Weavers of Coventry

Helen. I have never seen a map where Hales St or the river turns south, until Cox St, or read of such, the rise from Hales St to the Cathedral was fifteen feet. In 1850 the mill pool was nearer to where the fire station is now and I believe Rob showed a map where it was closer to Smithfields. SJT. Is your novel a murder mystery? They used to get rid of people in those days by feeding them to the pigs, not a scrap of evidence.

Helen F: The sketched court map looks like it might have been done by a judge's associate, a clerk the judge brought with him from London when on circuit. I can't imagine it was done by a Cov local because there is such a glaring error in it (location of Cross Cheaping). I imagine the purpose of the map would be to assist the judge in visualising the scene, nothing more. It was certainly not 'evidence' relied on in the trial. Proximity of the river to the factory might well have been inaccurate as well. The knot garden idea is fascinating. I had imagined a paved courtyard. My reading suggests Beck was not particularly wealthy and the building was not long constructed when the riot occured (although I haven't been able to confirm that). I had also thought that Beck, an industrialst, might not have cared much for anything other than functionality, and that the centre of town might have been cramped for room and relatively expensive to buy/rent land. But all this is largely assumption and I'm interested in your view. Kaga: I have written two crime thrillers (contemporary & completely fictional... not a swine to be seen!). However, this one is historical fiction. Simply telling the story, as close as I can to the known facts but with all the detail in between imagined, everything from dialogue to what the characters were thinking, wearing, eating etc. The great Hilary Mantel does similar with Thomas Cromwell (although I would not dare claim I am anything near her league). Thanks for the tip on the pigs. Sounds gruesome, but effective! By the way, I'm not sure how to find the pic you mentioned - can you give me any more clues?

Knot garden is probably not the right description but it looks like an ornamental kitchen garden. It's not obvious which house it belongs to but a possible answer would be the house under which the passageway exited onto New Buildings. The map on the left is from 1807 and you can just about see the ghost of the garden. In the 1749 (Bradford) map on the right it's even more clear. The property boundaries in the area look like they're mostly hedges but that plot is walled. Gardens were becoming non essential for food and land was being rapidly built on for both factories and tenements. Sometimes there is a good match between the boundaries and building blocks of the earlier maps and the BOH map and at other places they are only vaguely similar.

SJT 1830 From reading your posts, I do think you underestimate the condition in Coventry in those days. The city of Coventry sits on ten small hills, none of them rise to any great elevation with the Spon-end brook and the Radford brook intercepting in the valleys. Only a few roads, the rest farm tracks, Spon-end being by far the lowest point, Broadgate Hill central and steep. Mostly farmland, woods etc apart from a few central streets. The rain had nowhere to go. The Spon-end brook started in the south west, had great floods and pool mill etc ran parallel with Hertford St across Smithford St, a yard or so past West Orchard it hit the rising ground of Radford hill and brook, all the fields' rain swelled these brooks. The two brooks became a heavy river called the Severn for a short term then Sherbourne, parallel to West Orchard it turned right, across Cross Cheaping - Burges, ran slightly towards Hales St turned along the then Hales St, slight dip became the priory pool, about two feet deep approx, ran across what is now known as Pool Meadow across to Cox St, met rising ground, turned right again along the eastern side of Broadgate hill and beyond Coventry. Now a second brook started on the other side of Radford hill, ran exactly the same about a mile apart, now called the Sowe river, through the now Longford Park, Foleshill mill and along the eastern side. The book I have printed in 1880 one of only a hundred. The north of Pool Meadow was always damp, axle deep to the mill, when they built Hillfields and around was like a new city.

Helen. How can you believe that map, it as the conflux of rivers south of ironmonger row, almost level with trinity church,at the top of a hill?not in those days did rivers climb. Somehow I can't believe this knot garden stuff near the mill, a plantsman lived in New buildings, but had his gardens in the south, there was a oat and rye granary and sales rooms in Ironmongers row, a knot garden sounds iffy to me, and the centre was far to crowded with buildings, everywhere they could put in hut they called them a Court by numbers, and they were all on foot. Coventry had done little to make the place healthy in those days. Although Coventry had a post master, it was royal mail, delivered by messengers in Royal Livery, horses were settled at posting stations along the way in the time of Edward 1. the Warwick road between Coventry to Kenilworth was cut out of a forest, but it was still a mere track in 1730. But Coventry had to do it's trade by horse back, so it relied on the names of it's houses, there was no post as we knew it not when Beck traded and few people knew were a road started or ended. The mass of the people were starving, in rags, there was a huge class system, in money, that never left us until after the 2nd war. Yes it sounds as Beck was on the 'up'. I have to rest now. Sorry.

