CHAPTER XXVIII

Halifax and its Surroundings

HALIFAX: ITS NAME AND SITUATION-EARLY RECORDS OF THE TOWNHALIFAX IN MEDIEVAL TIMES-THE GIBBET LAW OF HALIFAX-DEFOE'S VISIT TO HALIFAX-HALIFAX DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURYTHE INCREASE OF MANUFACTURES-MODERN HALIFAX-THE PARISH CHURCH-ENVIRONS OF HALIFAX-MIDGLEY MOORS-HEBDEN BRIDGE -HEPTONSTALL-THE MOORS AND THE LANCASHIRE BORDER-HARD

CASTLE CRAGS-TODMORDEN.

I

ALIFAX, like its sister towns of Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield, is a striking example of the fashion in which the improvements and inventions of the nineteenth century have transformed small and comparatively insignificant places into great and important centres of population. A hundred years ago it was a town of limited dimensions, having a population of about 8000 persons, who lived in narrow and irregular streets clustering about the ancient church -to-day it is a busy and crowded place, with a population of close upon 100,000 inhabitants, who are surrounded by every convenience and luxury in the way of transit which modern ingenuity can devise. Travellers who approached the town a century ago and went about it and its environs during their stay in it, had doubtless good reason to complain of the difficulty of getting about, for there are few towns in England which can boast, or deplore, such steep streets and winding ways as there are in Halifax. But where the coaches used to toil into the town from south and west, or descend carefully from the north and east, the electric cars now run as smoothly and rapidly as if they were traversing level ground instead of rolling over gradients stiff enough to dismay the heart of the stoutest pedestrian. Daniel Defoe, if he came shivering over Blackstone Edge and so by the valley of the Ribourne to Halifax, would not recognise the town which he visited a hundred and sixty years ago. Modern Halifax is a revivified place-a town of new buildings, new houses and mansions, new

streets; it is only here and there that one comes across bits of the ancient Halifax, which must indeed have been one of the quaintest and most curious towns of the north.

Around the origin of the name of Halifax the learned in such matters have held many disputations. When Camden came to the town seeking materials for his Brittania, somebody told him that the original name of the place was Horton, and that Halifax was a new name, springing from two Anglian words, "Halig" (holy) and "Fax" (hair). He was further informed that the name of the town was changed from Horton to Halifax for the following reason:-There was at one time in the parish a young woman who was charming enough to attract a certain monk, who so far forgot his vows as to make advances to her. She very properly rejecting them, the monk wreaked his vengeance upon her by cutting off her head. What became of the monk seems not to have been particularised by the medieval narrators of this remarkable history, but the maiden's head was hung up in a yew tree, and ere long was regarded as having the power to work miracles. The common people, who had plenty of time in those days to cultivate their innate love of superstition, very soon got into the habit of making pilgrimages to the Halig-Fax, and so the place where it hung was no longer called Horton but Halifax. All of which entertaining history is utterly erroneous, and gives one the impression that some Halifax man of Elizabeth's day took Camden to be a credulous setter-down of old wives' tales. Halifax was called Halifax in various documents of the Norman period, and instead of being a comparatively modern place, as Camden says it was in his day, it was then one of the oldest towns in the West Riding. There is nothing whatever to show that it was ever called Horton. Some authorities trace a connection between the name of the town and the face of St. John Baptist, which, or a portion of which, used to be preserved as a relic in the parish church, and there is some colour in this, for the church is and always has been dedicated to that saint, who is said to have wandered to this corner of England and preached here under a thorn tree. But the name of the town has in all probability sprung from its situation. It was the town on the Hale-veg, road in the hollow-and any one who takes a comprehensive view of the situation of Halifax will see that here is a reasonable derivation. Halifax in its ancient state lay entirely in a hollow, with great hills rising up on almost every side in its modern state part of it is still in the hollow, and part, or parts, on the rising ground beyond. It is not a picturesque situation, but it is a singularly striking and impressive one, and a general view of the town from the summit of Beacon Hill, an eminence rising to the height of several hundreds of feet above the valley in which the older part of Halifax stands, creates a picture which will not soon be forgotten by whoever sees it.

Of the early history of Halifax there are few records, and those which exist are very fragmentary. There is no mention of the town in Domes

day Book, but there are entries there concerning several townships of the parish. There seems no doubt that when the Survey was made Halifax was part of the manor of Wakefield, which stretched from Normanton to Lancashire, and included within its boundaries no less than 118 towns and villages. This manor belonged to the Crown, and had been the "king's land" in the time of Edward the Confessor. It was given by William the Conqueror to his son-in-law, William, Earl of Warren and Surrey, whose successors held it until 1347. During the troublous times of the next two centuries the manor of Halifax was chiefly in possession of the Dukes of York. During the reign of Henry VIII. it became the property of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and afterwards of Anne of Cleves, from whose hands it passed into the keeping of a local family, the Waterhouses, who held it for some time ere it came into the possession of Sir Arthur Ingram in the days of Charles I. Of its history under the Earls of Warren there are very few particulars to be had, and these are chiefly obtainable from the muniments of the Priory of Lewes, to which religious foundation one of the Earls presented the church and living of Halifax about the beginning of the twelfth century. From these documents it would appear that the clothing trade was then in operation in the town. When Pope Nicholas's Valuation was made, during the reign of Edward I., the yearly value of the parish church of Halifax was £93, 6s. 8d., and of the vicarage £16,

