Echoes of old Lancashire. Axon William Edward Armytage

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СКАЧАТЬ did you leave the ball so early?” On another occasion he is said to have noticed in Chester a ladder left accidentally against the wall of a house in one of whose bedrooms he noticed a light. Ascending, he saw a girl in her ball dress take off her jewels, and place them on the dressing-table. As soon as the maid withdrew and the young lady was in bed, Higgins opened the window, and, getting into the room, secured the valuable plunder. A slight noise partially awoke the sleeper, who said, “Oh, Mary, you know how tired I am; can’t you put the things straight in the morning?” and then fell asleep again. If she had awakened and seen him he would certainly have murdered her. Some suspicion that Higgins was not altogether the plain country squire he wished to be supposed may very well have been excited by his occasional absences. It is traditionally stated that his horse’s feet were cased in woollen stockings for his nocturnal expeditions. The murder of Mrs. Ruscombe, an old gentlewoman, at Bristol, caused some noise. The murderer was Higgins. Before the murder was known at Knutsford, in his anxiety to establish an alibi, he put in an appearance at an inn, and made an incautious allusion to it which piqued one of the company, a confirmed newsmonger, who prided himself on having the first intelligence of every event of interest. Suspicion was thus cast upon Higgins. He was arrested at his own residence, but managed to elude the constables, and vanished from the neighbourhood of Knutsford. He played the same rôle of country squire a few months later at French Hay, near Bristol. Thence he removed into Wales, “where he broke open Lady Maud’s house at West Mead.” For this he was tried at Carmarthen, and, notwithstanding that he managed to have a forged respite sent to the Sheriff, he was hanged at Carmarthen on Saturday, 7th November, 1767. He died, we are told, in a very sullen humour, but before he was “turned off” delivered to the officials a letter to the High Sheriff. From this document and the contemporary accounts it appears that the High Sheriff was acquainted with the birth and parentage of Edward Higgins, about which no details are given. His first exploit was that of eloping from the house of his mother with a neighbour’s wife. This was the beginning of “all kinds of wickedness.” He was tried at Worcester, 14th May, 1754, for housebreaking, and was sentenced to transportation. “The day before the transports were sent off from Worcester, his sister came to him early in the morning, and desired to speak with him in a private room; this was refused. She then requested that he might have permission to show her the dungeon; thither they went, and stayed some time in close conference. She had not left the gaol more than half an hour when a farmer who lived near Worcester came in to enquire whether his sister had not been there, ‘for,’ says he, ‘I have been robbed of £14, and I have reason to suspect her, and that she has given the money to her brother.’ The turnkey told him what had passed. Higgins was searched, but nothing was then found. He was brought down to Bristol, put on board the Frisby for Maryland, and delivered, with the other convicts, at Annapolis. The farmer who lost the £14 (as above) came with him from Worcester to Bristol, and when Higgins was stripped on board the transport the farmer’s money was found concealed in the lining of Higgins’ hat; but as it could not be taken from him, the farmer was obliged to be contented with the loss of it.”

      By breaking open a shop in Boston he obtained a considerable sum of money, and escaped by a ship sailing for England, to which he thus returned within three months of his transportation. He settled first in Manchester, and afterwards at Knutsford, where he married at the parish church, by special licence, Katherine Birtles, 21st April, 1757. In the licence he is styled yeoman, but in the entries of the baptism of his children he is called Edward Higgins, of Nether Knutsford, gentleman. His fifth child was baptised 11th June, 1764. His letter to the Sheriff concludes with these words: – “As I die an unworthy member of the Church of England, I do not desire your prayers, as you will not receive this till after my death; yet beg for God’s sake (as you are a gentleman of benevolence) you will have some compassion on my poor disconsolate widow and fatherless infants, and as undoubtedly you will often hear my widow upbraided with my past misconduct, I also beg you will vindicate her to all such as not being guilty or knowing of my villany.” His wife remained with him until the end. Higgins was dissected, and his skeleton formed part of the museum of Dr. Charles White, F.R.S., of Manchester. In his collection it was seen by De Quincey, who has left a characteristic account of the visit in his “Autobiographical Sketches.”

      In De Quincey’s famous essay on “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” the professor of homicide tells this grim story about Higgins. “At the time of his execution for highway robbery I was studying under Cruikshank; and the man’s figure was so uncommonly fine that no money or exertion was spared to get into possession of him with the least possible delay. By the connivance of the Under Sheriff he was cut down within the legal time, and instantly put into a chaise-and-four, so that when he reached Cruikshank’s, he was positively not dead. Mr. – , a young student at that time, had the honour of giving him the coup de grace and finishing the sentence of the law.”

      Mrs. Gaskell wrote a sketch – “The Squire’s Tale” – based on the career of Higgins, which appeared in Household Words, and is reprinted in her collected writings. When the Rev. Henry Green was preparing his history of Knutsford he carefully collected all the information that could be found respecting the gentleman highwayman. Edward Higgins deserves some remembrance not only for the strangeness of his career, but for his posthumous influence upon English literature.

      Some Lancashire Centenarians

      According to the census of 1891 there were 146 persons enumerated who were returned as being more than 100 years of age. Eleven of these were resident in Lancashire. It may be interesting to compare this with the statements in some of the preceding census reports. Arranged in tabular form, the following results are seen: —

      Centenarians returned at each successive census.

      In Lancashire, it will be noticed, there has been a marked tendency towards the diminution of reputed centenarians. The general consent of mankind seems to have fixed upon a hundred years as almost the outside limit for the duration of human life. The Hebrews and the Chinese are agreed in this. The Celestials have a quaint way of dividing a life into cycles. From birth to 10 years of age is the opening degree; at 20, youth expired; 30, strength and marriage; 40, officially apt; 50, error knowing; 60, cycle closing; 70, rare bird of age; 80, rusty visage; 90, delayed; 100, age’s extremity. Far more claims to great longevity are made than can be sustained by reasonable evidence, and it should not be forgotten that the burden of proof belongs to those who make these statements. The bulk of mankind do not exceed, and many of them never attain, the Psalmist’s term of three score years and ten, and it is only reasonable that those who claim for themselves or protégés an existence of five or six score should be required to produce adequate evidence in support of their allegations. Curiously enough until the second half of the present century statements of extreme old age appear to have been accepted without doubt or inquiry. In the census report of 1851 a sceptical note was struck, and since then the late Sir G. C. Lewis and Mr. W. J. Thoms – especially the latter – have done useful service by a persistent demand for evidence. Under investigation some cases have proved to be impostures, and others mistakes and self-deceptions.

      The historian of the county of Lancaster claims for Ormskirk parish the prevalence of an unusual degree of longevity. In the churchyard there are gravestones over four venerable parishioners, which record that the first of them died at the advanced age of 94, the second at the age of 102, the third at the age of 104, and the fourth at the age of 106 years. Many centenarians, real or supposed, have been connected with Lancashire, and it is more than probable that a rigid investigation at the time would greatly have reduced the number. They are here presented in chronological order, and have been derived from a variety of sources: —

      1668. – Dr. Martin Lister, writing to the Royal Society, says that John Sagar, of Burnley, died about the year 1668, “and was of the age (as is reported) of 112.”

      1700. – “Here resteth the bodie of James Cockerell, the elder, of Bolton, who departed this lyfe in the one hundredth and sixthe yeare of his age, and was interred here the seventh day СКАЧАТЬ