Section 3 - 'The Isle of Man in the 1860s'

Though the flax and linen period had just gone it was still the practice for farmers to send the wool of their sheep to the carding mill where it was carded into rolls about a yard long and as thick as the little finger but so light and fleecy that it could be hardly felt. These were taken home and and spun into yarn, the soft hum of the spinning wheel as the rolls were fed into it as they were gently stretched out between the fingers was a happy sound, quiet and soothing not interfering with the talk as the work went on, as the spinning was done mainly by feel and not by sight. It could be done by candle light or even by fire light, the long evenings could therefore be very busy and at the same time very pleasant.

I was in time to see the domestic making of candles coming to an end. The rushlight preceded the coming of the cotton wick. The rush was carefully skinned of its hard green outer cover and the white spongy pith inside kept as long as possible. This like the cotton wick after it was dipped into melted fat and allowed to dry and harden then dipped again,and so on until it became thick enough when it was kept in a cool place. After a time candles were made in moulds in which the wick was hung and the hot fat run in. Sometimes when bees were kept the wax would be used to make wax candles in the same way.

Bees were kept more generally than is now the case, there were no hives of the present day type, they were home made of straw and the bees had to be smoked out of the hive,or out of life before honey could be got. Sugar was not then so common and the universal craving for sweets had not arrived, at its present height.

In those days every farm and most cottages kept pigs, and killed one or two for home consumption. Pig killing day was a great event, a neighbour who could do the job was notified beforehand and the day fixed. In the early morning all the pots and pans would be got ready and a big fire for hot water got going, a supply of salt laid in and the salting tubs cleaned and scrubbed. A wide board or door placed on trestles handy for hot water. Presently piercing squeals would be heard. They sent a thrill through one, and a feeling that some horrible act of murder was being done by a ferocious maniac who had broken bounds and might not stop at that one frightful act. A little later when I came out of hiding and approached, there would be poor piggy dead and stretched on the door while genial Tom Halse, who surely would not hurt a fly, was pouring boiling water over the skin and scraping all the bristled off with a sharp knife leaving the skin snow white and clean.

Later on there would be spare-rib fried and spare~rib pie and poor piggy would be quite forgotten, the tubs would be full of hams. and bacon in salt until still later on the kitchen ceiling would be decorated with sides of bacon and thick fat hams ready for anyone to cut and come again.

In the very old times every Manx farmer had by law to provide a share in a fishing boat and in the nets, all the people were interested in the harvest of the sea. I was just in time to see the last of that before the fishing became commercialised, everyone owned a share or two in a hering boat, the men fishing in it were part owners. It was a little co~operative society. The small farmers went to the spring and summer fishing then as the rich English went to shoot grouse or fish salmon. In between times they cultivated their farms and made ready their boats and nets for the next season. The boats were built on the Island. Clinker built with high bow and stern and mainly half decked. There were too around the coasts large yawls much of the same type,and resembling the old viking ships, they would be drawn up on the brews in winter. I have seen three or four of these at a time drawn up in this way at the White Strand. It was common for the shares in the boats to be divided into sixty fourths so that the capital could be well spread. Widows, or members of the family could hold shares, or even half shares, everyone was therefore interested in the prayers in the churches, that God would restore and continue to them the blessings of the sea, and could heartily join in them. The crew owning the boat and bringing their own food on board kept down the expenses. They had biscuits made from Manx flour, their own potatoes and butter, and their barley and oat meal and cakes. This with the herrings and other fish caught when lying at the nets, reduced the outgoings to a minimum. The conger,cod and hake they caught and dried and the herrings they salted made the winters food secure,

The life was one of independance and variety but of hard work and not many luxuries in the modern view.

The change which took place about eighty years ago was the gradual industrialisation of the fisheries. The boat builders began to build on spec, retaining a large portion of the shares. The nets were gradually made by machines, and the manufacturers kept shares in them. The grocers and other dealers began to hold shares to secure orders, some of the men manning the boats having no shares had to be paid wages and to be fed by the boat instead of providing their own food. They were no longer owners but hirelings, sea biscuits oatmeal and barley bread and fish was no longer good enough for them, the status of the crews fell. The movement became more and more pronounced until almost complete industrialisation took place. The working costs thus increased but still allowed a good margin of profit in good years but not able to stand a few bad years and so things went from bad to worse until the herring fleet was reduced almost to extinction.