HALIFAX IN MEDIEVAL TIMES

53

and this proves that there must have been a considerable population in the place. A very curious document, quoted by Watson in his history of the town, and purporting to be written by John Waterhouse of Shibden in the year 1556, gives some interesting particulars of the population in his day. He says that there were then in Halifax twenty and six score (520) householders, whereas less than a century before there had only been thirteen. Reckoning five persons to each house this would show an increase of population during one hundred years of over 2500 persons. This was probably due to the extension of the staple trade of the town, which is known to have made great strides during the sixteenth century. One local historian, Wright, says that the woollen trade was brought to Halifax from Ripon, the latter town not having such advantages as the former possessed in ready access to coal and water, while another tradition says that it was introduced into the town from Devonshire. Around all these matters hang very considerable mists of obscurity which also shroud much that one would like to know of the medieval history of Halifax. Upon one matter, however, the chroniclers have not failed to enlighten posterity. In the fourteenth century-probably about 1347-there came into existence in Halifax a form of criminal jurisdiction known afterwards as the Gibbet Law, which had so many features of a curious nature about it, that local historians and topographers took care to write down as much concerning it as they omitted to state of equally pertinent matters. Of the history of the Gibbet Law a considerable volume might be written the following summary, however, will serve to show how severe was the jurisdiction under which folk lived in Halifax in those days:

The district immediately surrounding the town of Halifax was known during mediæval times as the forest of Hardwick, which constituted a Liberty of its own, and was bounded on the west by the Lancashire border, on the north by the parish of Bradford, on the east by the Hebble, and on the south by the Calder. Within these bounds there were eighteen towns and villages, Halifax, Ovenden, Illingworth, Mixenden, Bradshaw, Skircoat, Warley, Sowerby, Rishworth, Luddenden, Midgley, Errinden, Heptonstall, Rawtenstall, Stanfield, Crosstone, Langfield, and Wadsworth. All these places were more or less concerned in the manufacture of cloth, but particularly Halifax, and when the increase of trade began the merchants found that they suffered severely from the depredations of thieves, who pounced upon the cloth exposed upon the tenters, and escaped to the wilder parts of the Forest. These depredations becoming more and more serious, power was given to erect a court at Halifax for the summary trial and execution of all offenders apprehended. The court consisted of the bailiff of Halifax, four jurymen of the same town, and four jurymen from the townships in which the offence under question was committed. The law on the point was clear and concise, simply providing, That if a felon be taken within the liberty of the Forest of Hardwick, with goods stolen out or within

the said precincts, either hand-habend, back-berand, or confessioned (having goods in hand or confessing to their theft) to the value of thirteen pence halfpenny, he shall after three market-days, or meeting-days, within the town of Halifax, next after such his apprehension and being condemned, be taken to the gibbet, and there have his head cut from his body. At first confined to the crime of stealing cloth from the tenters (hooks on which it was stretched for exposure), this drastic measure was afterwards enlarged to the inclusion of all manner of thefts, and that it was very freely used for some three centuries is evident from the entries in the registers. The methods of putting it in force seem all the more savage, because of their deliberate formalities. "Immediately after the Apprehension," says a writer who published a quaint account of the Gibbet Law of Halifax, "the Felon is brought to the Lord's Bailiff in Halifax, who by Virtue of the Authority granted unto him by the Lord of the Manor, of Wakefield, under the particular Seal appertaining to that Manor, keeps a common Jail in the said Town, and therein detains the Prisoner till his Tryal. In order whereunto the Bailiff at the Complaint of the Prosecutor issues out his Summons to the Constables of four several Towns, within the said Precincts, to require four Freeholders of each Town, as members of the said Forest, to appear before him at a certain Day, that then and there they may make a Jury to examine such matters of Fact, as shall be alledg'd and brought before them. At the Time of their Appearance, both the Felon and Prosecutors are plac'd before them Face to Face; and if the thing stol'n be Beast or Horse, or any thing of that kind, 'tis produc'd to view; but if it be a thing Portable, it is laid before them in the Room where they are assembled: And if upon examination they find, that the Felon is not only guilty of stealing the Goods then laid or being within their view, but that the said Goods are of the Value of thirteen Pence half-peny, or more, then is the Felon adjudg'd by the said Jury to be beheaded, according to ancient Custom. But if upon Examination the Criminal is not found guilty of the Felony, or if he be, and the things stol'n amount not to the Value of thirteen Pence half-peny, he is acquitted and set at Liberty, paying his Fees. . . . After the Felon had been found guilty and declar'd so by the Jury, he was not put to Death instantly, but confin'd in Prison for about a week; not only that he may have Time to prepare for his latter End, but also to expose him openly to the World: For there being one general Market Day in the Week, and two other Days of more than common Stirrings the Felon was on every one of these Days set in the public Stocks, with the Goods he had stol'n on his Back, if he could carry them, but if not they were plac'd before his Eyes, that all Passengers might see them. And this was done in Terror to others, that they might take warning by his wicked Deeds, never to commit the like. After he had been thus handled for about a Week, he was brought by the Lord's Bailiff to the Place of Execution, the Scaffold now standing at this Day. There was a peculiar Engine formed for the Purpose,