers Avon and Severn. It was probably in such a manner that the Roman forts in Leicestershire arose, a check upon the surrounding country, and outposts for attack upon the yet undaunted Brigantes. Leicester and Manceter, with Beacon Hill, Loughborough, and Burrough Hill, would form part of an irregular line of this character. A via vincinalia, or branch road, would perhaps lead through Loughborough from Vernometum to the last Roman town of Androstesberies, which Mr. Potter [7] has carefully fixed near the site of Beacon Hill, from weighty considerations which indicate the presence of the Romans in that locality. The late Mr. F.J. Hollings [8] was strongly of opinion that Leicester was occupied by the warriors of the fourteenth Legion, and detachments of that body would occupy these minor stations.

END OF CHAPTER 1 PT 1

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Notes

[1] I believe this is George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709-1773) who wrote an extended essay entitled ‘Observations on the Roman history’

[2] I have been unable to identify Robert Talbot

[3] William Burton (1609-1657), who wrote ‘A commentary on Antonius, his itinerary, or, journeys of the Romane Empire…’

[4] William Baxter (1650-1723) an antiquarian, wrote a dictionary of antiquities entitled ‘Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum’ published in 1719, and his ‘Glossarium Antiquitatum Romanarum’ was completed after his death by Moses Williams, and published under this title as a second edition in 1731.

[5] William Camden (1551-1623) was an antiquarian, historian, and topographer, who chronicled his survey of Britain and Ireland in his ‘Britannia’ in 1586.

[6] Dr Gale could be Thomas Gale (1635 or 1636-1702), an English classical scholar, an antiquarian, and a religious cleric who wrote quite a number of books. Thomas Gale was the father-in-law of William Stukeley. Or, this could be Roger Gale (1672-1744), son of Thomas, who followed in his father’s footsteps and published Thomas’s ‘Antonine Itinerary’ in 1709, which he supplemented with his own comments. Some of Roger’s letters appear in john Nichols’ ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica’, published in 1790.   

[7] This is probably a reference to Thomas Rossell Potter (1799-1873), who wrote ‘History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest’, published in 1842.

[8] This is most likely to be James Francis Hollings (1806-1862) who was president of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1846-7, 1853-4, and 1858-9.

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Transcribed and presented here with the kind permission of the British Newspaper Archive. 

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2024). Goadby's History of Loughborough, Chapter 1, Part 1. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/05/goadbys-history-of-loughborough-chapter.html [Accessed 26 May 2024]

Take down policy:

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So who was Edwin Goadby

Edwin Goadby’s father, Joseph, was born into a family of Baptists, on 1 August 1801. Joseph's father was Joseph Goadby and his mother, Frances Mee, and his birth was registered in Market Bosworth. By around 1814, Joseph was an apprentice clockmaker with Samuel Deacon’s workshop in Barton-in-the-Beans. On 27 December 1826, the young Joseph married Elizabeth Jackson in Nailstone, Leicestershire. It is supposed that Joseph had met Elizabeth, the daughter of one Thomas Jackson, a Baptist minister, whilst he was an apprentice with the Deacons.

The Dover Street Baptist Chapel (now the Little Theatre) opened in Leicester in 1824, and in 1827 the younger Joseph Goadby preached an anniversary sermon there. Joseph and Elizabeth’s children were baptised at the chapel; Joseph Jackson Goadby in 1828; Thomas in 1829; Catherine Elizabeth in 1831; John Orissa in 1833; Anne in 1835; Edwin in 1836; Fanny (Frances) in 1840; James Whetstone in 1843, and Frederick William in 1845.

Edwin Goadby

 

In November 1839, Frances Mee, Joseph’s mother died, and in 1841, Joseph’s father, Joseph, died. On 6 February 1848, Joseph Goadby left the Dover Street Chapel and became the minister at the old Wood Gate chapel in Loughborough, when the Baptists split (some remained at the Baxter Gate chapel, but around 139 members moved to Wood Gate). He preached his inaugural sermon on the first Sunday in February 1848, and in 1849 another child, Ellen, was born to the family. In 1851, Joseph and Elizabeth were living on Leicester Road with some of their children: Catherine (19) and Ann (15) (both school mistresses), Frances (10) a scholar and Ellen aged 2, and brothers James (7) and Frederick (5), scholars.

