The Revd. Roger Taylor Burton (1818-1906)
Written by Tim Cockerill
Occupation: Priest
Ancestry and Background
Roger Taylor Burton was born on 13 December 1818 in Manchester, the youngest child of Emanuel Matthews Burton (1779-1822) who married Maria (d.1852), the youngest of the three daughters of Roger Taylor senior (1740-1792), an Ulverston mercer, in 1799. The Burton family owned Middleton Mill, at Middleton, 6 miles N.N.E. of Manchester, and were large cotton manufacturers, spinners and printers. Operating as Daniel Burton and Sons the firm ran 11,000 spindles by steam power and also had 500 power looms. They were principally employed in producing calicoes for neighbouring printers. In addition the firm operated their own extensive print works on the banks of the River Irk at nearby Rhodes.
In 1812 their mill was attacked by about 3,000 Luddites over two days in a pitched battle described in The Leeds Mercury as ' one of the most bloody and prolonged examples of civil insurrection in the history of the United Kingdom'. There were also riots on Briggate, Leeds in the same year. The usual reasons for industrial riot included the fear of job losses following greater mechanisation and the falling of wages in relation to the volatile cotton markets. In anticipation of the violence, Burton armed forty to fifty of his employees, having drilled them in the use of firearms for several weeks. As the mob attacked his mill he first ordered his men to fire blanks but, when the rioting became even more ugly, he gave the order to use live ammunition. Consequently, twelve rioters were killed and between 60-100 were injured. During the riot the shops in Middleton were emptied. Furthermore, Emanuel's mansion at nearby Parkfield, called Park House, was broken into and burnt to the ground. Thereafter he announced that the company had decided not to work their looms any more and thus dismissed 400 workers. He probably never recovered from this devastating incident and died at the early age of 42 in 1822. He was buried in All Saints Cemetery in Manchester. His widow Maria, with her five small children, moved back north to be near her family and were living at Low Graythwaite, Satterthwaite by 1829. She died in 1852 aged 72 at Burton on Trent and was buried with her husband.
On his mother's side Roger came from an old established Cumbrian (then North Lancashire) family. The Taylors of Finsthwaite , on the south west shore of Windermere, were one of the principal landowners in the area owning Plum Green, later called Finsthwaite House, Waterside and July Flower Tree (locally known as Jolliver), as well as extensive woodlands. Edward Taylor JP (d.1790 aged 59), a member of this family, was a partner in the Backbarrow Company .
Roger Taylor Burton was Emanuel's only son and he had four elder sisters, three of whom married. Maria became Mrs Hopkins; Eliza Mrs Garden (or Gaden?); Jane Burton was unmarried and Ellen (or Eileen) became Mrs Cornthwaite.
Education
Roger entered Sedbergh School in Yorkshire in August 1835 at 16, which was rather later than most of his contemporaries, and left in June 1838. From there he was admitted as a pensioner at St John's College, Cambridge on 30 May 1838 and graduated BA in 1845 and MA in 1850.
Clerical Career
He was ordained deacon in 1844 and was priested in Hereford in 1845. After holding numerous curacies in Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire and Surrey he was appointed vicar of Great Tey, near Colchester, Essex in 1875, retiring in 1891 in his early seventies. The village is dominated by its Norman church, St Barnabas, which has some remaining Saxon fabric. In 1880 there was a population of 781 and his stipend was £247 p.a. In 1881 he was living at The Great House in Great Tey, next to the school-house, with his wife and one female domestic servant
He was also the author of Contemplations of Israel's Exodus considered Allegorically published by Hatchards in 1867.
Marriage and Family
The Revd Roger Taylor Burton married on 4 October 1854, at Manchester cathedral, Ellen Bibby, aged 34, the daughter of Thomas Bibby of Chorlton- upon- Medlock, who was a cheese factor.
Their only son William Latham Burton (1863-1941) emigrated to Australia, where he was a machinery merchant and consulting engineer. In 1897, at Wallaroo, South Australia, he married Fannie Louise Edwards and they had a son Roger Johnson Burton, born in 1900.
In addition he had three daughters, Ellen Meona Burton and Lucy Burton, both unmarried, and Maria Burton (1856-1960) who married at Ulverston in 1891 the Revd Dr Edward Bartrum (1834-1905), as his third wife. Dr Bartrum was the headmaster of King Edward's School, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshshire from 1864 until 1889, when he was forced to retire due to deafness. This did not prevent him becoming Vicar of Wakes Colne in Essex from 1887 until his death in 1906, where there is a tombstone to him in the churchyard.
The Later Years
In 1901, Roger Taylor Burton was 82 and a widower living in retirement with his daughters the Misses Ellen and Lucy Burton, at Barrow Croft, Stott Park, Finsthwaite. This house was close to their Lewthwaite and Pedder cousins, who were all great supporters and benefactors to St Peter's Church, Finsthwaite, of which to two latter families were joint patrons.
As recorded above, Roger published one religious book, but he was also an artist, poet and photographer; whilst his sporting activities included angling and shooting. In an undated newspaper cutting of 1904 , at the age of 86, he was reported as being out shooting for six hours in a snow storm without an overcoat!
However, the Times newspaper of 30 January 1906 carried a note of his death in his 88th year on 27 January and he was buried at Finsthwaite on 31 January. Another undated local newspaper cutting contained a long obituary and details of his interment, including a roll call of the local gentry in attendance, amongst them members of the Machell, Bigland and Townley families.
The old priest left a substantial estate, this being sworn for probate purposes at £10,241-13-0, in today's money at least £650,000.
Sources
- Bettley, James and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: Essex, Yale, 2007
- Bulmer and Co., T, History, The Topography and Directory of Furness and Cartmel, Preston, 1910
- Clergy List 1880, John Hall, London, 1860
- Burton mss, Cumbria Archives, Whitehaven, YDLEW/10/14/8 and 44
- Foster, Joseph, Alumni Oxonienses, 1715-1886, vol. 1, p. 71, Oxford, 1888 (for Bartrum)
- Lancaster Gazette 2, 13 and 20 June 1812 and Leeds Mercury 25 April 1812 (re the Luddite attack on Burtons' Mill)
- Venn, J.A.Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 11, vol. 1, p.469, Cambridge,1940 (for Burton)