In Gutteridge's book he tells of being an apprentice to his father at a weaving mill which is separated from Beck's Mill only by a sheet of water. as he was more interested in nature than working he derscribes At the back of the factory there was a large and beautiful garden well stocked with fruit and other trees, and near one end was a spring of water of very ancient date, lined and arched over with cut stone. This was the old St Agnes well of monastic times, belonging to the old Priory. The spring af water had more arttractions for me than the factory had, with it's continual din and clatter of shuttles and machinery. Many a pleasant hour I passed watching the copious flow of water, and the birds that visited it, either for a bath or drink. I was down at this place so often that complaints were made to my father about my loss of time, and had to attend more to my business

Kaga, the more northerly stream curving from The Burges to St Agnes Lane was the Radford Brook. There it met a stream from St Agnes well/spring. By 1850 it had all been culverted so was invisible by your day. The Sherbourne comes in from the left about halfway down the maps and heads past the garden, soon to be Beck's and into the Priory mill pond. By your time the Sherbourne after Palmer lane until beyond New Buildings was also underground. The stretch after New Buildings was also finally culverted and they build a car park and Fairfax Street over it. The mill pond had been drained and had been turned into the cattle market by your day. The Library to the Grammar School had been demolished before the 1807 map and Hales Street was built some time before 1850. To the right of the pond, the river splits with the Sherbourne going over sluices and a mill race running from the most southerly point of the pond to re-join the river further to the east. The mill race, along with the pool had also gone by your day, although some of the mill buildings survived for a while, maybe as late as the 1950s but I'm not sure. Anne posted a photo and article about it, a while back. Individual plots and properties are a bit iffy but roughly correct on the early maps. Given that it's a sketch, not a OS map, you'd expect that. The city, even as late as 1850 was packed with ornamental gardens. Some of the larger ones had had the Capability Brown styling, with less formal landscaping but the Board of Health map is so detailed that it records individual trees, bushes and paths. It is truly a work of art as well as information. In Beck's time all that was changing. The city was desperately short of space and began sacrificing gardens for housing and factories. So most of the middle of the map was completely different to what you remember Kaga but is consistent with evidence.

Something going on in the background to weaving disputes was the rapidly growing population but at the same time no increase in land to be developed. Common Lands The corporation did not finally secure an assignment of the Crown lease of the Great Park until 1705. The park appears to have been enjoyed by the citizens from that date to 1787, when the Prince of Wales granted a 31-year lease to Francis Seymour-Conway, styled Viscount Beauchamp, later Marquess of Hertford (d.1822), who was thus able to gratify a personal feud with the inhabitants. Lord Beauchamp's agents almost immediately cut down an avenue of ornamental trees planted by Thomas Potter, mayor in 1622, and otherwise destroyed the amenities of the park. Pasturing fees were also raised - in the case of horses from 10s. to 21s. for the season. In 1795 the tenant, William Preest, divided the park into gardens and inclosed fields, reserving a ley for pasturing the townspeople's cattle. In 1819 the estate was sold to the Marquess of Hertford and the remaining common pasture was inclosed for private use. Though there is little evidence for disputes over the common lands in the 18th century, encroachments were gradually made on the pastures and some were inclosed and others illegally ploughed. In 1790 the freemen formed a 'graziers' society' to protect their rights, and about 1810 a freemen's committee was appointed and a fund raised to contest the encroachments. At the same time, however, it first began to be mooted that the freemen's privileges should be commuted for a yearly payment. In 1811 the corporation proceeded against William Raby and others for breaking into a meadow at the bottom of First Charterhouse Leys, 'under pretence of its being Lammas land'. These events marked the beginning of a fresh period of social struggle over the use of the Lammas and Michaelmas lands. It is probable that at no time since the 16th century at the latest had more than a few of the inhabitants or even of the freemen made full use of their pasture rights. During the four years 1823-7 the chamberlains marked an average of fewer than 800 beasts for pasture yearly. Nevertheless, for many years the graziers' or cow-keepers' party was able to hold back inclosure by an appeal to popular sentiment. New 'tribunes' in the Laurence Saunders tradition - first Gerard Rawes and then Thomas Payne - arose, and any inclosure proposal was likely to result in a mass-meeting of protest on Barr's Hill or Windmill Fields. As late as 1844 a crowd estimated at 2,000, 'after a contest with the police', pulled down a wall with which a Whitley miller had inclosed what they declared was common land. The freemen's resistance was to have serious effects on the development of Coventry. In a letter to the corporation of 1843 the secretary of the Health of Towns Commission stressed the unnatural check to the ordered growth of the town resulting from its encircling belt of commons. New building was, at this date, crowded within the old town to the detriment of public health. At the same time the conditions of tenure hindered the development of market-gardening to feed the new population adequately. Several inroads on the common lands were, in fact, sanctioned by Act of Parliament during the earlier 19th century. Thus in 1828-9 Lammas land was taken by the Holyhead Road Commissioners for the improvement of the Holyhead turnpike or coach road, and c.1834 land assessed at £1,652 was acquired by the London and Birmingham Railway Company for its new line. In 1844 about 18 acres between Whitley Common and the park were set aside for use as a cemetery, and in 1847 other land including two Lammas closes by Holyhead Road and Spon Street was conveyed to the London and North Western Railway Company.

