Chapter 7. Robert Barlow & his family

 Into this lively township came the young Irish clergyman, Robert Joseph Barlow.  He must have carried with him a slight aura of exoticism, coming as a prosperous outsider from across the Irish Sea into a small Yorkshire community, and he would naturally be the object of great curiosity.

It cannot have been long before his parishioners realised that this was indeed an unusual man from an unconventional background.

The only surviving photograph of him, taken in about 1865, shows an alert and humorous face with wildly curling dark hair and beard, and light-coloured eyes – so it seems he inherited from his father the black curly hair and blue eyes that he described in his lightly-fictionalised account of his family's history, written in old age [1] .

Robert Barlow was Anglo-Irish, born into the Protestant Ascendancy that had ruled Ireland for centuries.  Divided by religion and language from the native population, they also seemed half-foreign to their counterparts in England.

The novelist Anthony Trollope returned from his time in Ireland with a noisy, boisterous social manner that was often commented on [2], and Jane Austen once described an Anglo-Irish family as "bold, queer-looking people" [3].

Robert was born in Dublin in about 1804 [4], just after the great events that were to determine the course of Irish history in the 19th and 20th centuries – the Rebellion of the radical United Irishmen in 1798 and the passing of the Act of Union in 1800.  Parliament House in Dublin, which had been the first purpose-built parliament house in the world, had been sold to the Bank of Ireland, and Dublin would soon sink into the long decline that would last until 1922. 

Robert was the youngest child of John Barlow, gentleman, and his wife Ann.  He loved and admired his mother, and in his novel told her story with the greatest sympathy and affection.  She in turn was devoted to him – he "was a prime favourite" with her, "and used to be called her white-headed boy" [5].

Chapter 6. 1830: Suspicions of Murder

The summer of 1830 had been an eventful one in the village.  Not only had old Lady Amherst died and the vicar fallen seriously ill, but in August the inhabitants of Hutton had been shaken by the disappearance of one of the weavers.

The people of East Side were absorbed with the affair for weeks – and their memories of the time were to be revived unexpectedly when the discovery of a skeleton eleven years later led to a murder trial.

In the newspaper reports of the trial [1] we can hear the actual voices of the villagers themselves, and their testimonies reveal a vivid picture of life at the time – lived under the scrutiny of close neighbours, often outside the houses, in the street.

The past is brought alive: rising at dawn; shared loomshops in the yards; men drinking late at night in the kitchen of a public house; a labourer breaking stones at the roadside in return for parish relief; the local habit of poaching in the Crathorne game preserves; the little shops run by the women of the village in their own homes; the long distances people were accustomed to walk; the clothes they wore; how the village governed and policed itself; the emigration ships sailing from Whitby.

The missing man's name was William Huntley.  He had a very odd appearance, his head being large and strangely-shaped.  William Jackson, draper and hatter, said of him:

he had rather a particular shaped face, and a large head.  He took a very large hat, and the last time he came to me I had some difficulty to fit him.

Mr Garbutt, the solicitor, gave this description to the court:

Very low between the eyes; very long behind in the head; his head sloped off particularly from the forehead.

A tooth protruded from his bottom jaw and pushed out his lower lip; the village boys used to make fun of him.

Chapter 5. The Brighams & the Harkers

A significant figure in the village was the agent in charge of Lord Falkland's estates.  George Brigham, a man of forty [1], had taken over from his father Robert some fifteen years earlier.

Born near Slingsby, Robert Brigham had been Lady Amherst's steward and agent for many years.  His abilities had brought his family prosperity and prominence in the village, and he had held the posts of High Constable and churchwarden of Rudby.  He farmed at Rudby Farm as a tenant of his employer.  His daughters married prosperous local men:  Elizabeth was the wife of the miller at Leven Bridge, William Simpson, and her sister Mary had married his brother Robert, miller at Newport, whilst Isabella was the wife of the Stokesley saddler, Ralph Watson.  Ann had made the best match socially, when she married the Revd Richard Shepherd, vicar of Rudby. 
   
