Among the tangible relics that Normanton possesses which connect the town with its early history, the Parish Church (All Saints) is the most important. The earlier records that I have been able to find of this church bear the date 1256. In that year Roger le Peytivin, (a Norman Baron) of Altofts Hall granted the Church to the Hospital of St.John, at Newland.
The grant gave also forty acres of 'his wood at Altofts and pasturage through all his Manor of Altofts (except his Park at Altofts below his Hall) for twenty-four oxen sixteen cows and one bull, with their suit of two years, and thirty swine with their suit of one year, to hold with all his villeins and their appurtenances and liberties belonging to Altofts town, and the free fishing of Calder and all other rivers to the extent of his fee, without any service, to the use of the grantees, whom he styles "the blessed poor of the Hospital of Jerusalem and the Prior and Brethren of the said hospital, dwelling at Newland in England, in the county of York.''
The church was undoubtedly built in the early Norman period. The building is in a good state of preservation, and consists of tower, nave with narrow aisles, a long chancel with chapel on the south side, and south porch with high pitched roof. The chapel is the burial place of the Bunnys of Newland, Torres of Snydale, Favells of Normanton, Smiths (now Bosworths) late of Newland, and the Mallets and Lovetts of Normanton. The Favells were an important Normanton family and were resident here in the early part of the seventeenth century. on the south chancel floor are memorial slabs of the Favells bearing the dates 1698, 1714, 1777 and others in the eighteenth century. Here also is a large altar tomb of the Malletts and Levetts. the Mallets it would seem were a very ancient family, as we are told their ancestors flourished here in the middle of the thirteenth century. The tomb on the top bears the arms of the Levetts together with the arms of the Mallets. on the wall above the tomb is an undated tablet recording that ''Mrs. Elizabeth Levett made benefaction for the poor of Normanton and Snydale, and for teaching poor children.'' There also are tombs of the Torres mentioned under Snydale.
Among other interesting memorials in the church are brasses on the south chancel floor to members and a relative of the Bunnys, dated from 1547 to 1586 one in for Edward Restwood of La Vache, in Buckinghamshire, Father of Bridget the wife of Richard Bunny, who died at Newland when on a visit to his daughter in 1546. The brass says he had three sons who all died without issue, and six daughters and co- heiresses, of those Bridget marries Richard Bunny of Newland, Margaret married for her third husband Nicholas Bunny of Newton, Beatrice married Thomas Waterton of Walton. His arms appear with several quarterings on a brass plate let into the slab, which bears the inscription alluded to above. Another memorial which should be of great interest to the inhabitants of Normanton and the surrounding districts, is a large altar tomb of six or seven feet high, placed here in memory of John Preston Esquire, of Altofts Hall, in this parish who died in 1594 and was buried here on 20th January in that year. The people of Normanton and district are enjoying today many of the charities he founded.
He founded the little hospital at Kirkthorpe (of which more hereafter), also the Normanton Grammar School and Masters House, which he directed the executors of his will to buy ground for and erect. The tombstone has no inscription, but the top seems to have been prepared for a covering stone, and probably once had a large slab upon it, but it is now without. His will directs 'has burial to be in it, and refers to it as "the tomb already by me for that purpose begun, and I will that it shall be finished and my arms and pedigree to be set thereupon within one year after my death."
The churchyard may be said to consist of two parts - the old and the new. The new part is well kept, and most of the graves are so well cared for, that in the spring and summer it has the appearance of a beautiful flower garden. In the old part are memorial stones to many old Normanton and Altofts families, some of whom are still well known in the district.
Here also are stones which bear some curious inscriptions. Just inside the railings, opposite the south end of the chancel is a stone slab which bears the following inscription and peculiar date:- "Here Lyeth interred ye body of Thomas Mager, late servant of Nostel Hall, who departed this life 18th day of February, Anno Domini 17 -. " outside the east end of the church may be seen the head-stone over the grave of William Longthorn, who was murdered at Snydale in 1828. On the opposite side of the path in the old ground, is a stone to the memory of ''John Day, who met his death by the wreck of the ''Rothesay Castle," on the 17th day of August 1831, aged 23 years.'' The wreck of this vessel ranks among the saddest to be found in the annals of English shipwrecks. The "Rothesay Castle" was a steam packet plying between Liverpool and the Welsh pleasure resorts, and was lost whilst on a pleasure trip between Liverpool and Anglesey through the callous neglect, it is said, of a drunken captain and his officers.
On the morning of August 17th, 1831, she left Liverpool at 11 o'clock with one hundred and fifty passengers aboard, chiefly working folk from Rochdale and Manchester; amongst them being many women and children. Five miles from Liverpool the steamer encountered a strong head-wind, which soon assumed the strength and fierceness of a gale. The vessel laboured heavily in the rough sea and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon had made only fifteen miles. The situation looked so bad that one of the passengers went below and asked the captain to turn back. The captain looked up from the dinner table, and answered with a snarl, "Bah! there may be lots of fear, there's No danger," and then turned the passengers fears into a silly joke for the amusement of his officers.
