Chapter 5

Little Acorns

Chapter 5

THE CHURCH

1658
Whereas the hamlett of Mawdesley is distant from the Parish Church 4 miles and ye hamlett if Bispham 5 1/2 miles and the tythes arising are of the yearly value of 68L it is hereby recommended that the said hamletts be seized and divided from the said Parish of Croston and annexed, united and made one entire Parish, and that it is fit and convenient that a new church be built within the Township of Mawdesley near and adjacent to a place called the "Four Lane End" one of the said Lanes is called Gorsie Lane. Which said Church, the inhabitants of Mawdesley and Bispham are willing to build on their own proper costs and charges and that there be one Minister and Incumbent............................ Patron the Patron of Croston and, that the said Minister and Incumbent be endowed with the Tythes arising from ye saide Townships of Mawdesley and Bispham. Dated, November 16th, 1658.
The Church of Croston is of ye yearly value of 433L charged with a "Fee Farm" rent of 80 marks a yeare. Church surveys—Cromwell A.D. 1658.
This was in the time of Cromwell—1649 - 1660.

Copy of records in Church safe.

1888 Rev. Seymour Penzer. Inducted, November 9th.
1893 Rev. S. Penzer left Mawdesley. September 10th the new font dedicated.
1893 September 15th. Rev. H. Beardmore Instituted to the Rectory of Mawdesley by the Bishop of Manchester.
1831 Consecration of the extension of Churchyard by Bishop Moorhouse.
1897 September 2nd. Induction of Rev. Edmund Thomason, B.A.
1907 Laying the Foundation Stone of the new Organ Chambers and Vestry by Catherine Thomason, the Rector's eldest daughter.
1912 Rev. W. Pritchard Lord.
1920 Rev. C. David.
1953 Rev. B. H Lord.
1960 Rev. G. E. Stephens.

June 25th, 1840. The Church was consecrated by the Bishop of Chester.
July 12th. Martin Twiss, A.B.T.C.D., was ordained as Deacon and appointed as the Minister or Curate in Charge.
January 3rd, 1841. The Holy Communion was administered by Rev. R. W. King of Croston. The Rev. M. Twiss at that time not being in Priest's Orders.
July 11th, 1841. The Rev. M. Twiss, B.A., was ordained Priest in Durham Cathedral by the Rev. J. B. Sumner, Bishop of Chester.
1849. Thanksgiving for the abatement o£ Cholera.
In the early years of the Church, Communion was celebratedt on average four time!s in the year. Easter, Wliit, Michaelmas, Christmas.
1875. Christmas Day for a long number of years noted as melch (mild).
1879. February. Rain after 10 weeks snow.
1882. Whit. Wed. Open,ing of the Chancel by the Bishop of Manchester.
October, 1875. Meeting deciding on the building of the Chancel preferred by Mr. Twiss instead of a testimorial, the money should be spent on the Chancel in appreciation of his Thirty-five years ministry. The faculty was granted in 1877. Mr. Twiss was interred under the Chancel. The cost was £451 14s. 0d.—Mr. Beardmore.
August 8th, 1895. Queen Ann's Bounty approved the benefaction of two plots of land containing 1 acre, 1 rood, 21 perches of the value of £225, given by the Rev. Oswald Master.
August 8th, 1895. Q.A.B. have approved the purchase of two fields adjoining the Rectory, 11 acres 0 roods, 38 perches, for the sum of £800.
May 15th, 1897 Mr. Thomason.
May 30th, 1892. Mr. Seymour Penzer. Alterations and additions to Mawdesley Church, £739 10s. 10d.
December 11th, 1908. An organ by Wilkin & Sons of Kendal for £335 0s. 0d.
Queen Anne's Bounty—August 8th, 1895. (Mr. Beardmore.)
I have to inform you that the Governors of Q.A.B. have approved the proposed Benefaction of two plots of land containing together l a. 1 r. 21 p., of the value of £225 offered by the Rev. Oswald Master on behaf of the Benefice. I have instructed the Governors Solicitor to proceed with the Conveyance.
March 20th, 1895. Grant made of £200 to meet a Benefaction of £450. The Governors Grant will be appropriated to the Benefice at the Board Meeting following the completion of the Benefaction.
March 18th, 1896. Grant of £200 to meet a Benefaction of £200. Terms as above.
April 16th, 1896. The Governors have appropriated to the Benefice their Gran,t of £200 as promised on March 18th last.
The Governors will at your request lay out the Capital money in an eligible purchase of land in the Parish or in an adjoining Parish.
The Governors (Q.A.B.) have approved the purchase of two fields adjoining the Rectory containing 11 acres and 38 perches from the representatives of the late Hugh Ainscough for the sum of £800 on behalf of this Benefice, andt I have this
day instructed the Governors solicitor to proceed with the conveyance.
You will understand that until the Grant of £200 promised by the Governors to meet the benefaction of land offered by the Revd. Oswald Master has been appropriated to the Benefice they will be unable to complete this purchase, and moreover that the £800 then in hand will but cover the purchase money. You must therefore be prepared to pay the out of pocket expenses pertaining to the purchase. Correspondence relating to the gift of land (part of Rectory Garden) to the Benefice of Mawdesley. Gift of Rev. Oswald Master.
Correspondence relat,ing to Conveyance and Consecration of New Portion of Churchyard, 1894 and 1895—Mr.Beardmore.
No Deed of Conveyance was made of the gift of land in the first place. 16th, April, 1894.
Ecclesiastical Commissioners requested that the costs of conveyance be defrayed by the promoters of the measure. 25th May, 1894.
Sir Thomas Hesketh is giving the land and will convey it free of cost by his own Solictors.
Sir Thomas will not pay the costs of the Ecclesiastical Commissoners, who must be paid by Mawdesley Church. 7th June, 1894.
The Conveyance was deposited in the Registry of the Diocese of Manchester. 22nd February, 1895. Consecrated by the Bishop of Manchester on the 12th, June, 1895. The land containing 23 perches by statute measure.

