The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire

Following on from an earlier blog (http://cheshirero.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/dialect.html) I wrote about books and articles relating to local dialect in the Local Studies Collection here at the Record Office in Chester, I stumbled upon Thomas Darlington’s The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire (Ref: 200293) which was published for the English Dialect Society (EDS) in 1887 just two years after Robert Holland’s 'A Glossary of Words' used in the County of Chester was issued, also by the EDS.  Darlington is rather apologetic about this, but because Holland specifically stated in his preface that he had little opportunity to become acquainted with the dialect in the Southern part of the county, an area he defines as ‘that part of Cheshire lying South of a line drawn from west to east across the county, and passing through Handley (six miles S.E. of Chester) and Crewe), it was felt by Darlington, and the EDS, that this new work was warranted.  And at 450 pages in length it clearly was.

The book contains a fascinating introduction talking about the influence of neighbouring dialects and language on that of South Cheshire.  Not all though – the “paucity of Welsh words in the folk-speech can only be explained as the result of the singular antipathy which the men of Cheshire have always shown towards their Welsh neighbours.”

What follows is a detailed Pronunciation and Grammar guide (of the kind that used to terrify me when studying languages in Secondary School), and then a rather interesting dialect version of the Book of Ruth (see image below)

The main bulk of the book (nearly 350pp) is a glossary of words as collected by Darlington and used in the defined geographical area.  It is a fascinating collection, and arguably his descriptions are a little more readable than Holland’s. Here’s a small selection of entries that caught my eye:

Apperntle, s. an apronful: from appern, an apron.  “A apperntle o’ ‘tatoe-pillin’s for th’ pigs”
Chommer, v.a. to masticate, chew. “Whey, if that young foxhaind hanna chommered my slipper aw to bits”
Cuckoo-wuts, s.pl. oats sown after the cuckoo has come.  Oats sown so late are not expected to turn out well.
Fecks, or Good Fecks!, interj. an exclamation of surprise.
Goblin, s. a gooseberry.
Hoozy-poozy, adj. wasting time. “Has Dick gone after that missin’ heifer?  Whey, one o’ the little lads mit ha’ fatcht her.  It is so hoozy-poozy to be doin’ a-that-ns, when hey mit ha’ bin getting on wi’ the milkin’ “
Johnny Raw, s. an ignorant, uncouth person.  “Yo bin a pratty Johnny Raw, to be turnt ait by yursel, an’ dunna know a B from a bull’s foot”
Kindle, v.a. to bring forth, bear.  Used of all small animals except cats, which are said to kittle.
Lithermon’s Looad, s. a lazy man’s load; a load piled up to save the trouble of a double journey.  “An’ nai, ye can go an’ fatch the rest o’ th’ hee; there’ll be rather moor t’n a jag left; bu’ dunna bring lithermon’s looad, else ye’n meebe have a waut “
Smellers, s.pl. a cat’s whiskers.  “If I know’d hooa’d cut that cat’s smellers off, I’d tickle their toby”
Three-cornered, adj. irritable.  “Yo mun mind what you sen to th’ mester; he’s in a very three-corned wee this mornin’, he welly snapped my yed off when I spoke to him just nai”
As someone born in Sheffield, I also rather enjoyed Yorkshire, s. cajolery, blarney, attempt to hoodwink or deceive.  “Let’s ha’ none o’ yur Yorkshire”
And finally (actually that honour falls to Zowkers – an exclamation of surprise)…the letter Z itself: “Elderly people have told me this letter used to be called uzzard; and persons now hardly past their prime were taught in their school days to call it zod.”

From Audlem to New York

Photographs can give amazing insight into the lives of the people of the past. At Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, cataloguing part of the glass plate negative collection unearthed a number of such images. These images are glass plate negatives depicting American life in the early 1880s. The only question was, why had we accepted items relating to an area so outside our collection policy? A theory arose that perhaps these people had links to Cheshire but had left to discover a new life in America. 

New York Garden- c11607 on Cheshire Image Bank

Upon inspection of the various boxes, it was found that some in fact were of areas around Audlem in Cheshire. The same hand had written the captions for both New York and Audlem; creating a link between the images and reinforcing the glass plates’ original grouping as a set.

We decided to research some of the names shown in the captions. Our Local Studies manager started on the trail of Brettel Gullen. She found out that his place of birth was listed as Brooklyn, America in October of 1884.


Marriage
After some further research, we came up with a discovery. Brettel’s parents had married in the Parish of Audlem the year before his birth (1883), and the newly married couple travelled to Brooklyn, USA where they began their lives together. Later records show that by 1894 three daughters had been added to the family- Margaret Emily; Agnes May and Edith Fernley Gullen.

1883 Marriage certificate of William Gullen and Emily Fernley from Find My Past

Jesse Fernley

Jesse Fernley is Brettel’s maternal grandfather and is listed on his daughter’s marriage certificate. In 1883 he is a school master, and Brettel’s mother (Emily Willoughby) plus two of her sisters followed in Jesse’s footsteps, becoming school mistresses.

“At this time,[1870-80s] Jessie Fearnley [sic] was the interesting headmaster of the C. of E. School, who lived at Moss Villa...” Marjorie Burton, Nineteenth Century Audlem.

Jesse stayed at Moss Villa until his death in 1924.

Moss Hall- copy from original by Jesse Fernley- c11618 on Cheshire Image Bank

The images we hold of Audlem in this collection are attributed to J.F (presumably Jesse Fernley) in 1875, copied onto glass plates by his son-in-law 17 years later.


Death
William Frederich Gullen (Brettel’s father) had copied these plates of Audlem, possibly to help him and his wife stave off homesickness. However, a mere two years afterwards she would be making her way back to the UK with her four children. The ship passenger list states that she is now a ‘widow’. Her husband had died close to his 40th birthday. Brettel was now the head of the family, aged 9.

1894 Passenger List Montreal to Liverpool from Ancestry

Later Life

Regardless of this setback, the remaining family’s fortune seemed to remain good over the next few years.

As Brettel grew up, he studied in both Leeds and London as a railway carriage draftsman and continued in his work with the railway throughout his life. Multiple passenger lists show him going between Southampton and Buenos Aires repeatedly. A lot of British companies were buying up Argentinian rail networks around this time which could explain Brettel’s presence there.

1933 Passenger list Buenos Aires to Southampton from Ancestry

All the family except Brettel show up in the 1911 Wales census, with an address in Cardiff. It shows us that the daughters have all followed in their mother’s and grandfather’s footsteps and become teachers. The address here and the address found 22 years later on Brettel’s passenger list (above) are under a 45 minute walk from each other. We don’t know if Brettel moved away or they all moved and continued to live together not far down the road.

1911 Wales Census from Ancestry

Despite Brettel and his siblings losing their father at a young age, they got to meet their Cheshire Grandfather for the first time and had the chance to experience two different ways of life and we have some amazing photographs to show for it.

The whole Gullen family (inc. a 5th child who died in infancy) with pet bird- c11613 on Cheshire Image Bank

If you want to see more about this family and their life in America, the whole set of images have been digitised and are available on Cheshire Image Bank now.

N.B Previously we had said Mr Gullen was from America but he was in fact from Walsall, later moving to Liverpool and then to America before his marriage.