At five o'clock the captain left the table and showed himself on deck. A number of passengers surrounded him as soon as he appeared from below and offered to make him a present of their fare and remunerate him into the bargain, if he would return to port. His answer was ''one would suppose you had committed a murder, you are so frightened." At 8 o'clock ''Rothesay Castle" was progressing at the rate of four miles in two hours, and the water was bubbling up from the hold and the cabin, the passengers labouring in parties at the pumps. Just before midnight the ship was stumbling like a broken down steed towards the entrance of the Menai Straits.
Through a momentary rift in the clouds, the moon showed the passengers they were but half a mile from the Isle of Anglesey, but the poor old ship was not equal to making a decisive effort, the captain stupidly remaining below at a crisis when duty, policy and humanity rendered his presence on deck absolutely imperative. Consequently nothing was done. Two of the engine fires were now extinguished. Ashes from the furnaces blocked the pumps and prevented the passengers from keeping the water under, a critical part of the coast was near, and the drunken skipper was still below. It appeared as if the ship was being allowed to drift to her doom without any attempt to save her. Before one o'clock in the morning the milk white foam of breakers appeared close at hand. The "Rothesay Castle'' was skirting the Dutchman's Bank, a shoal wide famed for wreck and ruin The ship struck the spit stern on, a second concussion immediately followed, and while the vessel was being broken in pieces on the rocks the captain was still insisting that there was no danger. But in spite of his senseless stupidity he now began to realise there was some danger, and began to issue orders. But it was too late, the ship was breaking up and the captain and mate were almost the first two victims of their own folly, both of them were struck by the falling funnel and knocked overboard and drowned. In this tragic disaster a hundred and thirty persons lost their lives and amongst them was young John Day, whose body was laid to rest in the churchyard at Normanton.
A full and vivid account of the wreck of the "Rothesay Castle" is given in "Noteable Shipwrecks," published by Cassell & Co. in 1908, from which I have extracted the above details.
Another very interesting memorial stone in Normanton churchyard, is one to the memory of William Crawshay, who died 23rd of May, 1767. It was a son of this William Crawshay who founded the great Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil, S.Wales.
The Crawshays were prosperous farmers at Normanton and Woodhouse in the early part of the eighteenth century, and the history of their founding and developing the iron trade until they became known as ''The Iron Kings" borders on the romantic. I cannot enter into details but l feel I should not be doing my duty to the inhabitants of Normanton, and that these chronicles would be incomplete, if I gave no record of the Crawshay family.
I have been fortunate in having been able to secure the report of a speech made by one of the Crawshays; of the Cyfarthfa works, at a dinner given to him in 1847, by the people of Merthyr, and the following paragraph which I extract from his speech needs no comment. on this occasion Mr.Crawshay said:-
"My grandfather was the son of a most respectable farmer in Normanton, Yorkshire. At the age of 15 father and son differed, my grandfather, an enterprising boy, rode his pony to London, then an arduous task of some fifteen or twenty days travelling. on getting there he found himself perfectly destitute of friends. He sold his pony for £15 and during the time that the proceeds of the pony kept him, he found employment in a iron warehouse in London, kept by Mr.Bicklewith, he hired himself for three years for £15, the price of his pony. By industry, integrity and perseverance he gained his master's favour, and was termed ''the Yorkshire Boy." He had a very amiable and good master, and before he had been two years in his place he stood high in this just man's confidence. The trade in which he was engaged was only a cast-iron warehouse, and his master assigned to him, "the Yorkshire Boy" the priviledge of selling flat irons - the things with which our shirts and clothes are flattened. The washerwomen of London were sharp folk and when they bought one flat iron they stole two. Mr. Bicklewith thought that the best person to cope with them would be a man working for his own interest and a Yorkshire man at the same time.
That was the first matter of trading that ever my grandfather embarked upon. By honesty and perseverance he continued to grow in favour. His master retired in a few years and left my grandfather in possession of his cast-iron business in London, which was carried out on the very site where I now spend my days in York Yard. My grandfather left his business in London and came down here, and my father who carried it on supplied him with money almost as fast as he spent it here: but not quite so fast. What accured subsequently this company knows perfectly well. Who started with humbler prospects in life than my grandfather? Depend upon it, any man who is industrious, honest and persevering will be respected in any class of life he may move in. Do you think gentlemen, there is a man in England prouder than I am at this moment."