Church Magazine, 1898
The subscription will be ls. 6d. for the year, payable between January 1st ant March 31st. This was the first magazine of this series. There had been none issued for a number of years.
A sale of work was held in the new School on January 1st and 3rd, raising a sum of £59 10s. 0d. This was for the installation of a boiler and heating apparatus and a gallery for the infants room.
June 11th—Tea Parly
Procession, Church to School, where band and lorries will be waiting, then on to the City, turning round there. Then back through the village to Bispham Green, returning to the Rectory, where a hymn was sung. The Teachers then distributed tickets to the Scholars who had their names on the Register on Whit Sunday and had attended regularly. This was the 24th anniversary.
Rev. E. Thomasson and Mr. C. A. Goodyear
These two men have left their mark on the lives of the older generation in Mawdesley. Mr. Thomasson was a strict disciplinarian and temperance advocate. He worked hard in the parish. He ordered that the children should have attended Sunday School from Whit Sunday to be entitled to a ticket for the Tea Party. The football team had to be members of the Temperance Society.
In 1897 he allowed the cricket club the use of the Rectory field. The landlord of the Black Bull had offered the club the use of his field.
The Rector had seven children, two sons and five daughters. He farmed the rectory land, kept cattle, providing milk and butter for the house. He had poultry, Indian Game ,and Light Sussex, selling their eggs for hatching, also for use in the house.
Mr. Thomasson planted the two acre orchard with apple and pear trees to help the income of the house. He encouraged the growing of fruit and vegetables in the village and was a strong supporter of the annual flower show.
He left Mawdesley in 1912 to go to Farrington, dying through an accident in 1914.
Mr. Thomasson planted a good proportion of the fences on the Rectory glebe. When he left the parish he had to pay £80 for further improvements.
Mawdesley at that time was a very poor parish. When he left the parish, the Church and Rectory lands and property were all spick and span. Today, much of the Rectory land and fences are a shambles. 0f the twelve gates existing at that time, only the Church gates now stand.
Mr. C. A. Goodyear, Schoolmaster
He came in the early 1900's. Mr. Goodyear was organist and choirmaster at the Church. He taught his scholars the commandments, Creed, Catechism, and the bymns in use in Church. He was a strong supporter of the school and church efforts, concerts, etc.
There are only a few left in the v,illage who were taught and trained by these two men.

When the Rev. Martin Twiss was Rector, he married, a couple; the man had climbed out of the back window of the house where he lived. He was married wearing his clogs. At that time, weddings were held up by a rope stretched across the road and the couple subjected to a toll in money. The man had gone out of the back window to avoid a nearby neighbour who regularly held up the weddings. Rev. Martin Twiss foiled this partcular hold up. After the ceremony he conducted the couple down the Rectory garden to the footpath to School Lane.

In 1952 the School Managers and Church parishioners decided to build a School house for the master, next to the school. There had been difficulty in finding a house for any new master. Deposit money was raised by Rev. A. Steel, who gave receipts for the deposits and donations. Deposit money was raised by interest free loans and donations from the parishioners in a few months. 1962. The loans were for a term of 10 years, when they were repaid by Mr. Stephens.
The house was a good investment, as there were 48 ,and 50 applications for the post of headmaster, which was a first headship. With so many applications, the successful applicant was of the highest standard and ability, and ambitious.

