Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  It is generally believed to be the original of “ Cranford,” and there is something to be said both for and against this view. It is just as likely to be the “Duncombe” of “Mr. Harrison’s Confessions,” the “ Hollingford “ of “ Wives and Daughters,” the “ El- tham “ of “ Cousin Phillis,” the “ Hamley “ of “A Dark Night’s Work,” and the “ Barford ‘n of “ The Squire’s Story.” In any case we think it is pretty certain that her Knutsford experiences were woven into the fine texture of these and other works.

  1 There is a Barford near Warwick. Mrs. Gaskell would hear this name while at school at Byerley.

  The Rev. Henry Green, M.A., in his “ Knutsford: Its Traditions and History,” published in 1859, says: —

  “There is one work of hers, ‘ Cranford,’ which in my judgment, while depicting life in almost any country town, is especially descriptive of some of the past and present social characteristics of Knutsford. I know that the work was not intended to dilineate this place chiefly or specially, but a little incident within my own experience will show the accuracy of the pictures as applied to our town. A woman of advanced age, who was confined to her house through illness about three years ago, asked me to lend her an amusing or cheerful book. I lent her ‘ Cranford,’ without telling her to what it was supposed to relate. She read the tale of ‘ Life in a Country Town,’ and, when I called again, she was full of eagerness to say, ‘ Why, sir! that “ Cranford “ is all about Knutsford. My old mistress, Miss Harker, is mentioned in it; and our poor cow, she did go to the field in a large flannel waistcoat because she had burned herself in a limepit.’ For myself I must say that I consider ‘ Cranford’ to be full of good-natured humour and kindliness of spirit.”

  It would appear that there is here some show of reason for holding the belief that Knutsford is the original of “ Cranford.”

  Also the writer of a notice in the “ Record of Unitarian Worthies “ begins by quoting the words used by Mrs. Gaskell in her estimate of Charlotte Bronte as a novelist, viz.: “ She went to the extreme of reality, depicting characters as they had shown themselves in actual life.”

  “These words,” continues the writer, “are equally applicable to herself; for seldom have characters been more truly drawn, or scenes in common life more graphically described than by her pen.”

  There seems to be no doubt in this writer’s mind as to Knutsford being the original of “ Cranford.” “ In that quiet, old-fashioned little town, among the good, unsophisticated people to whom she introduces her readers in her story of ‘ Cranford,’ she spent her early life. Her relations attended the quaint Presbyterian chapel which stands in the suburbs; with that chapel, which she describes in ‘ Ruth,’ her earliest recollections must have been connected.”

  Again in “ Celebrities of the Century “ (1887) Mr. T. Hall Caine says: “It is easy to see from whence came the incidents that chiefly brighten her pages; they came out of her own life. And what she gives of personal experience is always the best she has to offer.”

  Regarding originals we will here quote what Edna Lyall says in her “Sketch of Mrs. Gaskell,” which we shall refer to later: —

  “How far the characters in the novels were studied from life is a question which naturally suggests itself; and Mrs. Holland (a daughter of Mrs. Gaskell) replies to it as follows: ‘ I do not think my mother ever consciously took her characters from special individuals, but we who knew often thought we recognised people, and would tell her, “ Oh, so and so is just like Mr. Blank,” or something of that kind; and she would say, “So it is, but I never meant it for him.” And really many of the characters are from originals, or rather are like originals, but they were not consciously meant to be like.’ “