It is pleasing to know that the man who laid the foundation of one of the largest iron works in the country was the son of a farmer and a native of Normanton. The proprietors of the Crawshay Baily Ironworks, at Cardiff, Glamorgan- shire, were a branch of the Crawshay family. The Normanton parish registers show that the Crawshays and Bailys are old Normanton families, and it would seem they were related from an early period, some of the male members of the Bailey family in the present generation, still bear the Christian name of ''Crawshay" and by their tombstones in Normanton churchyard, we find that in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Crawshays and Baileys were buried side by side.
As already mentioned Mr. J. Freston lived in Altofts Hall, and he devised it with all the lands in his own occupation to his wife Margery for twelve years on condition of her not marrying again, and of her paying first £10 a year and afterwards £20 to maintain a nephew at the university.
On the south wall of the church is the pre-Reformation altar stone. At the Reformation most of the altars in our churches were destroyed, the altar stone now in Normanton church was found buried under the floor of the church, and was taken up and restored to its original position. There are various markings and carvings upon it which no one now seems to understand, it is supposed to be unique amongst the altars in English churches today.
On the north side of the chancel, into the outer side of one of the pillars is carved a basin-shaped recess, this is supposed to be the "stoup" in which the holy water was kept in pre-Reformation times, and, as I am informed there was once a porch and entrance at this part of the building, it seems to strengthen the supposition.
The reading desk is a new one, having been erected in the present month (May 1928), it is made of fine oak, and the carving is delicate and very beautiful. It has been given to the church by Mr. F. Denison of Normanton, in memory of his deceased wife and parents. Above the desk on the wall is a tablet setting forth their ages and the dates of their deaths.
The church is perpendicular in style and was originally without a tower, the tower being added later, and was rebuilt about the middle of the eighteenth century. The whole building was repaired extensively in 1851-2, some of the walls being rebuilt. Several of the windows were put in afresh and the inside walls were dressed off.
The parish registers date back to the year 1538, and it is pleasing to see they are well kept and in good condition, some of the earliest have been well copied and bound in strong, substantial bindings. In looking through the early years I found some quaint and curious entries of burials, some of which I copied and will insert here. ''Thomas Riley being cut with broad axe at Newland, died and was buried 11th August, 1591." Another burial is that of "Ould Gibson, 23rd December, 1590" and lower down we find "Ould Gibson's wife, 3rd Jan.'' In 1677 was buried here - "a stranger that came to the stret house" (Streethouse), and in the same year we find buried here "ould Sharp, a tynsler of Barnsley.'' In the year 1589 we find this curious entry "Jo Bailie of Bury, Lancash, being slain betwixt Wakefield and Pomfrett, by some wicked person, was buried 9th. Feb."
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The Rev. H.W. Orgill, the present vicar, has kindly supplied me with a list of the Rectors and Vicars of Normanton which I append.
List of Rectors and Vicars, 1262 - 1927.
Rectors:-
1262 Henry de Kirkely
1275 William de Moulton
Richard de Exon
1287 Adam de Hertford
1313 William de Rothwell
1320 John de Helaston
William de Sprigwell
1405 Thomas Hilton (resigned) '
1413 (Rectorial or great titles were transferred to the Preceptory of St.John of Jerusalem at Newland, and the subsequent Incumbents were vicars. A copy of the deed is extant under The seal of Henry (Bowet) Cardinal Archbishop of York,1407 - 1423, and Legate of the Pope.)
Vicars:-
1413 Roger de Castleford
John Hill
1440 Robert Shaw (buried in Chapel)
1458 William Nelson (buried in Choir)
Thomas Dalby
1490 John Burton
1500 Robert Alman (buried in the Choir)
1520 John Hall
1537-8 Thomas Field (Chaplain)
1538 Anthony Frobisher (also Vicar of Darrington)
Richard Frogoland (Chaplain)
154- Richard Johnson, Master of the Grammar School. Salary 59s. 2d
1559 Richard Snydell
1583 Thomas Bulwith
1593 John Palmer
1594 Lawrence Barker, D.D. Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.
1595 James Hill
1598 Michael Willars, exchanged with
1615 Richard Slater
1625 George Watts
1625 Wills (for one year)
1626 Thomas Riche
Robert Vity
1632 Robert Hitch
Timothy Denison, (Puritan Minister during the Commonwealth) There is an entry of his burial on 1st January, 1657.
1664 John Stacy ("Priest'') Buried 1666, "Vicker of Normanton."
1666 Rowland Hill
1689 William Herbert
1727 Benjamin Wilson, Headmaster of Wakefield Grammar School, and Vicar of Wakefield as well as Normanton for 13 years. 1750-1763.
1750 Sam Clint ( Curate)
1764 John Holsworth
1798-9 - Harrison
1800 John Townson
1809 Robert Evans (non-resident)
1833 William Mason
1867 William Meredith Lane
1888 Herbert Parry Thornton
1897 Alexander Brown
1900 Clement Bird
1927 Harold W.Orgill.