Extracts from the Church Magazine of 1900
Social life 100 years ago (1800).
There were ino railways, steamboats, electricity, cycles, cars or lucifer matche's. People had to light the fire with a tinder box and flint and steel.
Gas was introduced into London in 1807. Trains and telegraphs were looked on with suspicion, and the inventors of the phonograph, motor car and electric tram would have been looked on in 1800 as a wlzard or a madman.
Up to this period, press gangs were still in being.
The press gangs were searching for Jack. His young brother, just a child, said "Ar Jack's nod up chimbley". The family is still farming in Mawdesley.

I688. Crooks Charity—Mannex Directory, 1854.
On Shrove Tuesday £2 a year to the schoolmaster of the litle school Mawdesley providing he was a Protestant & not otherwise..
Mrs. Alice Porter died January 31st, 1849, aged upwards of ninety years. She taught school for 58 years.
There was another teacher, Amanda Porter, referred to as Old Amanda about 1870/80, presumed she was the daughter of Mrs. Alice.
Martin Twiss paid for her (Mrs. Alice) gravestone by the church door.
The first school, named the Little School, in Mawdesley, is still standing in 1978 This is a small cottage recently sold for £800.
Mawdesley and Heskin Halls, purchased in 1739 from trustees of Rev. Thos Mawdesley, conveyed in 1744 to Alex Kershaw. These descended to the Mitchell family by marriage, 1833.

Grandfather's house: 3 acres, 2 roods, 5 perohes
Spiby's shoemakers: 3 roods, 23 perches.
Mary Monk, Marl Hole: 1 acre, 15 perches.
John Cobham, Sandy Lane: 4 acres, 2 roods, 9 perches.

Glebe. Two fields adjoining Church (Henry Southworth) (Jay Bank): 11 acres, 38 perches. A road alongside of the Churchyard and Parsonage garden, pegged out to be fenced by Rev. Dr. Twiss, Stalk Farm, 30 acres 1 r. 23 p. The 23 perches marked on the plan from one of the fields to be added to the churchyard will be fenced by the parish.
Cottages and Gardens, High Street and School Lane: 2 acres, 2 r. 15 p.
Field, Wm. Hunter: 5 a. 25 p.
May 25th, 1887. 386 acres in Mawdesley. Sir Thomas Hesketh's Rufford Estate.

A Few Facts concerning Mawdesley Parish Church
The Church, dedicated to St. Peter, was built to supply the means of Grace to such inhabltants of the ancient Parish of Croston as resided in the Township of Mawdesley and Bispham. The Church was consecrated on June 25th, 1840, by the Right Rev. John Bird Sumner, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chester. In 1877 the Chancel was added by the parishioners as a Memorial of the devoted work of the first Rector, the Rev. Martin Twiss, D.D. The Rev. Martin Twiss was buried under the Chansel. In 1892 the Church was restored and reseated, costing £787.
1901. The Church was re-roofed and many of the windows, costing £168 2s. 8d.
1907. Ihe Organ Chamber added at a cost of £273 8s. 8d.
1909. The Organ has been added for £335 0s. 0d., and sundry repairs and improvements added to the Church and Churchyard which have cost quite £100.
Total—£1,663 0s. 0d. Mr. Thomason.
Faeulty for Choir Vestry, 1907.
Faculty for James Slater's Memorial, 1915.
Faculty for two Sacrarium Lamps (1926) in memory of wife Oliver Hunter.
Faculty Electric Lighting, 1934.
Altar and Reredos, 1949.
Loan to Mr. Steel (£302), repayable over 10 years, for repairs and alterations to Rectory, 1952.
1908. Application for Church Organ
(Land was given previous to 1840. Building of stone. Equipment. No Records of Cosits.)

Cost of Church
Cost of extensions and improvements since ,1877: £1,663 lls. 0d.
Schools built and enlarged since 1834 at a cosit of upwards of £1,000 0s. 0d.
Seating capacity of Auditorium, 300; 280 on floor of Church and 80 in Gallery.
Membership: Nominally 800.
Price of proposed Organ £300.

Old Organ. Small instrument of unknown age and make, taken out of Rufford Hall, presented to the Church in 1852, now worm-eaten and worn out. Valued at £10-£12. This was first placed in the gallery but in 1908 was in the chancel. A sum of £150 was donated by Mr. Andrew Carnegie of Skilo Castle, Dornock, Sutherland. This was half of the last £300 for the Organ, that the Parish raised £150.