Monday, December 1, 1834

1834

December

Monday 1

8

11 3/4

No kiss; her cousin came yesterday.

Damp and wet and windy and Fahrenheit 46° at 8 1/4 a.m.

Breakfast at 9 1/4 –

Mr. Parker came at 10 for about and hour, Ann having sent for him –

She read him her sister’s letter and he wisely said little, but his countenance betrayed his annoyance – Said he had met Mrs. Christopher Rawson, whose manner to him was so markedly rude, he fancied immediately there had been some letter from Captain Sutherland – Explained that the money could not be paid without a release being given to Mrs. Clarke – Annoyed at the idea of being supposed to charge a percentage on receiving the money for Ann and her sister – Said he did not know how he was to get it –

Messers Alexander sent him the draft of the release on Saturday – Ann to have it to look over this afternoon – and Mr. Parker to send it for the Sutherlands’ perusal tomorrow – Ann gave him William Keighley’s estimate of damages to Heblett’s fences at Holcans, 16/. and charge for estimate 3/. – The hunt to pay these sums, and promise to come no more on the Walker estates.

The business about selling the Godley road slopes done with Messers Stocks and Hodgson.  The advocates did not attend the meeting so a strong order was entered in the book to keep the slopes and ground as at present for the benefit of the road – and there is therefore, I hope, no fear of a beer shop in front of the Stump Cross Inn, or of other pother –

Busy with Charles Howarth moving new knee-hole dressing table painted light oak etc. etc. into tentroom – Putting boxes of papers etc. back into the hall chamber etc. etc. –

Had Holt from 2 25/.. to 4 3/4 –

Came to say, no seared wood to be had for gin-wheel – The pit-sinkers did not want to have to stop and wait for want of it, and nothing to be done but get an iron one from Low moor – he (Holt) thought there was little to choose between an iron and a wood one – vide his rather different opinion some time back, but made no allusion to this and told him to do his best for an iron wheel – To go about it tomorrow –

Brought me Greenwood’s note for wood, which would all be wanted for other parts of the gin and frame-work, and had been used for roofing the shed –

Long talk about Mr. Samuel Hall’s coal – Holt had seen him and Sutcliffe, the attorney, the intended of Miss Hall the daughter – Sutcliffe said it could be managed to sell the coal, but would be some expense – The father said he would pay nothing and here the conversation ended – but they know it is for me Holt speaks, and a chance is promised to Holt for me – He says £2000 down would be too much for me to give  (60 DW whole coal both beds = 120 DW daywork of coal).  The interest of money paid down soon eats away all the benefit – but £2000 paid by instalments of £100 per annum would do – (Mr. Rawson was to have paid £2000 one hundred on signing the deeds and the rest by instalments of £50 per annum) – I would make a better offer than this –? £500 down and the rest by instalments of £150 per annum ? Holt says I must loose this coal (Hall’s) by an engine at Dumb mill –

Long talk about Mr. Rawson’s colliery – I thought this (if Holt can buy Mr. Walker Priestley’s coal and I Hall’s) would eventually fall to me, and Stocks would get Wilson’s loose and thus Stocks’s and mine would be the 2 great collieries in the neighbourhood, to which Holt seemed to agree –  Sutcliffe had always egged Wilson on, and told him he would make a thousand a year when he got his coal to sale; but Sutcliffe had said that he knew Wilson was only working for him (Sutcliffe).  Sutcliffe has 100 DW whole coal – (⸫ both beds = 200 DW), every bit of which and right away beyond Northowram hall may be loosed by Wilson’s Quarry house engine, and if he (Holt) was in Sutcliffe’s place, he would give Wilson £6000 for his engine, and loose – But it would not be worth my while to give this  – Wilson had once said that when he had got down to the coal perhaps he might let it – but on Holt’s asking if he meant to keep up and work the engine himself or to leave this to the tenant, he said he had not thought of that, which Holt told him would make a material difference – Holt grieved him sadly by telling him that if he had all to keep up and to pay interest on all that was laid out, he would not take his coal for nothing and be obliged to work it –

