Pictures from The Book of
Gainsborough by Ian Beckwith 1991
The earliest reference to a town or settlement in
this area is in 1013 when it is referred to as a borough or ‘burgh’.This is from the Old English word of ‘burh’ meaning a fortified piece
of land; possibly no more than a farm defended by a simple ditch system or an
earthen bank or both with a wooden stockade fence surrounding it.It was originally a part of the kingdom of Northumbria and would have
perhaps been considered a strategic point on the boundary with the kingdom of
Mercia.
This map shows the Gainsborough area in 1827.Shown on the map are the ‘Danish Camp’ and two former bends in the
river.The straightening of these
bends is even mentioned in a Shakespeare play:
The name Gainsborough is of debated origin.The most likely theory is that it is derived from the tribe ‘Gainas’
who first settled in this general area.(Alfred
the Great, King of Wessex, is claimed to have married a princess from the Gainas
tribe, called Elswitha.)
Until the early part of the 14th century
the area was mainly agricultural – very much as we consider the area today.
The Angles were the first to turn the marshy
land into water meadows and to clear the oak woodland for arable fields.The Vikings were also strong influences in the area as reflected in local
place names: Lea, Marton, Morton, Torksey, etc.
Domesday Reference to Gainsborough of 1086
records that Ledwin held Gainsborough.Little
is known of him: he was possibly an active warrior nobleman of Danish descent.
Figure 1:
Domesday survey, 1086, listing the land of Geoffrey de la Guerche in
Gainsborough
Gainsborough was referred to as: exclusively a
community of farmers, villains, sokemen and tenants of Lord Geoffrey of Guerche.The town is listed as having:
12 plough teams
1,900 acres of arable land served by
2 teams in 320 acres
of demesne
12 sokemen occupying 520 acres
4 villeins with 6 teams each over about 960 acres.
It was valued at £6, but fell to half that valued
after it was laid to waste by King William for rebellion.It was after this the land was given to Geoffrey de la Guerche.
The Lindsey Survey, made between 1115 and 1118,
shows that Gainsborough was held by Nele (or Nigel ‘The Black’) d’Aubigny,
who was possibly the great-great grandson of Geoffrey of Guerche.The survey shows that the area consisted of:
A manor with a hall
The demesne farm with 2 plough teams
320 acres
An outlying berewick (a barley farm)
It also lists all the tenants in the hall area and
the surrounding farms.
From there it passed to the Mowbray family until the
end of the 14th century.In
1157 a knight in the service of Roger de Mowbray, who was assigned to the Lord
of Alnwick, held the land.His
tenant was one William de Vescy (son of Eustace fitz John de Vescy).Both of these knights opposed King John and were part of the group who
drew up the Magna Carta.
A weekly market was granted in 1204.It was (and still is) held every Tuesday.Goods to be sold in the market, and their vendors, were charged a toll
upon landing from the river or entering the town by road and through this 50
shillings per year were raised for the manor.The charges for stallholders were ¼d for the stall and ½d per day for
the longer fairs.This results in
approximately 48 stalls being held each week.The type of goods that could be purchased was red or pickled herrings,
hemp, salt, oil, tanned hides and salmon caught in the Trent.
Figure
3: Drawing
of Market Square c1840
Various other industries started to develop in the
area during this time: a windmill and horse-drawn mill were built in 1248; a
stone quarry was in existence in 1256; a gypsum mine in 1263 and fishponds in
1377.
In March 1243, an annual fair was granted to the
manor.It was a three day fair held
on the eve, day and morrow of the feast of St James: 25th July.
By the late 13th century Gainsborough was
treated as a borough although it never acquired the seal or any of the legal
privileges.The manor was
increasing in worth throughout the 14th century: in 1326 it was worth
£14 11s 8¼d; in 1327 - £58 14s 3d; in 1332 - £63 14s 11d.Retail trade continued to expand until 1857.After this date many of the old-established trades began to decline.
From 1275 Aymer de Valence, a knight of the Earl of
Pembroke, appeared as the tenant.(The
land was feoffed to one of his knights, John Darcy, for 100s rent.)When Aymer died in 1325 the lands passed, through his daughter, to David
of Strabolgi.However, the lands
became forfeit in 1333 as a consequence of his rebellion and were assigned to
Queen Philippa, who, in turn, awarded them to John Darcy.