Eighty years ago the ship building was a lively trade in Peel. Luggers, smacks and schooners were built in yards at the top of the harbour. They were fine craft and good sea boats. Peel built boats had a wide reputation, the summit was reached in the building of that fine schooner the 'Western Maid'. From that time the ship building slowly declined with the decline of fishing. It was a most delightful sound to hear across the harbour the sharp musical ring of the caulking hammers from the boats under the hill as they were bring completed. A few years before a Peel built boat the "Vixen" had sailed for the gold diggings in Australia manned by a company of young men from the Peel district. They had combined together to stock the boat with all sorts of saleable things wanted in a new country. Carts ploughs, packs, spades wheel barrows,rakes as wel, as food and ironmongery. They got out after many adventures, the Vixen traded out in the colonies for many years and then came back to the Island. Here she traded for a good many years and was finally lost with all hands in a squall off the Calf on her way from Port St Mary to Glasgow, on a Sunday afternoon.

I can remember Tom the dipper. He was a mormon, they were called dippers because they baptised their converts, one of the places being the pool under the bridge at Glen Helen. They had a number of converts in the island among them some members of the Cannon family. These became prominent people in Utah one of them being a United States senator of prominence.

A great many Manx people emigrated to Australia and America at that time, several of my uncles among them. It is curious to notice how names get transformed in a new country, particularly when the owner is illiterate. The common manx name Kermode was usually pronounced Kermit on the Island and a stranger, say in America, would spell it in that way. President Roosevelt had a son one of whose names was Kermit. I wonder if some early Manx emigrant was responsible for this curious name.

I heard a good deal of talk about the dippers and it seems to me that the attractions which appealed to the converts was not so much the religion and hopes of heaven as hopes of a much better time on earth and the wealth and happiness secured by co-operation with their co-religionists. On the Island the dippers had a reputation of being quiet but argumentative,

Methodism on the Island was then mainly of the Wesleyan type, the Primitive split commonly called the ranters had not then developed so much. A great many of the Wesleyans considered themselves and were members of the Church of England they attended the church in the morning and the chapel in the evening on Sundays,yet their religion was not of the ostentagious kind. It was a thing to be lived and not talked about.

From what I can remember most of our neighbours looked upon the various religions as not infringing much on their daily life, but rather for ceremonial occasions, like putting a top hat. Some of them did not possess top hats and took no part in ceremonies of any sort.

Among the trading visitors who penetrated into our valley the most dramatic was the "cadger" who sold fresh herrings, with a spring cart and a fast trotting pony he came suddenly. Long before we saw him we heard the valley ring with his cry of "fresh herrings fresh herrings forty for a shilling". There would be his cart full of fat glittering herrings, one shillings worth equal in nutrutive value,to ten pounds of the best steak. Two of these herrings, half a dozen potatoes and a jug of buttermilk made a scientifically perfect and satisfying meal at a cost of about two pence, the blessings of the sea were a solid reality.

Another visitor to the glen was "little Hughey Johnson" who came in a little donkey cart with crockery and small ware, like tape needles and the like, and would take bones or rags or old iron in payment. Hughie was a perfect little gentleman,courteous and obliging. He was Irish and a flatterer, another man was "caley the ragman", dealing much in the same way, but he had dulish" (dulgis,sweet). It was a fine red seaweed, much appreciated in the Island at that time for its curative action and as a tonic. It is still used in the west of Ireland, a few years ago I saw a stall selling it in the street of Ballyshannon. This name is a relic of the Latin with which the Romans enriched the native language when they occupied Britain, the Welsh language is full of these Latin names which have become native so to speak. The Erse and the Manx, which is akin to it, has fewer words of Roman origin.

Another trader was a big tall man with a spring cart,he sold calico and cloth he was "a sort, of scotch draper" though I think he sold for cash and not on credit,to be.paid for in instalments, as was later the custom in England when the scots men so greatly developed that manner of business.

Eighty years ago the Island was very bare-of trees there were hardly any on the uplands and those in the valleys were scarce and not very fine. Visitors were beginning to come to the Island and created a limited but profitable kind of businuss. The catering for visitors, now grown into the Island's main, and vitaly important industry.

The idea that the visitors might come in much greater numbers and ultimately might prove of supreme importance to the Island was not realised except by a very few men, one of whom was my father. He realised that these people came to the island not to get lodgings and food in Douglas but to enjoy the beauty and freedom to be found here. It was not the hotels or the lodging houses they came for because they could get just as good or better in England. These few men were quick to see that the more beautiful . the Island was made, and the access to those beauties more freely opened out the more visitors would come to see those beauties and enjoy the freedom of access to them. While at the same time they would need more lodgings in the towns, more bread more groceries and more farm produce in the form of milk and eggs, more lamb and garden produce, in fact that no industry in the Island but would benefit by the greater influx of visitors, but that these all depended on the beauty and the freedom as the attractive power and the basis on which the prosperity would be built. The vision of these men has been amply fulfilled. Acting on these ideas my father and Thomas Moore of the Lhergy Dhoo joined together and bought the place now known as Glen Helen from a Mr Marsden,

It had then a large and pretty cottage a sort of Swiss cottage, but the rest of the place was a long and steep valley running out to the hills where there was a waterfall descending from an upper valley such as is seen in Switzerland. The main valley was wooded here and there but was otherwise an inaccessible waste covered with gorse, briars and thorns and and above the waterfall there was a series of most remarkable pot holes very large and deep with smooth sides almost polished in the slate rock, these were relics of the ice age and surpass anything in England, but they could not be seen from below,and the approach from above was difficult and dangerous.