When Wilson wanted to pass through Norris’s ground, Norris asked him a £1000 for the privilege and said it was cheap – but our narrow beds of coal would not pay such great expense – Wilson has sold all his property in Halifax , and Christopher Ward says quarry house is mortgaged for more than it is worth – Stocks lets Wilson have money – but Wilson will not sell privately – He will make the most he can – He is going on a bad plan now – The works will soon burst up close around his pit; and there will be heavy expense in pheying out and arching over –

Wilson selling (upper bed) at 6 pence per load and had got the custom of some ready money Sowerby carts –Rawson hearing of this has lowered his upper bed this morning from 9 pence to 7 pence – a very unhandsome proceeding to the trade in general, but Wilson should not have begun at 6 pence – I made no remark on the latter – It did not occur to me that if Wilson did not sell at 6 pence, who would buy, for there is an additional turnpike – The people told Holt he would be obliged to lower from 7 pence to 6 pence, but he declared he would not – Rawson’s coal 1st in the market (being brought out in the town) and worth a penny a load more than anybody else’s – He is lighting his new galloway-gates with gas – His new engine and all etc. said to cost about or near £5000 – Coal here will not pay for all this –

Said I had had Hinscliffe, who would take in hand for me the business about Spiggs loose – Said I told him what a friend he was of Rawson’s but I had sent for him in spite of that – Hinscliffe smiled – Said I knew well enough Rawson had pleased (i.e. douceured) Hinscliffe pretty well in the pit-filling-up business at Brierley hill, and that I believed Rawson would employ him to buy the coal here if it was to be sold – I knew well enough how underhand he would go about  it – on which Hinscliffe said ‘Why, he told me (I suppose he alluded to Mr. Jeremiah Rawson) if I would buy the coal for him he would make me a handsome present !!! Hinscliffe did not tell me this before –

Hinscliffe had seen 1 of Rawson’s colliers, who asked how the pit (Walker pit) went on, and said he would give us some sowk (suck; i.e., water) when we had got to the bottom – Oh! I said, Hinscliffe that will do very well – We don’t care how much – we want water in Shibden – so it seems they will throw all the water upon us they can – But it will not signify; for, as Hinscliffe says, water will run downhill; and we can get rid of it – He says, we can get 1 or 2 acres of coal when the pit is down without more ado, – enough to pay the expense of sinking, which he advises for a road down to new bank will cost very little –

He denied having told William Keighley that I had said anything about taking £5 per acre for the loose – but when he mentioned £5 per acre to me, he meant that sum paid down, and not as a rent per annum, and did not seem to think £10 a year per acre too much but on further talk and elicitation of particulars on the subject, I said a loose was  sometimes worth 1/2 as much as the coal (he agreed it was so in some cases) and I did not see why I should make a present to Mr. Dean – I did not wish to be hard upon William Keighley and company, but what they paid me for the loose should be deducted from the price paid to Mr. Dean –

Holt had valued the coal at £50 each bed, this is £100 per acre that my insinuation would be that I valued the loose at £25 per acre, but not pressing this, I said I thought it out to be worth twice what I had said before i.e. £10 X 2 = £20, and he did not seem to object – Illingworth valued the soft or lower bed at 80 guineas and the upper or hard at 70 guineas, which I agreed with Holt was too much – 80 guineas + 70 guineas = £157.10.0 that I think I may well enough ask £25 per acre for loose of both beds –

Holt says this loose will loose a great deal of coal – told Holt he had best tell William K- Keighley to agree with me for the loose 1st and then see what they could afford to give Mr. Dean for his coal – They would only buy at present, he (Holt) thought, 3 fields or about 10 acres.

