Saturday, January 17, 1835

1835

January

Saturday 17

8 1/4

11 40/..

No kiss.
Fine morning.  Ground covered with snow, but not deep – F 39° in my study at 9 1/4 a.m.

Breakfast at 9 1/4 to 10 1/4 – at which hour Holt came, and also Mr. Washington, to whom I just spoke in passing and went out with Holt up the fields to Walker Pit, where had just set out the gin-race –

The gin would be enough – No engine would be required – And coals could be pulled at this pit for 50 years to come – About 2 acres already loosed – While this coal was getting, the water wheel could be set up near Tilleyholme Stile (would not cost £500) and the 2 drifts might be driven from there to the pit – Would be above 800 yards long – But the coal got in them would pay for driving –

There would only be rails to pay for – That, said I, would be easily calculated – Suppose 1 ton to do 60 yards and rails to be had for £8 per ton – Suppose 2,000 yards of drift = 4000 yards of railing that is 4000/60 = 400/6 = 66 4/6 tons of railing, say at £10 per ton (for iron may rise in value) = £666.13.4 –

Walked with Holt down Bairstow to the north bridge and then he turned up homewards and I went to Mr. Parker’s office – Holt told me, he thought Wilson would not be incommoded by the great throw I spoke of (mentioned by William Keighley yesterday morning) –

Joseph Wilkinson had at Stocks’s and got so drunk he lost his road surveyor memorandum book which his brother, Surveyor, had luckily bought for 1/. – Joseph Wilkinson was to bid for the Stump Cross Inn for Stocks, if Stocks was not there – but he , Stocks, went to the letting in his carriage – Holt thought there was something brewing between his uncle Samuel Holdworth and old Wilkinson about coal –

About 1/2 hour at Mr. Parker’s office – Said I had almost determined to take Mawson for the Stump Cross tenant, if a blue man – for Walton being Mr. Hird’s head man would be a yellow – Mr. Parker thought not – Walton would be blue and a good tenant – So would Mawson – Desired Mr. Parker to make inquiries about the 2 – But he saw I inclined to Mawson

Mr. Sutcliffe wished to see me about Northgate – to come here on Monday morning –

Ann’s administration money not yet received – Mr. Parker waiting for a release from Mrs. Clarke –

Long talk about Mr. (Christopher) Rawson – Mr. P- agreed that the bank was talked of underhand – I mentioned in confidence the business of Sammy Hall’s coal and said Mr. R- was not apparently going on like a man of great stability –

I said Ann wished to have the money as soon as she could and left Mr. P- to do what he thought best –

He asked what I thought [of] George Robinson – I could say nothing favorable – Messers Parker and Adams wanting money of him – 

Thought it might be well to look after the field adjoining Ann’s land above the Hipperholme Lane Ends quarry –

Returned up the new bank (having gone to Whitley’s, and got 2 poll books, one published by Whitley the other by the Whig publisher, before going to Mr. Parker’s – and having seen Greenwood in the street, and told him to come up about the Walker Pit road) – returned up the new bank and home at 12 50/.. –

An hour with Ann, then got her out and in 50 minutes we walked to Hipperholme Lane Ends and back – Very fine sunny winter’s day – She much the better for her walk –

Then with John in the walk, cutting off and putting litter round snow broken evergreens – and with Pickles looking about the drains there with Charles Howarth –

Said he had heard my uncle say the Mytholm Engine cost above £2000 – He said there was a brass working piece that had cost £300 – When the mill was last done up (enlarged) for George Robinson, they had tried to get this up, but could not – Got hold of it, but it was so fast in the wood (which was not yet rotten) that they could not get it (the brass working piece up) – But they had got up the brass steps it worked upon? did he say, and they had got out many a stone of brass – I said I had never heard a word of this – Begged him to quietly get me more particular information so that it could be vouched for necessarily and I would not forget it – George Robinson had no business to meddle with the engine pit, though old wheel was taken away, that gave him no right or reason to meddle with the pit –

Ann had Washington some time this morning and gave him a good jobation on her own account – 

He left the rental for me, saying he had not got Mr. Carr’s rent, as he wished to know what he (Washington) was to do; for the manure of the 1/2 Day’s Work of ground which Mr. Carr had manured before the railing was set, and which, by an alteration the settling out was taken to the ground reserved for the house – was valued by him (Washington) at 50/. and Mr. Carr wanted £7 for it!!! – Told John to speak to his brother (Mr. Carr’s manservant) about it – There must be some mistake -- £14 per Day’s Work for such litter-manure as Carr’s was impossible –

Came in at 5 – Sat looking over the Halifax poll books – Dinner at 6 – Coffee – And went to my father and Marian at 7 for 3/4 hour –

Sat talking to Ann, then till 9 3/4, wrote this journal of today while Ann wrote to her sister – 20 minutes with my aunt till 10 10/.. –

Very fine day – Very slippery walking, but not dirty –

Note tonight from the Literary and Philosophical Society to announce the next monthly meeting for Monday the 19th instante mense at 7 p.m.

Till 11, read from page 98 to 125, Phillips’s Geology while Ann was writing –

F 37 1/2° at 10 10/.. p.m.

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/17/0147