Whatmore Family History

Some members of the Whatmore family seem to have had one brief moment of fame in an otherwise mundane life. Such seems to be the case of GEORGE WHATMORE but his appearance in court in 1848 provides the excuse to retell the story of the Ashton Under Lyne Rising of that year.

St Michael’s Church  Ashton-under-Lyne    Copyright: Martin Clark and reproduced under the terms of the site licence which can be read here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ 

Ashton was a stronghold of the Chartists. They were a movement for social and political reform which flouished between 1838 and 1848. Their ‘People’s Charter’ of 1838   set out the movement’s six main aims:

• Universal suffrage for men over 21
• Equal sized electoral districts
• Voting by secret ballot
• An end to the need for a property qualification for Parliament
• Pay for members of Parliament
• Annual election of Parliament.

Although the Chartist Movement gradually faded away after 1848 it had a considerable influence on the reforms which followed later on in the nineteenth century.

GEORGE WHATMORE, who features briefly in this story, was born at Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire in about 1831, his parents being a James and Mary both born in Lancashire. James was an iron moulder. James and Mary appear to have had five children: Margaret born 1823 and who died in 1824, Anne born 1825, Harriet born 1828, James born 1830 and George. In 1841, George aged 8, was at home with his parents at Gatefield, Ashton.

At Ashton, disappointment at Parliament’s rejection of the Chartist’s Third Petition in 1848 led to the formation in the town of a ‘National Guard’ which was made up of 200 – 300 men with James Milligan as their Chief.

On Sunday 13 August 1848 there a Chartists’ meeting at Manchester which Milligan attended and on his return  on 14 August he told his Divisional leaders to arrange for the National Guard to muster  that night at Barn Street at the north end of Bentinck Street. He told them that there was to be national rising that night.

At 10.00 p.m. that night the Inspector of Police instructed PC James Bright, aged 33 to patrol Bentinck Street. P C Bright was on good terms with many of the Chartists.

At 10.45 p.m. the Chartists gathered. Most of them had pikes, but a few of them had guns. As they turned into Bentinck Street, P C Bright walked on the pavement a few paces behind the column. As the Chartists slowed down, P C Bright overtook them and was threatened. One of the leaders, Joe Radcliffe told them to take no notice of him, and he warned the policeman to get away from them as fast as possible. Neither the men nor the policeman moved  and someone knocked P C Bright’s hat off.

 Ryecroft Mill, Ashton-under-Lyne     Copyright: Martin Clark. Reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which be read here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Radcliffe again told the policeman to get out harm’s way. One of the men brandished his Pike and there was a struggle as Radcliffe got it off him. Radcliffe thought that the owner of the pike  had dodged behind the policeman and he lunged at the pike owner – but it was a friend of the policeman  and he received a cut from the pike as did P C Bright. The policeman moved away and then a shot rang out – probably intended to scare the policeman away. Radcliffe led the policeman by the arm, away from the men, but there was a commotion as the men chased after another policeman whom they had spotted. P C Bright was left on his own when there was the noise of a gun shot and a bright flash in Bentinck Street. P C Bright was found slumped in the gutter. His body was brought into the Red Lion Inn and a surgeon was sent for. The policeman had a large wound which was consistent with a ball from a one inch blunderbuss, which had passed through his chest and out at the back. It was never clear who had fired the shot or where it had come from.

Ultimately a large number of men from Ashton were arrested in connection with the murder and disorder.

We return to George Whatmore and his moment of fame as reported in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 28 November 1848.  This tells us that GEORGE WHATMORE had been brought up at the Ashton-under-Lyne Petty Sessions, the previous Wednesday, charged upon his own statement with being an accessory before the fact in the murder of Bright.

George had been apprehended by Chief Constable Newton because George had said that he knew as much as anyone else about the murder of Bright and had made other statements about the murder. After a while in the lockup, George had asked to see Mr Newton and had offered to tell all he knew about the murder, ‘if he would forgive him’. Mr Newton had said that he could make no promises. George then said that he had been a lodger at Stott’s house [one of the leaders of the National Guard at Ashton] and had dried the cartridge cases for Stott and had afterwards taken them upstairs to him. He went on to say that on the night of the murder,  Stott and Radcliffe had led the body of the Chartists down towards the top of Bentinck Street. George then stopped and said that he knew no more.

The bench called on George to find two sureties of £10 each and to enter into his own recognizances in £20, to answer any charge that may be preferred against him. George Whatmore was then discharged.

The picture we have of George Whatmore is of a very naive young lad terrified of the possible consequences of his limited involvement. George would only have been aged about 17 at this time. ‘The Times’ gives us no further information and as George Whatmore’s name is not amongst those who were later sentenced, it seems that he was not recalled to give evidence, nor was he punished.

At the eventual trial, the chief witness for the prosecution was a Thomas Lattimer who said that he had seem Radcliffe attack P C Bright with a pike and then shoot him. Two friends of Lattimer who were with him at the time of the shooting, stated in court that it was too dark to see what had happened.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, but with a recommendation to mercy because they were not convinced that Radcliffe fired the fatal shot. The Judge himself admitted that he was perfectly satisfied that Radcliffe had not fired the fatal shot. Nevertheless, the Judge sentenced Radcliffe to death.

The sentence pronounced by the Judge seemed inexplicable and writing in the ‘Ashton Chronicle’ in January 1849, a writer named Stephens stated, ‘it is now clear … that Joseph Radcliffe, so far from raising his hand against Bright, did all he could to save his life.’

The Home Secretary of the time eventually commuted  Radcliff’s death sentence to four years imprisonment and banishment for life, but the verdict of wilful murder remained.

After 4 years of imprisonment, Radcliffe was sent to Western Australia where eventually he was given a conditional pardon, but still prohibited from returning home. People in Ashton started a collection to pay for his wife to join him in Australia, which she was able to do. Eventually Radcliffe and his wife moved to San Francisco where Radcliffe died in 1889. Despite  several petitions over the years made by the Town Council and the MP for Ashton for a pardon for Radcliffe, this was never granted.

To return again to George Whatmore, he obtained work as a Cotton Winder and remained at Ashton for the rest of his life. He married Mary Brierley in the March Quarter 1852 at Ashton, but they had no children. In later years, George worked as a labourer for a metal merchant. George died at Ashton in 1908  and his wife died in 1914.

George seems to have been confused about the spelling of his surname. When he married it was given as ‘Whatmore’, in the censuses it is ‘Watmore’ or ‘Whitmore’ and when he died it was given as ‘Whitmore.’

In later years, in looking back at the events of 1848, George perhaps felt that he had had a lucky escape, and he may have been content with an afterwards quiet life. I doubt, however, that he even remotely imagined that his life would still be of interest to others some hundred and sixty years later!

 The above account is derived from an article on the following website where the full text can be read: http://www.chartists.net/Ashton-under-Lyne-rising-1848.htmThe website article is adapted from ‘Chapter in Victorian Ashton’ by Herbert Davies, published by Tameside Libraries and Arts Committee 1971.