1857, and 1859 were sad years for the family, as first Frances, aged 17 died in Loughborough, followed six months later by the death of Ellen, aged 8, and in February 1857 by the death of Joseph their father. Joseph Goadby had persuaded his son, Edwin, that a career in medicine would be an appropriate path in life, and although Edwin studied hard for this, he was, at the same time, writing poems and articles. On the 1861 census return, Edwin was listed as a drug dispenser, living with sister Catherine, now aged 29, brothers James, aged 17, a cotton hosier clerk, and Frederick William, aged 15, a scholar, and servant  Eliza Thorpe, at Leicester Road. No property number is listed, and the boys are wrongly transcribed on the census returns as sons of Catherine, when they are in fact her brothers.

In the same year, Edwin Goadby is listed in Drake’s Commercial Directory of 1861 as a dispenser at the Dispensary on Baxter Gate, Loughborough. The Dispensary had moved from Mill Street (now Market Street) to Baxter Gate in 1824, and was situated approximately where the former Odeon Cinema (latterly Beacon Bingo) is. This is where Edwin would have worked, because the Baxter Gate hospital did not open until 1863, and was situated where the new Cineworld Cinema is. Until around 1860, the Dispenser would have been known as an apothecary, and one such apothecary in 1855 was Thomas Jarrett, who was paid £40 per year, so Edwin would have been paid well.    

In 1863, Edwin Goadby is listed in White’s Directory as being a dispenser at the Dispensary on Baxter Gate, Loughborough. As 1863 was the year that the old Dispensary closed and the new building opened,  perhaps it was this change that prompted Edwin to move into journalism full-time? He certainly had had several articles successfully published, and by 1864 he was most certainly working on the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ newspaper, and in March 1864, the newspaper carried an announcement of the publication within its pages of a ‘History of Loughborough’, which was soon to be published in serial format. Writing much later, in 1934, in an issue of ‘The Loughburian’, Percy Davenport, an old boy of Loughborough Grammar School, said: “I despair sometimes of getting at all the facts relating to the early history of the [Loughborough Grammar] School … for I understand that many of the documents to which Dymock Fletcher and Goadby had access have now disappeared.” And, no doubt, these documents would probably have provided Edwin Goadby with much knowledge of the history of the town, and helped him write his serial.

Over the course of the next 18 months, some of the work on that history of Loughborough was published, but was never actually completed [1]. This could have been because in 1866 Edwin Goadby was appointed as the editor of the ‘Western Daily Mercury’ in Plymouth, a post he held until 1873. During his time in Loughborough, as well as writing about the town and its history, Edwin Goadby had also been involved in activities in the town. In 1860, he was appointed as secretary to the Loughborough Penny Bank [2], and during the 1860s he was the Hon Sec of the Loughborough Literary and Philosophical Society, which had begun life in 1848. 

So, probably shortly before the move to Plymouth, in February 1866, Edwin Goadby was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Arts, and received a diploma. In a report of the occasion, the ‘Leicester Guardian’ referred to Goadby as our ‘talented townsman’ and well-known in the literary world as a critic and valuable contributor to some of the leading magazines of the time.

A couple of years later, on 27 July 1868, Edwin’s brother, John Orissa Goadby died at the age of 35, but on a more happy note, in October 1868, while living and working in Plymouth, Edwin Goadby married Elizabeth Annie Brookes, daughter of a well-known General Baptist Missionary (Mr W. Brooks), in Leicester. Elizabeth was born in Cuttack Orissa, East India, in 1848. The birth of two children soon followed  - William Edwin Goadby in 1869, baptised in St George’s, Leicester, and Linnie Goadby in July 1870, in Plymouth. The family were living at 11 Alexandra Building (close to Alexandra Place), in Charles, an area of Plymouth, although at the time of the census return, both William Edwin and Linnie were visiting people in Morwelham, Tavistock.  

A move to York followed in 1874 as Edwin took up the role of editor of the ‘York Daily Herald’, where he remained until 1887. During the period in York, Edwin’s brother, Rev. Frederick William Goadby, died in 1879, aged 34, in Watford Herts..