My father, who was the moving spirit in the partnership resolved to open out the place as a pleasure resort. and make its beauty accessible to the public, on each side of the valley.

They made paths, and a road out to the waterfall, made a path up through the crags to the top of the waterfall to access to view the wonderful pot holes. They planted trees and ornamental shrubs, foot bridges across the river here and there, and made lawns. A small gang of miners were brought to blast away the rock to make the road out to the fall. We small boys would go out to see the blasts go off, the loud bangs and the stones flying up into the air were more interesting to us than anything we had ever seen.

My uncle Richard who was home from Australia on a visit,took a great interest in this work and supervised the operations of the miners, it was a great day when the first cart was able to get out through to the foot of the fall, another great day was when the first rustic footbridge was thrown across high up above the fall and we could look down into the pot holes from above, the first people who had ever done so.

When things were sufficiently ready, the Swiss Cottage was opened as a place of refreshment under the charge of Mr Clague an extremely able little man whose son Tom, was our schoolfellow and became one of the best known chemists in the north of england,and a pioneer in x ray treatment for the northern hospitals. He was brave,honourable, and witty and wise.

For several years the place was a great success until a terrible thing happened, some visitor seeing in the river bed the fine layers of blue slate conceived the idea of commercially developing it. He and others formed a company for that purpose. The Manx laws apparently allowed them to do so. They stript the soil off the side of the hill, they put a dam across the river erected a waterwheel and brought in machines for sawing and planing the large slabs of slate which they peeled off from the side of the hill. The waste and rubbish from these workings they wheeled along in a great tip past the Swiss cottage and further down the glen converting what had been a scene of peaceful rustic beauty into an imitation of a Welsh slate quarry while the screeching of the saws and planers made a noise worse than modern jazz. The whole charm and attraction of the place seemed to be permanently spoiled, my father and his partner sold out.

Later the quarry enterprise came to an end and nature our beneficient mother proceeded slowly to heal the wounds and cover up the scars, a new company took over, a licence was obtained visitors again came in crowds,to what is one of our most beautiful glens, contributing its share in the Island's attractions, which fill the lodging houses and help to pay for the farmers motor cars. The unfortunate thing is that the lodging house keepers and the farmers forget what their prosperity is due to, and what would happen if the Islands beauty was destroyed and no visitors came,

Eighty years ago there were other attempts to develop a slate industry in the Island, one was up on the shoulder of South Barule above Foxdale. It produced a lot of building stone for houses and walls. The quarry is now an unsightly barren heap of rubbish, a scar on the landscape.

Another attempt was about a quarter mile from Jemmy Paddy Corris's bridge now called Ballig Bridge. This began on the side of the hill, getting deeper and deeper until it got level with the valley road, then a level was driven in from the road to the bottom of the quarry, a bridge was built over the river and the rubbish taken across and tipped on the meadow beyond. Another unsightly blot on the landscape which is nobody's business to remedy.

Beauty, which is (at base) our instinctive knowledge of what is useful, is of the greatest value and is not only financially valuable but is recognised as valuable by the law. A beautiful voice or face or figure, a beautiful animal, or house,or picture are all more financially more valuable than ugly ones, and the law would give higher compensation for damage to them.

The same should apply to a pleasure resort, but the Isle of Man has not yet realised the fact though it is a pleasure resort depending on its beauty and freedom(in other words its access to beauty) for its prosperity. There is no organised attempt to make the Island more beautiful, or to penalise anyone who makes it less beautiful.

These quarries and mine heaps do make the island less beautiful and to that extent lessens its attraction and its prosperity.

This tunnel opening out on to the road near Ballig Bridge was a terror to us little ones,coming home from school in the winter dusk,or going to the post in the evening. It was a place of terror, where ghosts or bugganes lived and might pounce out upon us behind our back.

Good slates cannot be made from manx rock, the fibres in the stone are too brittle and run in one direction, the best Welsh: and Cumberland slate has its fibres criss crossed so to speak and they are therefore equally tough both lengthways and side ways. They can be made in much larger sheets and split more evenly into thinner ones.

As a paying concern, creating beauty, (which will attract more visitors) will be much more profitable than digging for slate, or lead or coal. Isolated individuals have attempted to create this beauty, and have expended large sums in doing so, and have made profit out of doing so. It should be however the business of the community acting through Tynwald to create and preserve the beauty which benefits everyone. A visitors tax as in Switzerland of one shilling, or a halfpenny rate on the Island, used for this purpose could in a few years make this the most beautiful Island in the world.