Journal of Jonathan Williams, Jr., of His Tour with Franklin and
Others through Northern England
AD in two versions: Lilly Library, University of Indiana; and Yale
University Library
<[May 28, 1771.] The travelers left London on May 18 at nine
in the morning, and at nine that evening they reached Northampton. On
entering the town they admired the cross erected by Edward I to mark
the route of Queen Eleanor’s funeral procession. At five the next
morning they set out for Matlock Bath by way of Leicester. On the
20th they traveled in leisurely fashion through Derbyshire. From
Matlock Bath they went to Bakewell, and stopped to visit a marble
mill; Williams was much interested in the water-driven saws and
polishers. By that evening they were at Castleton, where they
explored the cavern then called the Devil’s Arse. They went into it
by water for 750 yards, some of the way by boat (at times lying on
their backs when the roof was little more than a foot above them),
and some of the way on the backs of guides. On the 21st they arrived
at Manchester early in the morning; they walked round the town,
visited a school for poor boys and admired its old and well stocked
library, and then embarked in a luxurious horse-drawn boat on the
Duke of Bridgewater’s canal and followed it to its end in the Duke’s
coal mines. “The Canal goes over a Bridge and that Bridge over a
River Navigable for Boats of 30 Tons which bring Goods from several
parts of the Country to this Bridge, and then by a Crane they are
hoisted into the Canal and are carried about the Country several
Ways; under this Bridge by the Side of the River is a Road so that
when a Boat is on the Canal, another Boat may be sailing and a
Carriage going at the same Time under it.” The last thousand yards to
the first coal face were subterranean. The party observed the miners
at work in cramped quarters, and watched the coal being brought out
and loaded into a forty-ton canal boat, which a single horse then
pulled to Manchester. There the canal again tunneled under a hill to
a large hole, running up to the surface, through which a water-driven
crane unloaded the coal. The next morning the travelers left
Manchester and reached Leeds by evening. On the 23rd they visited the
cloth hall at Leeds, where each subscriber had a booth for selling
his wares on market days; the hall was then almost empty because of
the demands of the American trade, which had raised the price by
sixpence a yard. The travelers then called on Joseph Priestley, “who
made some very pretty Electrical Experiments and some on the
different properties of different kinds of Air.” The next day they
changed carriages at Wakefield, stopped for a tour of the Marquis of
Rockingham’s country estate, and arrived that evening at Sheffield.
On the morning of the 25th they went to see a factory making articles
of silver-plated copper, and in the afternoon to inspect the
ironworks and manufacture of tin plate at nearby Rotherham, and to
visit an ironworks where they “saw them Melting the Iron Ore and
casting Potts, etc., which is perform’d as in America.” What
impressed Williams was the furnace, fired with charcoal and coal
cinders, and the bellows driven by a water wheel. “It appeared
particularly Odd to see a small River of liquid Iron running from the
Furnace into the Recevoir and from thence carried in Ladles like hot
broth. The Labourers have 14d. per Day their Work is extreme
hard and in summer Time must be very disagreeable.” The party
returned to Sheffield for the night, and the next day toured the
sumptuous home of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. “Even the
Window Frames of this House are gilt on the outside.” That evening
they reached Derby; the next morning they visited the china and
pottery manufactures there, and a silk mill where a single wheel
“produces 97,000 Motions by communication down to a little Wheel of
about 4 Inches Diameter. There are night 63,700 Reels constantly
Turning and the twist process is tended by Children of about 5 or 7
Years old and one Child does the Business of 63 persons.” The same
day the group continued by way of Burton-on-Trent (“remarkable for
good Ale”), Lichfield, and Sutton Coldfield to Birmingham. On the
morning of the 28th they visited Matthew Boulton’s Soho ironworks,
which employed 700 people. Its products were extremely varied, from
farthing buttons to hundred-guinea ornaments. “We went through his
Works but there was so much and we staid so little While, that it is
almost impossible for the strongest Memory to retain it. The Work of
a Button has 5 or 6 branches in it each of which is performed in a
second of Time. He likewise works plated Goods—Watch Rings and all
kinds of hard ware all of which is performed by Machinery in such a
Manner that Children and Women perform the greatest part of it.”>
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