By 1881, Edwin and his family were living at 16 Bootham in York, but by 1885 had moved to the Clifton area. Sadly, in November 1889, Edwin and Eliza’s 19-year-old daughter, Linnie, died in London, where she was living at 90 Beaufort Street, Chelsea. Linnie was buried in Brompton Cemetery on 18 November 1889, and the service was led by Reverend J.J. Goadby (probably her uncle, Joseph Jackson Goadby). Linnie’s death was followed only 3 months later by the death of Elizabeth Goadby (nee Jackson), mother to Edwin, in Henley-on-Thames.

On the 1891 census return, Edwin and Eliza and son, William Edwin are boarding at 90 Beaufort Street, Chelsea with the Mealand family. William, the head of the Mealand family, is a butler, and there is a visitor – architect Henry Hallett – two other boarders, and a niece of the family listed. Edwin is a journalist, and William Edwin is a managing clerk with a  lithographer (his birthplace is recorded on the census as Norfolk, Leicester). They are actually renting two rooms on each of the first and second floors.

Three more of Edwin’s siblings died in the next few years: Catherine died in Wandsworth in 1896, at the age of 65; Joseph Jackson died aged 70, in Reading; and Thomas died in 1899, also at the age of 70.

In 1900, Edwin is listed on the Wandsworth electoral register as living at 12 Disraeli Gardens, and this is confirmed by the 1901 census return, with Edwin and Eliza, along with William Edwin, now an assistant chartered accountant listed at that address. Only 14 days after the census was taken, Edwin died. Probate was granted on 6 May 1901 to William Edwin, his son, a railway clerk. Effects were £235.

According to the 1911 census return, William Edwin, a 42-year-old single railway clerk, and his mother Eliza Annie were living at 22 Dagmar Road, Alexander Park, Wood Green London, and it is likely that Eliza Annie died in 1914. In August 1917, William Edwin married Madeleine Claire Dejean at Holy Innocents, Hornsey, Haringey. Madeleine was born in Clerkenwell, London,  in May 1891, and was the daughter of Frenchman Nestor Jules Dejean, and his wife Florence. William Edwin Goadby died in December 1932. He lived at 71 Nelson Road, Hornsey, Middlesex and died on 16 December. Probate was granted on 5 January 1933 to his widow, Madeline Goadby. Effects were £184. On the 1939 Register, Madeleine Goadby was at 472 Upper Brentwood Road, Romford, Essex, with Alfred Bennett and Ruth Jackson. In 1973, at the age of 81, Madeleine’s death was registered in the Islington District. Thus, this was the end of the line of descendants of Edwin Goadby.

As we have seen, above, Edwin Goadby had an interesting career, from its beginnings in pharmacy, through his work on local newspapers, to his work with national organisations. As such, by the time he was 46, he was sufficiently well-known and influential, that a biography of him appeared in the new series of ‘The Biograph’, in Number 1, Volume 1 of January 1882, alongside biographies of people like Sir John Lubbock, Sir Thomas Erskine May, Sir Bryan Robinson, and Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and many others.

The author of that biography of Edwin Goadby described him as ‘a provincial journalist of a good type, disciplined by severer mental labour than can be obtained by simple graduation in a newspaper office.’  As we know, Edwin’s father, Joseph, had steered his son towards a career in medicine, and the young Edwin started this off working as a dispenser, but his biographer suggests that Edwin preferred ‘Alison’s History of Europe’ to ‘Thompson’s Dispensatory’. It also appears that around the age of 15 Edwin was writing poetry, sometimes using a cipher-alphabet, and often hiding these poems away in drawers! Although he approached a publisher with a view to getting these poems published, this certainly hadn’t happened by 1882, and Edwin had already turned his hand to writing prose.

According to ‘The Biograph’, Edwin helped to start up a local newspaper, and wrote leading articles for this, and eventually becoming the newspaper’s acting editor. I think this may have been the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ which possibly began publication in mid-1857, although at this time, Edwin would only have been about 11 years old. The paper was published and printed by J.H.Gray, based in Market Place, and within in the publication, letters from ‘Ruricola’ often appeared, which were probably written by Edwin Goadby. Given that the biographer suggests that ‘at this period’ Edwin had plenty of leisure time, had access to three local libraries (theological (presumably that at the parish church), medical, and general, and read for never less than 5 hours a day – and apparently read the whole of Shakespeare’s plays and poems in a fortnight - perhaps it’s possible he was writing for the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ by 1857.