  On the other hand, it is well to remind people like the Honourable Mrs. Tollemache, who said in an article entitled “ Cranford Souvenirs” in Temple Bar for August 1895: “But though I never met Mrs. Gaskell I have known the original of at least one of her characters, and heard my mother speak of others,” that Mrs. Gaskell was too great a writer to sit down and deliberately copy either people or places. But this has already been very nicely expressed by Mrs. Ritchie in the preface to the illustrated edition of 1891: “This power of living in the lives of others and calling others to share the emotion does not mean, as people sometimes imagine, that a writer copies textually from the world before her. I have heard my father say that no author worth anything deliberately and as a rule copies the subject before him. And so with Mrs. Gaskell. Her early impressions were vivid and dear to her, but her world, though coloured by remembrance and sympathy, was peopled by the fresh creations of her vivid imagination, not by stale copies of the people she had known.” Mrs. Gaskell never consciously drew from life and repeatedly said so. It is only natural, however, to expect that many of the early scenes, and events, and places, should have been indelibly impressed on her memory, and that they should afterwards have appeared, though dressed in a different garb, in her many stories. Whether this be so or not, it is interesting to be able to point to many strange coincidences. For instance, the ancient Brook Street Chapel (built 1689, in which Matthew Henry has many times preached), with its graveyard, is probably the model from which the description of Mr. Benson’s chapel in “ Ruth “ was drawn; or to put it in another way, the one which was present to her mind when she described Mr. Benson’s chapel. Indeed, there is no other chapel which so nearly answers to the description, though Dean Row and Macclesfield, built about the same time, are somewhat like it.

  “It was built when the Dissenters were afraid of attracting attention or observation, and hid their places of worship in obscure and out-of-the-way parts of the towns in which they were built. Accordingly it often happened, as in tha present case, that the buildings immediately surrounding, as well as the chapels themselves, looked as if they carried you back to a period a hundred and fifty years ago. The chapel had a picturesque and old-world look, for luckily the congregation had been too poor to rebuild it or new-face it in George the Third’s time. The staircases which led to the galleries were outside, at each end of the building, and the irregular roof and worn stone steps looked grey and stained by time and weather. The grassy hillocks, each with a little upright headstone, were shaded by a grand old wych-elm (in reality a sycamore).1 A lilac bush or two, a white rose tree, and a few laburnums, all old and gnarled enough, were planted round the chapel-yard; and the casement windows of the chapel were made of heavy-leaded, diamond-shaped panes, almost covered with ivy, producing a green gloom, not without its solemnity within. The interior of the building was plain and simple, as plain and simple could be. When it was fitted up oak

  1 This sycamore, which was one of the interesting features of the graveyard, being dead, was removed in August 1903.

  timber was much cheaper than it is now, so the wood-work was all of that description, but roughly hewed, for the early builders had not much wealth to spare.”

  Standing a little distance from the chapel is Brook House, which tradition says was the home of the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson; and if it be kept in mind that what is now a garden at the front of the house was in the old day an open space, it will be found to exactly correspond with the description given of it in “Cranford.” “That lady lived in a large house just outside the town. A road, which had known what it was to be a street, ran right before the house, which opened out upon it without any intervening garden or court. Whatever the sun was about, he never shone on the front of that house.” This is where that wonderful story about puss swallowing the lace was so inimitably told by Mrs. Forrester.

  In the parish church, built in 1744, Mrs. Gaskell was married in 1832, the Dissenters then being unable to marry in their own chapels. Church House, just outside the parish churchyard, was the home of Mr. Peter Holland,1 surgeon, the father of Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D., F.R.S. (1788 to 1873), and grandfather of the present Lord Knutsford. It is believed by many old inhabitants that the character of Mr. Gibson, in “Wives and Daughters,” was su
ggested to Mrs. Gaskell by her acquaintance with Mr. Peter Holland, whom she used to accompany on his rounds. We can only add that Miss Gaskell says: “ No two people could be more unlike than Dr. Gibson and Mr. Holland.” The old Cann Office on the Heath, where weights and scales at one time were tested, is now covered with ivy. Here lived Edward Higgins, the highwayman, information concerning whom may be found in the Rev. Henry Green’s book already referred to. (See also De Quincey’s ‘“Highwayman.”) The story of Higgins is reproduced in Mrs. Gaskell’s extremely well-written story, “ The Squire’s Tale.”

  Not far from this is the. house in which Mrs. Lumb lived, with whom Mrs. Gaskell spent her childhood and early youth. This is a tall red-brick house (facing the 1 Peter Holland, of Knutsford, surgeon, was born 3rd June, 1766, and died 19th January, 1855.

  heath), and it has been considerably- altered since that time. The old school, up to a very recent date used as a girls’ school, just outside the entrance gates of Cumnor Towers (now the residence of Earl Egerton of Tatton), may be that described in “ Wives and Daughters,” in which Miss Cynthia took so great an interest.