George Brigham is said to have acted as one of the surveyors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and became Lady Amherst's agent when only in his twenties.  By 1823 he was working as a land agent and valuer, and held the offices of coroner for Cleveland and chief constable for the west division of Langbaurgh.  He farmed at Windy Hill, Rudby, paying Lady Amherst a yearly rent of £265 [2].  
   
Unfortunately George was not as capable as his father, and his rather uncertain grasp of his duties is revealed in the letters of his good friend, John Harker.  The story of the troubles that beset the Brigham and Harker families reveals a vivid glimpse of life in Georgian Stokesley – and resulted in repercussions which were to have an effect on events in Hutton Rudby.  

Chapter 4. The Nobility

While the lands of the village of Hutton had belonged for generations to a number of freeholders and there was no major landowner to impose his authority on the villagers, the nearby hamlets of Rudby and Skutterskelfe were the property of the owners of the great house.

In the first half of the 18th century this had been Rudby Hall, standing opposite the church beside the river, but after the manor of Rudby was inherited by Isabella Ingram, her husband General George Cary purchased the neighbouring manor of Skutterskelfe and there he and Isabella made their home.  Rudby Hall appears to have been dismantled or allowed to fall into decay [1].

By 1830 the estates had belonged for some thirty years to their daughter, Elizabeth, Lady Amherst.  She was the widow of Jeffery 1st Lord Amherst, commander-in-chief of the army and much favoured by George III.

Chapter 3. The Village & its Vestry

Village affairs in England were run by the Parish Vestry, a parish meeting that had developed over the centuries largely unregulated by legislation.  It took its name from the church ante-room in which it was held.

The Vestry officials, elected or appointed, were unpaid – the constable was responsible for law and order, the overseers for the poor relief, the surveyor of the highways for the upkeep of the highways and bridges in the parish, and the churchwardens for the upkeep of the church and a varied range of duties from the baptism of foundlings to the extermination of vermin.  The funds for the churchwardens' duties were provided by the church rate, set by the Vestry.

Each township was responsible for the care of its poor and sick, who were given relief in money or kind from the parish rate, and the Vestry could engage the services of a medical man to attend their poor.  Hutton township had adopted the 1819 Sturges Bourne Act, which enabled it to elect a committee, the Select Vestry, to administer its poor relief.

Very few records from the early 19th century have survived, the most significant being the overseers' accounts for Rudby township between 1779 and 1830, and the churchwardens' accounts from 1787 onward.

Chapter 2. Linen Weaving & the Paper Mill

In 1831 the population of Hutton Rudby was at its 19th century peak of 1,027 and the township was dominated by linen weavers [1].

In the early part of the century there was a significant linen industry in the Cleveland area (though on a minor scale compared to Nidderdale and Knaresborough) and neighbouring villages such as Osmotherley and Brompton were also weaving communities.
   
Linen had long been used for many products from fine fabric to canvas, but it would soon face serious competition from light cottons, which would eventually force linen manufacturers to concentrate on the heavier cloths – in Hutton, this was to be sailcloth. 
   
From the harvesting of the flax to the woven linen cloth lay many stages of production and a great deal of time, and this long interval between the initial investment and the finished product created a natural division between the flax preparation and spinning, and the weaving and finishing.

Chapter 1. Hutton Rudby: a North Riding Township

Revd R J Barlow c1804-78

Very early in January 1831, a young Irish clergyman named Robert Joseph Barlow arrived in the Yorkshire village of Hutton Rudby where he was to be vicar for the next 47 years, until his death in 1878.

He would be remembered above all for his devoted service to his parishioners in October 1832 – the time of the cholera.

Hutton Rudby was the largest township of the parish of Rudby-in-Cleveland.  His new home lay in the North Riding of Yorkshire, some six miles south of its northern boundary, the River Tees.

Had Mr Barlow cared to look up the North Riding in the recently published Clarke's New Yorkshire Gazetteer (1828), he might have found the description rather uninviting. 

The coast is described as "hilly, bleak and cold" and

the interior part of the moorlands is bleak, dreary, and destitute of wood, where the traveller sees nothing but a few small sheep.  

The writer conceded that "the climate admits of some variety", but generally, he declared, "it may be called severe", with the moorlands "enveloped in fogs and chilled with rain".