IN

AND LABOURS.

BY GILES SHAW.

N the preface to the History of Lancashire, 1836, p. xi, Edward Baines remarks: "It is due to Mr. Edwin Butterworth, who has visited all the parishes and townships of the county, without a single exception, for the purpose of collecting local information, and to verify facts already obtained, to say that he has performed his duty with zeal, intelligence, and fidelity."

Such is the sole public acknowledgment which Baines made of the strenuous services of his young assistant Butterworth in perambulating the county and gathering and formulating the necessary particulars for the famous history.

From the letters and rough drafts or copies of letters that passed between Edward Baines and Edwin Butterworth, which fortunately have been saved from destruction and are now carefully preserved in the Oldham Free Library, we shall see what was the rate of payment he received for the immense work he accomplished; and this correspondence will show the measure of credit that should be given to Butterworth for his share in the work. The evidence of the Oldham letters is fully borne out by the MSS. volumes which Baines deposited in Dr.

Shepherd's library at Preston. The MSS. have recently been rebound in seven volumes (four quarto and three octavo), though not in the order that Butterworth sent them. The first parish history that Butterworth sent to Baines, namely, Rochdale, together with the histories of Oldham and Ashton-under-Lyne, are yet unbound. It would perhaps be difficult to bind them, the writing being so close to the edges.

The MSS. are neatly and carefully written, and almost every parish is provided with a sketch or outline map. In the Oldham Library there are almost all the rough note-books of his parish histories, several of them having outline maps and some of them a few drawings. As specimens of his work I present facsimiles of Bolton and Radcliffe, with map of Radcliffe.

At the time of Edwin's birth, his father, James Butterworth was postmaster of Oldham, residing at what is now No. 50, Manchester Street in that town, where his son was born on October 1st, 1812. The record of his baptism in the registers of Oldham Church is as follows: "1812. Oct. 22 Edwin son of James Butterworth, Postmaster, by Hannah his wife." Edwin Butterworth would no doubt receive his education at the competent hands of his father, who, after he had relinquished the office of postmaster, with which he combined the trade of bookseller and stationer, became a schoolmaster, being so described in the Directory published in 1818.

The lad acquired his taste for historical research from his father, and one of the first efforts of his pen in this direction was probably his Chronology of Events, written when he was under seventeen years of age. His first published work was brought out in 1829, with the title of Biography of Eminent Natives, Residents, and Benefactors of the Town of Manchester (12mo, 33 pages).

In June, 1830, he commenced a series of note-books entitled Register of Oldham News, and continued them to 1842. These are now in the Oldham Free Library, except that a few volumes are missing.

When Baines issued his proposals for a history of the County Palatine of Lancaster, Butterworth introduced himself with an offer of assistance in the compilation of that work. Baines wrote in reply on January 1st, 1831, asking for a specimen history of the parish of Rochdale, for which Butterworth had collected materials, and requesting to be informed what he considered a suitable remuneration for it.

At this time Butterworth had arrived at the age of eighteen years and three months. The terms he stipulated for his literary labours, as indicated in the following letter from Edward Baines, dated Leeds, 15th January, 1831, certainly show that he did not place an extravagant estimate on their value:

:

I received your communication with the charge of 175. for the Map of Rochdale parish, a manuscript of that parish history,* and a communication for the Leeds Mercury of the present week. I enclose you a sovereign in a letter, post paid, thereby leaving a small balance in my favour.

I shall be glad to receive weekly communications from you for the present on the terms you mention, and I shall also be glad to receive similar information to that you have already sent to me regarding Rochdale for Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Middleton, and Prestwich parishes, with one of your maps of each of those parishes. The manuscript for each parish I should be glad to have separately, in the way you have sent that for Rochdale, accompanied by your charge for each at the time it is sent. Though I shall visit each of these parishes in person and of course authenticate.

In spite of the last sentence it is my opinion that the number of parishes visited by Baines was extremely few. In 1832 Butterworth published his History of Oldham,

*This MS. consisted of eighty small quarto pages.