  “The countess and the ladies, her daughters, had set up a school, not a school after the manner of schools nowadays — where far better intellectual teaching is given to the boys and girls of labourers and workpeople than often falls to the lot of their betters in worldly estate — but a school of the kind we should call ‘ industrial,’ where girls are taught to sew beautifully, to be capital housemaids, and pretty fair cooks, and, above all, to dress neatly in a kind of charity uniform devised by the ladies of Cumnor Towers — white caps, white tippets, check aprons, blue gowns, and ready curtseys, and ‘ please ma’ams ‘ being de rigueur.”

  The Royal George Hotel, where the visitor is charmed by “ the shining oak staircase and panelled wainscot, the old oak settles and cupboards, Chippendale cabinets, and old bits of china,” and its County Assembly Room, mentioned in several novels, and the house at the top of the George Yard — a public thoroughfare leading from one street to the other — said to have been used by “Miss Matty” as the shop in which she sold her tea, and from the window of which (the said window now being built up) she threw “comfits” to the children — these are two of the oldest Cranford houses now recognisable.

  CRANFORD NOTES.

  1. “ The surgeon has his round of thirty miles and sleeps at Cranford.’’

  The surgeon of Knntsford in “ Cranford “ times was Mr. Peter Holland, whose daughters were Miss Lucy and Miss Mary Holland.

  Mr. Bernard Holland, in “Letters of Mary Sibylla Holland,” says that “Aunt Lucy” and “ Aunt Mary “ were sometimes alleged to have served Mrs. Gaskell as the models of Miss Matty and her sister.

  There were no doubt certain resemblances. Miss Lucy Holland certainly did wear a very large muff, which often used to contain more than her hands. On many occasions an old friend of ours remembers Miss Holland bringing potatoes, which were then very dear in price, as a gift which the poor appreciated, hidden away in her muff.

  2. Mrs. Gaskell refers to the ladies of Cranford being quite sufficient “for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for kindness (somewhat dictatoriali to the poor, etc.”

  At that time the Heath was quite open, the fences having been placed round and trees planted during recent years, and many of the old inhabitants kept geese which wandered about in flocks on the Common, the name by which the Heath is still generally known.

  3. The story of the Alderney cow and the limepit is quite true. Miss Harker lived at what is now Mr. Pass’s shop in Princess Street, where it is alleged Miss Matty kept her little tea shop, and the limepit was along the Northwich Road, and in front of what is now the Grammar School. There were a number of pits along that side of the Heath, one of them being known as the Colonel’s pit. We heard of a man who once fell into this particular pit, which was about the largest. He was far from sober when he got in, but the cold douche seemed to bring him round rather rapidly, so that when he was asked by a person, who was attracted to the spot by the vigorous splashing, what he was doing there, he wittily replied that he was on his way to Lower Peover Church to sing bass against so and so, and wanted to get a deep note.

  The pit being beside the highway, and unfenced, it was an easy matter on a dark night to walk in.

  In most of the Cheshire fields there are pits, which are much too useful for watering cattle to be filled up by the farmer. They were made before the days of chemical manures, when marl was dug out and spread upon the land together with natural farmyard manure and lime. Later again guano and bone manure took the place of marl, and the pits gradually filled with water, and in many cases were stocked with fish by the farmers.

  4. Lord Mauleverer stayed at the Angel Hotel, which, not far from the Royal George Hotel (with County Assembly Room attached), still stands in King Street.

  5. The Shire Lane spoken of in “ Cranford” must be Minshull Street.

  6. The Benefit Society for the Poor, which Deborah and her mother had started, is still in existence. It is known as the Female Benefit Society, the funds of which, through careful investment, have grown considerably. This society is still managed by the ladies of Knutsford. It was founded in 1806 by Mrs. Holland (mother of Miss Holland and Miss Lucy Holland), of Church House, and a few other of the influential ladies of the town and neighbourhood.