Holt is to have his answer about Mr. Walker Priestley’s coal in a week – Before speaking to him, had 1st asked Mr. Waddington what he would take for his loose, and he agreed to take what Holt offered him i.e. £50, for, though this loose looses the 15 acres good of Mr. Walker Priestley’s coal, yet the loosing Walker Priestley’s coal also looses 15 acres of Waddington’s coal – ⸫  £3.6.8 per acre value of loose to Walker Priestley’s coal + £3.6.8 value of the 15 acres thus loosed for Waddington = £6.13.4 per acre which Holt pays down –

Now this loose is purchased under the circumstances of knowing that Walker Priestley will sell his coal dear and that the pit to be sunk to get it will be nine scores yards (180 yards) deep, that is, the deepest pit in this neighbourhood – (vide bottom of page 215 Hinscliffe pays £20 per acre for loose) – Holt agreed with me, as he has done before , that the coal he bought of Mr. John Rawson at Binns bottom at £90 per acre is dearer than the 10 acres I had agreed to sell, Mr. Rawson situation and all things considered – for though his upper bed is 27 inches thick and mine only 20, he would rather have the latter thickness than the former – More coal can be got out of hard bed 20 than 27 inches – Of the 20 inch bed can get up posts and leave nothing – Obliged to leave about 1/3 of the 27 inch bed – Afraid of crushing in – Puts 2 colliers into one cut (thurl?) of 5 yards long and 2 yards broad and obliged to leave 1 yard thick between each cut –

Holt valued 1/2 acre coal (both beds at 50 guineas each per bed per acre) in Northowram for Miss Wadsworth at 50 guineas – but Stocks wanted it to plague somebody, so bid it up to 100 guineas – but Miss Wadsworth told him she would have nothing to do with him and Peter Bland and company, having bid £100, they were to have it, but Holt thinks they will try to be off or get an abatement – This is the 1/2 acre Mr. Parker alluded to some time ago, which is in the gift from Miss Wadsworth to the charity alms houses and for which Mr. Parker is one of the trustees –

Dinner at 6 – Coffee – Ann and I 1/2 hour with my father and Marian, then I returned to them to pay Marian for the last month and she kept me talking near one hour –

Did not like to deceive her family. I at liberty to tell Ann, now one of the family, and my aunt.  It seems she has told my father and he knows that I know of it, but he neither gave any opinion or made any remark himself, nor asked what I had said. She has made up her mind to marry Mr. Abbott.  

Can make out his having two thousand a year out of trade, but has made no inquiries.  Thinks it better to continue in trade and make more for fear of having too little for their children.  They will continue therefore in Halifax.  

She suspects that the Haigs suspect it, as one of them saw Mr. Abbott walking home with her some while ago.  It was quite dusk, or he would not have done it, and everybody knew her well enough to know she would not allow that without there was something serious I merely said she knew [what] I should think and what I should do

I only made one request, that she would not marry from here and that she herself would send the news to the papers, Halifax, Leeds, and York, styling herself Marian, daughter of Jeremy Lister, Esquire, of Skelfler House in this county.  She said she had meant to do it in this way.  

I said there would be no impropriety in her marrying six months after my fathers death.  Calculated that she might not have more than one or two or three children, that she was old enough to judge for herself, that I only feared the mortification might be greater to herself than to me, that I advised and wished her not to put up a hatchment for my father, not to stay long here after his death, and not to announce to me her marriage.  It would be enough to see it in the papers. 

Whatever I did, I should do nothing from caprice or without a reason, that I sincerely wished her happy, that her best friend would probably be that person who mentioned me to her seldomest, and that as for Ann and myself her (Marian’s) name would never pass our lips to anyone.  

Marian was almost in tears.  I could have been, but would not.  Spoke calmly and kindly. Said I should probably not tell my aunt as she would be much hurt, and, as many things happened between the cup and the lip, perhaps the match might not take place.  One of the parties might die – 

Sat 1/2 hour with Ann – She wondered what was the matter – and was as much astonished as I was – She consoled and calmed me – 20 minutes with my aunt till 10 – then talking to Ann till came upstairs at 11 – How strangely things turn out! But I shall get over it –

Damp, rainy, windy day – Rainy, stormy, boisterous night at 11 40/.. p.m., at which hour Fahrenheit 46° in my study

 

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/17/0116 and SH:7/ML/E/17/0117