SHIRBURNS of Stoneyhurst.pdf - Ingilby History

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As we have already seen, the Shireburnes had always endowed charitable concerns, linked directly to the propagation of their faith and family name. However, this drive reached new levels upon the succession to the lordship of Sir Nicholas and was, under him, formalised and injected with a new impetus. The need to maximise profits to sustain the displays of conspicuous consumption of the late 1690s and early 1700s, had effectively pauperised or driven out many of Shireburnes’ tenants and labourers. Consequently, an interest in charity was based upon an entirely practical rationale and enabled the family to exercise a sense of paternalism in regard to their favoured servants, while weeding out of their estates those whose religious, or political views did not conform to their own. Despite the grand claims of his parents to have firmly endowed charitable bequests and almshouses, little had been achieved by the mid-1690s that was either durable or securely financed. Many of the promises for endowments remained simply that 38 . It fell to Sir Nicholas to confirm and provide for these grants, and to initiate a comprehensive programme of building which would further stamp the landscape with physical evidence of the Shireburne presence. While his wife, Katherine, established an apothecary shop for “the distres’d sick and poor lame” inside the coach-house at Stonyhurst, he attempted for generate fresh wealth and stimulate new patterns of employment through investment in the spinning of Jersey wools. This latter project may have been a short term expedient to alleviate hardship on the northern side of the Ribble, for it was only actively pursued between April 1699 and August 1701. Prefiguring modern job-training 37 “P.G.”, “Apropos of an Account Book”, Stonyhurst Magazine, no.368 (April, 1948), pp.126-127; Muir, op.cit. p.50; Skeat op.cit. Part I p.74; Stonyhurst College Archive, MS E.2/4/4 no.3. 38 DDSt Box 1, items 9-11, 17-18 & 21; Box 94, item 2; Box 95, items 2 & 4. DDSt. 5., “Mr. Kemp’s Disbursements” op.cit. fols.1, 7 & 9. Stonyhurst College, E.2/4/4 no.3 & b. Gerard, Centenary Record, op.cit. pp.81-83; & Skeat, op.cit. Part I p.74.
schemes, Sir Nicholas made over one of the courtyards and several of the rooms of his house into workshops and hired “a Man to comb the wool, and a woman to Spin” in order to teach his tenants the trade upon the new wheels. Accordingly, “the Neighbours came to Spin … every day and span as long a time as they could spare Morning and afternoon from their families”. One they had satisfied their lord and their instructors, they were each given “a pound or half a pound of wool ready for spinning and a wheel to set up for themselves” 39 . Unfortunately, despite the opinion of his daughter and her craftsmen that this programme “did a vast deal of good” to the locality, there is no way of evaluating the lasting success of Sir Nicholas’ initiative 40 . However, it is probable that many individuals were helped over the worst of a temporary regional trade depression by his direct intervention in their affairs. A more traditional response to poverty was provided by the regular doles paid to the old and the destitute, through the almshouses or directly by the Lady Katherine on All Souls’ Day 41 . Sir Nicholas had been quick to convert his father’s limited bequests into perpetual endowments, and by 1713 had extended the reach of his charitable concerns to encompass the “Poore” of Wigglesworth and Guysley – with both places receiving £6 per annum - Carleton and Hambleton – who were allotted £7 per annum between them – and the towns of Burnley and Chorley, which received £9 10 s. and £2 respectively 42 . Dependent upon these payments, was the clause that these disbursements should be paid – by Anglican Churchwardens – every year, upon 16 August. This date was rich in symbolism for the Shireburnes, as Squire Richard had died a prisoner on that date in 1689. It was doubtless with a cold sensation of revenge that Sir Nicholas saw his father’s Jacobite “martyrdom” honoured by the Established Church, while it was - in all likelihood – 39 Funerary monument to Sir Nicholas Shireburne, Great Mitton Church, Lancashire. See also: A.J. Berry, The Story of Lancashire, (London, no date, c.1890-1900), pp.240-41. 40 Ibid. 41 DDSt. 5, “Mr. Kemp’s Disbursements” op.cit. fol.1. Gerard, Centenary Record, op.cit. p.82 fn.3. 42 DDSt. 5, “Mr. Kemp’s Disbursements”, op.cit. fol.1.
Page 1 and 2: The last of the Shireburnes: the ar
Page 3 and 4: Shireburnes had been the exemplars
Page 5 and 6: for redress, Felgate was unable to
Page 7 and 8: College at St.Omers, he compounded
Page 9 and 10: agents in Ireland, liased with Talb
Page 11 and 12: West were quickly and quietly aband
Page 13 and 14: and to ultimately convict their tro
Page 15 and 16: only one of the group not to be sho
Page 17 and 18: Spelling and grammar books, togethe
Page 19: patrimonies, Sir Nicholas had place
Page 23 and 24: Even though they had systematically
Page 25 and 26: opened up in the name of the King.
Page 27 and 28: one of active assistance in the pre
Page 29 and 30: the North and the manors owned by t
Page 31 and 32: “marriage” to Widdrington nulli
Page 33 and 34: through the blind operation of fate

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