The Scotforth Pottery is believed to have been established in the 1840s and for some years it was run by the Bateson family from Burton-in-Lonsdale19. The house had clearly been built as a farm house with associated outbuildings and a curved kiln building had been added on the end nearest the road at a later date. The buildings were behind a large stone wall, which kept the stream at bay in times of flooding. Although the name ‘The Pottery’ stuck, the place was really just another dairy farm.
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19 It seems that period when these premises were used as a pottery was really quite short. There was no potter here in 1841, and in 1851 the Bateson family had only recently arrived to run a pottery business here. The census shows that William (43), from Burton-in-Lonsdale, was an earthenware manufacturer and employer of 6 men; his wife Jane (38) was a local woman, but all their 8 children, aged between 2 and 16, had been born at Burton-in-Lonsdale; the three eldest, all boys, working in the business – John (16) as a pot thrower. By 1861, however, William and Jane Bateson were back in Burton with their youngest child Margaret (12), and the Potteries was occupied by Robert Rumney (52) a railway labourer, from Burton-in-Lonsdale. Nor was there a potter here in 1871, when the current occupant was John Townley (72), an ag lab from Wyresdale, with his wife Margaret (40), from Caton, and three children, one a step-child. The 1881 census reveals that the Potteries was then occupied by a widower, Joseph Derbyshire, from Darwen, near Blackburn, and seven children ranging in age from 5 to 20. Joseph was described as ‘farmer of 86 acres’, so clearly the Potteries had quite a lot of land with it. The birth places for the children suggest that this family may have lived at this farm from about 1865, but they had moved on before the next census in 1891.
I was given to understand that early in the last century the premises had been in the ownership of the Williamson family – perhaps this was before the establishment of the pottery. The truth of this matter I do not know. However, it was James Williamson20, supposedly from here, who in 1844 founded the linoleum factory down by St George’s Quay, and his company eventually became the largest employer in Lancaster, exporting products all over the world; his (third) son, also James (1842-1930)21, was elevated to the peerage after serving 9 years as Liberal MP for Lancaster 1886-95 and took the title of Lord Ashton after his country place of residence, Ashton Hall, which he had just acquired in 1884, for the shooting – now Lancaster Golf Club; Ryelands, in Skerton, continued to be his main place of residence.
Lord Ashton was a great benefactor to the City, providing at his own expense the present magnificent town hall in Dalton Square and the park with its memorial to his late second wife, who had died in 1904 (the so-called Taj Mahal of the North). In his later days from 1909 Lord Ashton began to feel that his generosity was not sufficiently appreciated by the local people, and he reacted sharply in 1910. He accused his political opponents of indulging in particularly ‘dirty’ electioneering tactics against him and his support for the Liberal candidate Norval Helme, and he gave notice that he would no longer take any interest in Lancaster and the neighbourhood. His favoured candidate managed to hold on to the seat on this occasion, but eventually in the November general election held after the 1914-18 war, as Sir Norval Helme22, he lost the seat to the Conservative candidate General Sir Archibald Hunter23. It was during this particular election campaign that I remember asking my uncle John Hodgson who he was going to vote for – he didn’t mind talking politics to me – but I got ticked off by my sister for being impertinent for being so forward as to ask adults such personal questions!
From about 1912 Lord Ashton began to look to other towns on which to bestow his largesse. According to my Auntie Polly, he was extremely unpopular amongst the people of Skerton, who made up most of his workforce, as he was a very hard taskmaster; in particular, they were very rude to his third wife (Florence Whalley, nee Daniel), who I thought was French, but was actually, it seems, from Yorkshire, and he consequently transferred his interest to St Anne’s, where a number of enterprises subsequently benefited from his philanthropy – including the Ashton Gardens and the war memorial there. It is hard to imagine that this high and mighty family had such humble origins in Hala Road, and yet it is said of this same Lord Ashton that in his youth, long before the granting of his title, he had wanted to marry one of Mr Quarme’s daughters, but that he (Mr Quarme) had not allowed such a marriage on the grounds that this young man was not good enough for any daughter of his. In the event none of the three surviving Quarme girls married, so that his line came to an end, whereas James Williamson’s elder daughter Eleanor married into the family of Sir Robert Peel to become Countess Peel, and her son then inherited the Peel earldom. After her husband’s death in 1930 Lady Ashton24 devoted herself to voluntary charitable work in Lancaster and district and thereby she gained great popularity in the area, such that there was genuine regret at her passing in July 1944.
At the turn of the century, the pottery was occupied by James Sturzaker, a dairyman, who kept his horse and some pigs on the grass in front of the house; the directory describes him as ‘milk dealer’, for he bought in some of the milk he sold – though not from our farm – and distributed it to his customers in the neighbourhood, mainly in the town, I think. Joe, the eldest son, had a greenhouse in which he used to grow geraniums. The house always seemed to me to be something of a ramshackle affair – maybe I thought it was a bit of a mess because there were no carpets on the floor, but it contained an organ in the little front room, which my friend Rosie Sturzaker and her mother encouraged me to play; I loved playing on that organ, and none of the family seemed to mind.