In 1355 the land was regained by David de Strabolgi
III, passing to his daughter, Philippa (possibly named for the Queen),
who was wife of Ralph de Percy.In
1389 it passed to her sister, Elizabeth, wife of Thomas, the second son of Henry
Lord Percy.In 1406, their son
Henry warranted all the lands, rents and services of Gainsborough to John de
Mitford, knight, and his son, William.In
1423 Gainsborough is listed as having 6 messuages, 5 borates (about 100 acres),
10 acres and 4 selions of lands.
Figure
4: The armorial bearings of the Burghs
Henry Percy died in 1432 and Gainsborough manor
passed to his daughter, Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Burgh; then to her son,
Thomas.The Burgh family were
Yorkists and during the Wars of the Roses the manor was attacked by the
Lancastrians and partially destroyed.The
family however, survived and prospered during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry
VIII.Unfortunately the cost of
continuous service in wars during the reign of Elizabeth I meant the manor had
to be sold in 1596.A London
merchant, William Hickman, bought the manor and hall and carried out much
rebuilding and alteration both to the town and the hall between 1597 and 1600.
During the 1600s Gainsborough was associated with
the religious movement known as the ‘Separatists’.The people in the movement met regularly in Gainsborough with
their preacher, John Smyth.It is
said that the congregation met in Gainsborough’s Old Hall, although this is by
no means certain.Whereas Sir
William Hickman was a puritan he was not a separatist and it might be considered
unlikely he would associate himself with the illegal meetings.Some members of the congregation emigrated to Amsterdam in 1606 and after
some years they decided to emigrate to America reaching Plymouth Rock in North
America on 11th December 1620, sailing on the ‘Mayflower’.
The
people of Gainsborough wished to remain neutral during the Civil War, however,
the town was seized for the King and, in July of 1642, Charles I passed through
Gainsborough on his way from York to Newark.A force of Parliamentarians attacked the town in 1643.The Battle of Gainsborough (or Battle of Lea) took place on 28th
July 1643.Cromwell led the
attacking force and the commander, Colonel Cavendish, was killed.The actual site of the battle was Foxby Hill.The Royalists held the top of the hill and the Parliamentarians attacked
up the hill from the south, driving the Royalists down the other side into the
marshy area next to the Trent.The
parish register records 65 burials and Cromwell’s account of the battle lists
300 men killed.This Parliamentary
holding of Gainsborough was short-lived, however, and the town was recaptured
the next day after Cromwell retreated to Lincoln.On 20th December 1643, a large Parliamentarian force stormed
the town and for the duration of the Civil War, Gainsborough was under
Parliamentarian control.
Figure 5: A view
of Gainsborough by Samuel Gurnhill, 1791
The building of the original bridge over the Trent
was authorised in 1787 and built in 1791at a cost of just over £10,000.Its architect was William Weston.He
designed the bridge and the turnpike that ran from Gainsborough to Retford.The Lord of the Manor received £800 compensation for the loss of ferry
tolls.There was originally a toll
on the bridge and the former tollhouses can still be seen.The only other road in the Gainsborough area to be turnpiked was from
Bawtry to Louth, passing just north of the town after crossing the Trent at the
Walkerith Ferry.
Figure
6: the land surrounding Gainsborough before 'enclosure',
Land use around Gainsborough was historically open
arable land until on Friday 22nd May 1795 when an Act of Parliament
enforced enclosure to the land around Gainsborough.The three commissioners took six years to complete their task
including the staking out of eight new public roads.Although the whole project was completed by 1801 it was not
formerly awarded until 24th January 1804.The task cost £8,220 4s 6½d.
During the first part of the 19th
century, shipbuilding was prominent in Gainsborough including the development of
steamships.The ‘John Bull’,
‘British Queen’, and ‘Albion’ were built and launched in Gainsborough in
1815 and the ‘Prince of Coburg’ in 1817.The principle shipbuilders of the time were J & H Smith (later Henry
Smith), R & W Furley and William Moody.Ships up to 700 tons were built in the yards as well as sloops, brigs and
small sailing vessels.
Figure
7: Paddlesteamers of the Gainsborough Steam Packet Company
Steam-packet services ran from Gainsborough to Hull;
from Gainsborough to Doncaster and from Burringham to Gainsborough throughout
the late 1800s bring people to and from the town especially on market days.The final steamer to run a regular service was the ‘Celia’, which
continued to run on market days only until the beginning of the First World War.
The coming of the railways signalled the decline of
the shipyards, as did the silting of the river and partial blockage by wrecks.The opening of Gainsborough as a port coincided with the beginning of the
decline in river traffic.Duties
from custom peaked in 1844 and then dropped sharply.