Around this time, Edwin Goadby began writing articles for a London educational weekly Register, joined a society for amateur authors, and won a prize for an essay on the Literature of Queen Anne’s time, having read around 60 volumes in preparation for embarking on the essay. From about 1858-1866, Edwin Goadby was constantly writing, penning numerous articles – for serious publications, as well as more light-hearted ones – all of which were successful, and elicited useful advice from a number of editors.

During his time in Loughborough, Edwin Goadby, working as a dispenser, but also writing, may have wondered what his future actually held. The young man was disciplined, and kept to a routine of gymnastics and metaphysics in the morning, physic during the middle of the day, and various reading and writing in the evening, all this interspersed with rambles around the hills of Charnwood, and area which he loved, and about which he wrote:

“O Charnwood, thou art ever dear to me,

Whate’er my moods, whate’er thy moods may be;

Serene in Summer, and in Winter wild,

I come to thee and claim to be thy child.”

Eventually, Edwin dispensed with the physic and took up journalism  as a career, and by late 1865 was editing a couple of local weekly newspapers, taking up the position of editor of the ‘Western Daily Mercury’ in Plymouth, in January 1866, a post which he held until 1874.

During his early time with the ‘Western Daily Mercury’, Goadby had little time for miscellaneous writings, but did write a series of papers on the ‘Military Aspects of Darwinism’, and probably also wrote articles for ‘Macmillan’s Magazine’ and the ‘School Board Chronicle’. In 1874, Edwin Goadby became the editor of the ‘York Daily Herald’, and during that editorship, he also wrote many anonymous and miscellaneous articles, as well as ‘The England of Shakespeare’. At 224 pages, this book is an in-depth look at, and description of, England during the time of Shakespeare, which covers topics like trade and commerce; religion and education; and a chapter specifically about London and one of literature of the time.

This is where the Biograph article ends, published as it was in 1882 but we know that Edwin Goadby stayed at the ‘York Daily Herald’ until 1887. Goadby was a prolific author, and the short biography mentions much of his work, but there are other texts of interest that are not included. Some of this other writing, includes, for example, his article in April 1863 on ‘Phrenology and character’ that appeared in the ‘Medical Critic and Psychological Journal’; a piece on John Cleveland (‘John Cleaveland: Royalist, wit, and poet’), that appeared in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in February 1873; and an essay entitled ‘A pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon’ – which was originally published in ‘Sharpe’s London Magazine’ and in which Goadby describes a visit he made to Stratford in 1859, which was published again in 1879, alongside the text of his lecture to the York Institute, entitled ‘Shakespeare’s time’.

Here's the beginning of the article on John Cleveland:

"At the commencement of the seventeenth century Loughborough was non of the quaintest Midland towns. Situate on top of a knoll on the left bank of the sleepy River Soar, with rich slopes of intervening meadow land, silted up bu the river in earlier times, and a long range of hish-arched bridges to carry its main turnpike safely over the flats during the regular floods ..."

And the start of the description of the pilgrimage to Statford:

"The morning train from Coventry to Warwick fills with the usual collection of business and pleasure travellers; and taking our seats, we are soon whirled through shrub-planted cuttings, with here and there a primrose peering through the delicate green of newly-tressed pines, whilst occasional long sweeps of country opening to the view, bespent with flocks, relieve the dulness of an April morning."

The biography does, however, mention ‘The Newburys: their opinions and fortunes, a glimpse of Baptists in England two centuries ago’. This first appeared in 1862 in the ‘General Baptist Magazine’, and may have been published in 1864 as a separate volume. This was said to be a ‘politico-religious novelette’ and was described by the ‘Athenaeum’, as “a vigorous little book”, while the review from the Banffshire Reporter described the characters in the book as being “well-drawn and happily conceived”. Apparently, this was written to show the struggle for religious freedom, from the time of Charles I, to that of William of Orange.

The Newburys was divded into 19 short chapters, with titles like 'The fight near Winceby-in-the-Wolds'; 'In which Giles makes the acquaintance of a new friend and an old problem', and 'In which is shown how Dr. Caffyn's remedy succeeded'. The opening chapter, called 'A gospeller in armour', begins as follows: 

"How obstinate the animals are; they won'r be counted anyhow! Noe, my lad, fetch them round again. Eh; that's right. Now be quiet, dog - down! I've go them at last. One, two, three, four, five,' - Elijah Newbury halted, looked first right onwards, then all round, then up to the sky, and finally down to the sheep. Aye, it must be so." 