I found, with delight, the Coventry Forum some years ago and have read a lot and posted posted a little over the years. When I opened the Weavers page I was completely drawn in. I live in Virginia now but I still travel with my Cash's suitcase straps - I can spot them rightaway at airports. I also have some of their bookmarks. Sorry to go a bit off subject but my Irish immigrant grandparents lived in Hillfields on Wellington Street, opposite a food suppliers. They had nine children and the top shop was the boy's dorm. I spent a lot of time there as my mum would drop me off with my grandma as she went off to work at the BTH. If it was a school day I'd troop off down to St. Mary's with about ten other kids. My real question is, was the top shop for weaving or for glovemaking as I was often told.

Hi Linda. Not my area of experience but as I gather it a topshop was mainly for weaving but I suppose they could be used for anything as and when demand came and went. Topshop More

Helen Yes the Radford brook joined the Spon-end brook a few yards north of West Orchard St were the Radford Brook (west of Bishop st) met it, they both careered over/under Cross Cheaping and down to Hales st. I believe I posted about Mr Liggins having his wall across common land pulled down. he took them to court but lost his case. We cannot tie down today what went on in those days, yes of course there were gardens, poultry, horses, lions in Earl St etc, there were no laws about those things except religious ones.all things I have read. Most weaving had been done in the house, at the end of the week they had a 'fell' day, they had a day 'off' sold what they had weaved, gathered new Yarn or whatever and celebrated a little, when the factories started, very few had the means of travel, so there was disagreement's, it was a very trying time for all sides, none of the reforms had happened, underneath was at boiling point. the mill owners didn't care, they were well off they could feed a dog one meal, it was more than a family had in a week. I have not read anything by Gutteredge, he was educated, a mill owners son, fair game for riot mob. (believe me I have met riots, nothing in this world scared me as much, we used tear gas to quell the mob.)if he was a witness he would have needed that water between him and the mob. But all the books you read are by the educated, money people.the sufferage movement had to use fire bombs, forced feeding, and even death, and over a half a century just to gain the vote. Letters and petitions got them nowhere.

Ahhh, yes, I see what you mean Kaga. When they built Hales Street in 1848 they must have diverted the Radford Brook into the Sherbourne at West Orchard. There had long been a small channel there but it was used as a mill race not as a permanent route. Part of the route was still visible on the 1850 map. It had gone by 1888, except for a few odd shapes in the plot boundary lines.

lindatee2002 may be interested to know that from about 1895 to about 1906, the large family of Hickmans who lived in Alma Street used their top shop as a gym. The whole family was interested in sport, mainly athletics (cross country) with Coventry Godiva Harriers and Birchfield Harriers (Birmingham). Two of the three athletes included a National Cross Country Champion and a member of the England winning team in the International Cross Country Championships. Besides the usual weights equipment, there was a heavy boxing punch bag and smaller light bag suspended close to the ceiling, for speed punching.

Kaga, Joseph Gutteridge did not come from a moneyed family and his father was an ex-soldier who chose to remain in his native city of Coventry when he was discharged after the Battle of Waterloo. He was educated at Baker, Billing and Crowe Charity School and apprenticed as a weaver at the age of 13 at the factory where his father worked and he learned his trade under his father's supervision. His book tells of much hardship during his life. The book I refer to is Master and Artisan in Victorian England, which is 2 books in one, the unpublished diary of William Andrews and the autobiography of Joseph Gutteridge. I came across this book when I saw an article in the newspaper archive that he became acquainted with my 3x g grandfather, a watchcase maker who taught Gutteridge some of the intricacies of telescopes and microscopes.

Kaga: the weavers' riot sprung largely from their extreme distress, conditions of poverty I can only try to imagine (and must try, for the purposes of the book). I am under no illusions & the story will draw this out. However, it was not an organised unionist style political protest, this much is clear from the many contemporary reports, letters & weavers like Benjamin Poole, speaking at the parliamentary inquiry that followed (transcripts readily available online). It was partly the lack of any political intent that saved Sparkes and Burbury from the noose. The riot was truly a spontaneous, mass event that arose from the abject poverty & suffering of the day. Annewiggy: thank you for the quote from Gutteridge. I've ordered a copy of his book but it hasn't arrived yet. He was about 15 when the riot occurred and I believe he wrote his biography in the 1890s so I have to take care with his recollections (but there are plenty of primary sources to check against). I suspect seeing Coventry of the 1830s through his eyes will be revelatory! Can't wait to receive the book.