In all there were eight25 Sturzaker children; the three eldest boys, Joe, James and Walter, all went off to the 1914-18 War and, miraculously, they all returned safely. Joe married Martha Sandham, and worked as a market gardener for Anthony Hargreaves & Co of Sunnyside26. For some reason James was always known as Neb; he used to work on the trams and later the buses. After these three boys came three girls: Lily, Maggie, and Rosie; then two more boys: Dick and Tommy. It was Rosie and Dick that my sister and I used to play with mainly – probably because they were more about our age – but Maggie was with us sometimes; she was a fine girl, and we used to look up to her. In the Spring we used to roam with them around the area, searching the hedgerows for birds’ nests and the first flowers. Mrs Sturzaker must have been very dedicated to children, for not only did this long-suffering woman raise her own large brood of children at Brookside27 but she also took in an extra child, Tim Longton28, and brought him up too as an adopted member of her own family; I don’t know exactly what the circumstances were, but I do remember that his natural mother, who he referred to as ‘Mamma Nellie’, used to come to visit him from time to time. In later years, when I returned to the area, I often wondered if the shepherd Tim Longton of ‘One Man and his Dog’29 was the same, but, of course, eventually I came to realise that he was no relation.
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20 James Williamson, the founder of the Lancaster linoleum business, was born at Keswick in 1813, the son of John Williamson and Hannah Ladyman; he was baptised at St Kentigern’s Church, Crosthwaite, Keswick, on 8 August 1813. Having arrived in Lancaster to take up an apprenticeship, he married Eleanor Miller at St Mary’s Church in 1837; in 1841 they were living in Parliament St with three infant children – James’ occupation stated as painter. In 1851 they were resident at No 113 Church St, now with four children, his occupation now stated as ‘painter and gilder’. During the following ten years he had become a table baize manufacturer, employing 70 men and 12 boys and living at No 1 Cable St; his three sons Thomas M, James M and Leonard were all working in the family business. James and Eleanor were still at this address in 1871; he was now a magistrate and alderman; his business James Williamson & Sons employing 800 people, producing cotton table cover and varnish.
21 James M Williamson (28), table baize manufacturer, son of the above, was living at No 12 Church St, Lancaster, in 1871, with his wife Margaret (28), from Keswick, and his elder brother Thomas (31), unmarried, similar occupation. By 1881 he had re-married and was now living at Ryelands, Skerton, an oil cloth & cotton manufacturer, with his second wife Jessie H (43), from Clapham, Yorks, and two daughters, for whom they employed a governess. As Baron Ashton (68) he was in residence at Ryelands at the time of the 1911 census.
22 By 1900 Norval Helme was the senior partner in the family business of James Helme & Company, of Halton Mill, manufacturers of oilcloth, baize and leathercloth; he was an alderman of Lancaster Town Council and member of Lancashire County Council since its inception. He won the parliamentary seat for the Liberals in 1900 and retained it until the post-war election of 1918; he was knighted in 1912.
23 General Sir Archibald Hunter (1856-1936) had a distinguished military career, serving in India, the Sudan, and South Africa; he was appointed Colonel of the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) in 1913, after a period as Governor of Gibraltar; he was too old for service in the field in the Great War, when he was posted to Aldershot. He only served as MP for one parliament, retiring at the time of the 1922 election.
24 The 1939 register finds Lady Ashton as a widow, aged 82, living on her own means, at Heaves, near Sizergh, with a number of her Daniel family
25 In fact there were 9 children. Eve appears to have missed John Robert, who was 21 in 1911 and a market gardener, so presumably then working for Anthony Hargreaves like his elder brother Joe, or perhaps in Matthew Hall’s business in Hala Road. In WW1 he served as a private in the local King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), but was killed on 24 August 1918, aged 29, and is buried at Houchin cemetery, near Bethune, Pas de Calais. He appears to have married May B Pilkington in the Ulverston district in 1916 and then to have set up home at No 5 Newsham Place, Bowerham.
26 The 1911 census shows Anthony Hargreaves (19) as the son of Benjamin & Frances Hargreaves of Pinfold Lane, Skerton; he was currently employed as a market gardener, whereas his father was a photographic printer.
27 Presumably the Pottery is intended: the house known as Brookside is further up Hala Road, now a children’s day nursery.
28 The 1939 register shows Timothy G Longton, a market gardener, born October 1911, living with the Sturzakers at Potteries Cottage; he appears to have been born to an unmarried mother in the Chorley district. He seems to have died in the Lancaster area, aged 47, towards the end of 1958.
29 Tim Longton the shepherd was born in 1919 at Field Head farm, Caton. The 1939 register finds him working for Thomas Yates at Little Catshaw farm. In 1956 he succeeded to his father’s tenancy of Rowton Brook, Quernmore (730 acres) – 1,100 sheep and 160 cattle – and was a regular contestant in the BBC programme ‘One Man and his Dog’ with Phil Drabble and Eric Halsall from 1976 onwards. He was English Champion five times and Supreme Champion in 1986; he died aged 82 in 2002.
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