  7. “I counted seven brooches myself on Miss Pole’s dress.’’

  We have seen a good number of these old Cranford brooches, some of which were quite large, and we fortunately possess a few silver shoe buckles.

  8. “ Such a piece of gaiety was going to happen as had not been seen or known of since WombwelVs lions came.” To this day the appearance of a menagerie or travelling show is the cause of great excitement, and crowds usually flock in.

  9. “ We comforted ourselves with the assurance which we gave to each other, that the robberies could never have been committed by any Cranford person.’’

  “The Cranford people respected themselves too much and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so kind as to live near the toum, ever to disgrace their bringing up by being dishonest or immoral.” These two passages might be written to-day with the same irony which we fancy Mrs. Gaskell put into them. The town has not changed much from that old time.

  10. Over Place, we think, must be Cross Town.

  11. “ The little wayside public-house, standing on the high road to London, about three miles from Cranford,” must be the Mainwaring Arms or ‘‘ Whipping Stocks.’’ The large sign used to hang from a tree on the opposite side of the road to the public-house, which stands at the junction of the Holmes Chapel, Chelford and Knutsford roads.

  12. With regard to the Bank which stopped payment we find that there was a Bank failure at Macclesfield in 1823, viz., The Royal and Dantery Bank.

  13. ‘‘ The post-woman brought two letters to the house. I say the post-woman, but I should say the postman’s wife.”

  Years ago a post-woman officiated in what was a very small office in Princess Street.

  14. With regard to the “Ladies’ Seminary, to which all the tradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters,” this was probably Heath House presided over by a Mrs. Stokes.

  This house (the Highwayman’s House) was once occupied by Jack Mytton, a famous sporting character, whose adventures were celebrated in song and in a series of sporting prints once exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. He rode a race in his shirt on one occasion, and performed various wild feats.

  15. Before Miss Matty could think of selling tea she went down to consult Mr. Johnson, the grocer, to see if the project would injure his business.

  The same feeling exists to-day, and no welcome is offered to a stranger who dares to set up in business.

  16. “And it was race-time, and all the post-horses at Cranford were gone to the races.”

  Knutsford Races were held on the Racecourse, or Heath,
or Common, from 1729 to 1873.

  17. “The Spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker’s door. Do you know what a calash is? It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened on old-fashioned gigs.’’

  No illustrator of Cranford so far as we know has drawn a calash. (Seep. 111.)

  BROOK STREET CHAPEL

  Interior The ancient chapel at Knutsford was erected in 1689, and was built by Protestant Dissenters “ for the said congregation to assemble and meet in for praying, preaching, and other religious exercises.” So says the first trust deed of 1694, which was in every way a free and open trust.

  Dissent was strong in Cheshire, as will be noticed by the fact that sixty-two Cheshire ministers were ejected under the Act of 1662. Within seven miles of Knutsford there were ejected from their livings Mr. John Ravenshaw of Holmes Chapel, Mr. James Livesey of Great Bud- worth, Mr. John Buckley of Goostrey, Mr. Robert Norbury of Over Peover, and, above all, Mr. Adam Martindale of Rostherne.

  The Cheshire Association was formed in 1691, and the first meeting held at Macclesfield. It continued until 1745, when the last meeting was held in Knuts-

  ford, on September 3rd. During this time 122 meetings were held — one at Chelford, one at Chester, one at Dean Row, 104 at Knutsford, three at Macclesfield, eight at ministers’ houses, two at Nantwich, one at Stockport, one at Warrington. At these meetings Matthew Henry preached eight times, and was seven times moderator. The second meeting of this classis was held in 1692 at Knutsford, when Matthew Henry was the preacher. An ordination service was then held, when six candidates were examined and admitted to the ministry.

  From 1689 to the present time there have been, in 210 years, only fifteen ministers, giving an average pastorate of fourteen years. Several of these ministers are buried inside the chapel, and a few in the graveyard adjoining. The ministry of the Rev. Robert Lord extended to fifty years; that of the Rev. Henry Green, M.A., to forty-five years.