Chapter IX · THE BYROMS—KERSALL CELL—JOHN BYROM—THE LAUREATE OF THE JACOBITES—THE FATAL ’45. (continued 2)

In violation of the “Woollen Act,” a statute made famous by the allusions of Pope and Dryden, he was buried “in a shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud not made of sheep’s wool,” and, consequently, a direction was issued by “John Gore Booth, Esquire, one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace,” to the constables of Manchester to levy the sum of £6 by distress and sale of his goods and chattels.

Mrs. Byrom survived him several years, and died on the 21st December, 1778, at the age of 78; of his children three died in infancy, and three survived him—two daughters and a son. Elizabeth—Beppy, as she was familiarly called—the first-born, and the gossiping chronicler of the fatal ’45, died in 1801, her sister Dorothy having died three years previously, both unmarried. Edward Byrom, the eldest and only surviving son, succeeded as heir. Of this worthy son of a worthy sire we need say little; his biography has been undertaken by an able writer, and with such a congenial theme as the projected “Memorials of St. John’s” we may rest assured that the accomplished editor of the “Old Church Clock” will do ample justice to his memory. He was born on the 13th June, 1724, and baptised at the old church on the 24th of the same month. On the death of his uncle, Edward Byrom, in 1740, he became devisee in fee of his estates, and in the spring of 1750 he added to his worldly wealth the fortune he acquired by his marriage with Miss Halsted, already referred to, a marriage that, in accordance with the fashion of the times, is thus chronicled in the Chester Courant of the 6th March in that year:—

A few days ago, Mr. Edward Byrom, son of Dr. Byrom, was married to Miss Halsted of Limm, co. Cest., a lady of great merit and a handsome fortune.

He took up his abode in the large detached house in Quay Street, now occupied by Dr. Blackmore, and which continued to be the residence of his grand-daughter, Miss Atherton, up to the time of her death, in 1870. Mr. Grindon, in his pleasant volume, “Manchester Banks and Bankers,” says: “There is a legend that he removed thither on account of the delicate health of his little Nelly, the atmosphere of Quay Street being purer than that of the town,” and he adds, “the house was obviously intended to be the first of a row. Mr. Byrom preferred that it should stand alone, arranging also for the preservation in perpetuity of the meadow in front, which served as a playground for the children.” The house was Mr. Byrom’s own, and in all probability its erection was begun by his uncle, Edward Byrom, shortly before his death, for in the “Shorthand Journal” there occurs the entry:—

1741.—Thursday, August 11th or 12th. Dined at new house in Quay Street; ... We came from Macclesfield yesterday—Mrs. Byrom, Beppy, Dolly, David and I.

The neighbourhood was then unbuilt, and formed a pleasant suburb of Manchester, but with the increase of trade the tide of population spread in that direction; new streets were laid out, houses were built, and the locality became what might be called the “Court-end.” The house has survived the mighty changes that time has wrought; it stands alone, as it did in Byrom’s days; the remnant of the old garden and orchard are there, and the “meadow” in front still struggles to look green, but its sylvan beauties are only a memory of the past.

With the increase of the population came the necessity for a new church, and on the 28th April, 1768, Edward Byrom laid the foundation stone of St. John’s—so named in compliment to his father—which was consecrated on the 7th June in the following year. Little more than two years later he joined Messrs. Sedgwick, Allen, and Place, in establishing the first bank in Manchester, the doors of which were opened on the 2nd December, 1771, under the style of Byrom, Sedgwick, Allen, and Place. It occupied the site of Messrs. Hunt and Roskell’s shop in St. Ann’s Square, and the name is perpetuated in Bank Street, leading from it. Less than seventeen months after, Edward Byrom was laid to rest, his death occurring on the 24th April, 1773, at the early age of forty-nine. Under his will the Quay Street property passed to his daughter Ann, who became the wife of Henry Atherton, of the Middle Temple, the issue of the marriage being an only daughter, the estimable and much-honoured Miss Eleanor Atherton, the foundress of Holy Trinity Church, in Hulme, and the last representative in a direct line of the Byrom family, who died at the old home in Quay Street, on the 12th September, 1870, at the age of eighty-eight. In accordance with the provisions of her will, the greater portion of her property, including the Kersall estates, passed to her godson, Mr. Edward Fox, who, in accordance with her expressed desire, assumed the name and arms of Byrom—the arms John Byrom was so proud of, and of which he made such frequent mention in his Journal:—