Incidentally, further evidence of Edwin Goadby’s love of the Charnwood hills comes from the name of the house in which the family were living in the Clifton area of York, which was named ‘Charnwood Villas’.

The remainder of Edwin Goadby’s life story is cobbled together from the many obituaries that appeared upon his death, and from an entry in a book entitled ‘Not saints but men: or, the story of the Goadby ministers’ by Bertha and Lilian Goadby. Frustratingly, this book does not carry a publication date, but was clearly written after 1901 as it talks of Edwin Goadby’s death in 1901.

In 1885, Goadby’s article ‘On the tramp’ was published in ‘Cassell’s Family Magazine’, and along with William Watt, Goadby won a prize in a Messrs. Pears competition for his essay on the theme of the depression in trade, entitled ‘The present depression in trade’, which discussed the Gothenburg System, and which was the subject of a later article in 1895 - ‘The Gothenburg licensing system’.

'On the tramp' begins like this:

"Is there any more enjoyable feeling in life than to be under a bright morning sky, comfortably equipped, on the tramp though a pleasant country: a world of meadows - a rocky dale - a stretch of brown, billowy moorland?"

On resigning from the ‘York Daily Herald’, in 1887, Goadby went to London to work on the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’, assisting Mr Stead, and shortly after this he took the role of secretary and editor of the Publication Department of the National Liberation Federation. In 1890, Edwin Goadby was the prize-winner in the Reeve Prize Essay competition, with his essay ‘The Abolition of the hereditary principal in legislation’. The following year, Edwin Goadby edited the ‘Political World Year Book’, and was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Journalists.

In 1892 Edwin Goadby moved back to the ‘Western Daily Mercury’ in Plymouth, at their request, but only stayed until the end of 1893. At his retirement dinner, Goadby was presented with a bound book of an illuminated address on vellum, which was signed by many well-known Liberals of the time. So, in 1893, Edwin Goadby returned to London where he joined the staff of the National Press Agency as chief leader writer and parliamentary correspondent, during which time many of his leaders appeared in the ‘Leicester Daily Post’.

Edwin Goadby’s death was sudden and unexpected. On 14 April 1901, he died while at Charing Cross railway station. Two days later, the Westminster coroner, Mr John Troutbeck, carried out an inquest upon the body of Edwin Goadby, to establish the cause of death. The medical evidence indicated that death was due to syncope from aortic disease of the heart, and a verdict of ‘Death from natural causes’ was returned.

On 19 April 1901, Edwin Goadby was buried in Brompton cemetery where the ceremony was led by the Reverend F. G. French, and the details in the Register of Burials rather harshly says:

 “Goadby, Edwin, 164256, dropped dead in Charing Cross Station”.

Newspapers across the country carried an announcement of his death, aged 64. In its publication dated Saturday 20 April 1901, the ‘Reading Mercury’ reported on page 10 upon the death of Sir Edward Watkin, who was at one time connected with the Great Central Railway, alongside the sudden death of Edwin Goadby. According to the report, Edwin Goadby “was suddenly seized with illness and expired.” The paper also reported that Edwin Goadby was a journalist who was well-known in London and across the country.

The ‘Dundee Evening Telegraph’ reported on the day following the death of Edwin Goadby, that he was “a familiar figure both in the gallery of the House of Commons and in the National Liberal Club, and enjoyed in an especial degree the respect of his colleagues. He was a Liberal by conviction, proving the strength of his principles by resigning the editorship of the ‘York Herald’ when that paper became Unionist.”

The ‘Bournemouth Daily Echo, also reported on the day following the death of Edwin Goadby, saying: “Mr Goadby’s name will be gratefully remembered by the younger journalists, to whom he was always kindly.”

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Notes

[1] We will return to this history of Loughborough in a future blogpost.

[2] A penny bank was a way of helping less well-off people to save money. Rather like what we, today would call a piggy bank. A family would have a physical box, probably made of metal, and inscribed with a number, and the family would pop in coins of small denomination, as and when they could, as a way of saving. The bank would keep the key to the box, and as the cash saved mounted up, it could then be deposited with the bank. 

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posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Thank you for reading this blog. You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2023). So who was Edwin Goadby? Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/01/so-who-was-edwin-goadby.html     [Accessed 30 January 2023]

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I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

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