Two railway lines were constructed and still run
through Gainsborough.These were
both built in the early part of the 1840s.The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company originally
built Central Station at a cost of £18,000 opening on 2nd April
1849; it was demolished in 1977.The
Great Northern Railway built Lea Road Station in 1869, although the railway ran
for twenty years before the station was completed.
Figure
8: Central Station, Gainsborough
The railways changed the appearance of Gainsborough.Pingle Hill was severely cut away to make way for the rail tracks.The streets were damaged by the heavy construction traffic.The roads approaching the town from the south had to be lowered in order
to pass under the railway bridge.There
were many complaints about this but the alternative of a tunnel was felt to be
even more objectionable!
There have been many small-scaled industries in
Gainsborough through the years.Many
relating to the shipbuilding industry:
Sail making – 1805 to 1841 – 3 firms
Nail making- a brass
foundry
Rope making – there were 7 ‘rope walks’ in the town; largest
and longest-lived was the Bourn Family’s – 1768 to 1890s.Some of the rope walks can still be seen in the townscape: the Morton end
of Ropery Road and in the service road running from Lea Road past St John’s
Vicarage and on up Stafford Street.
Figure
9: One of Gainsborough's 'yards' - these were overcrowded tenements, with little
or no sanitation and one pump serving all the families who lived there.
There were also other small industries:
Soap making
– 1635 until 1820s – Soap House Row – John Shuttleworth made 7 tons each
week
Clay pipes – 1645 in pipe kilns in Ship Inn Yard (now Caskgate
St car park).The last pipe maker
worked in Soap House Row until 1860s.
Cornmilling and Linseed crushing mills – Union Mill on North
Marsh Road; Mercer’s Mill (possibly the setting for Mill on the Floss);
Sharpe’s Mill on Nottingham side of the river and Ashcroft Mill by the bridge
(another possible setting for the Mill on the Floss).These four mills were responsible for processing 1/8th
of all the linseed imported to England at the time.
Tobacco manufacture – 1826 to 1872 - mainly carried out in Lord
Street and Caskgate Street.
These were very much the ways of working in many small market towns of
the early 1800s.Then came the
start of the larger heavy industries that would shape Gainsborough’s building
and employment into the twentieth century.
Figure
10: Marshall's lunchtime rush
William Marshall
opened Marshall’s engineering in
1855.The ‘Britannia Ironworks’
moved to its final location by Central Station in 1856.It grew in size until it dominated the town covering 16
acres and employing 3,600 people.It
was a general agricultural engineering works producing traction engines,
steamrollers and other heavy vehicles.During
the First World War it employed 5,000 men making shells, tanks, guns and planes.During the Second World War it produced naval guns, anti-aircraft guns,
multi-barrelled pom-poms and 17 pounders for the Navy and Merchant fleets.It also secretly built X-craft submarines.
Boilers for industry and the RAF, agricultural machinery and machinery for road
building and maintenance were the mainstay of Marshall's up to its closure in
the 1980s. The Britannia Works is now a retail and leisure centre and as such
the site is once again at the forefront of the town's economy.
Figure
11: Baines Workshop
In 1857, William Baines took over Marshall’s old
premises in North Street and began the commercial repair of boneshaker bicycles.They continued to build bicycles including a rear-driven safety bicycle
and a ladies safety bicycle and also introduced the cushioned tyre.In 1901 Edward Baines joined with William Rose to design and build a car
at the Albion Works.The firm was
one of Dunlop’s first 20 customers.
In 1885 William Rose launched a tobacco wrapping
company in the town using his own design of automated wrapping machine.It wrapped ½ oz packets of tobacco.In 1898 he launched a small company to build cars in Gainsborough,
building 50 Rose Nationals in 1902.The
price of a six-seater Landau letter style (covered) Rose National, complete with
electric lights, was £625 at a time when a farm worker would earn 16s per week.During the Second World War, Rose produced Bofors guns and
designed and built the Rose turret used in Lancaster bombers – the turret’s
original design had poor visibility; Rose’s new design was produced in three
weeks and vastly improved.
By 1918 the older heavy industries were in decline.Then, Gainsborough became a victim of the ‘de-industrialisation’ and
rise of unemployment that took place over much of Britain during the 1980s.The large heavy industry factories have closed or now run on a
much-reduced scale.New small
‘light’ industries have opened on designated industrial estates, and the
power stations at West Burton and Cottam provide some employment. Most recently,
the new Marshall's Yard retail and
leisure complex has provided a welcome boost to the town's economy.
