Brigg Blog today posts the fifth part in a Dates Timeline series that will eventually feature events of note in our area from the 11th century through to the present day. Here we recall the period from 1800 to 1899 - the entire 19th century. Other periods will follow in due course.
If you have any entries for 1800 to 1899 you feel should be added to what follows, please email scoopfisher@aol.com
Your contribution will be included next time we update our Brigg Timeline with additional entries.
Brigg Blog's aim is to create a database tracing the development of Brigg from a humble fording place on the Ancholme, with a few properties nearby, to the popular market town it is today.
Although our Dates Timeline is centred on Brigg, some entries relating to the surrounding district have been included, and more are welcome.
1800: Enclosure of Wrawby and Brigg fields over five years - a landmark in agriculture.
1802: Plans were drawn up to deepen and widen the River Ancholme to permit large cargo vessels to use it.
1804: Fearing a war-time French invasion via the River Humber, plans to evacuate many local people were put in place, with 600 wagons and carts to rendezvous at Brigg. A mill with four sails was built at Castlethorpe (converted in the 1980s to create Arties Mill Hotel).
1813: The Congregational Chapel was built on Wrawby Street (still in use today, housing the Lovelle estate agency).
1815: The Singleton Birch lime products company was established, going on to develop a site still in use at Melton Ross.
1817: Building work began on the Town Hall (Buttercross) in Brigg Market Place.
1820: The Black Bull pub was established on Wrawby Street.
1824: A cricket match was played in Scawby Park between Louth and the Scawby & Brigg clubs (plural).
1827: A gas company was formed in Brigg to provide lighting for the town. Furrier Ralph Musgrove built the largest house in the town - on Wrawby Street (eventually converted to retail and used by Woolworth's and Martin's).
1828: Building of the County Bridge over the River Ancholme; it was designed by James Sandby Padley, Lindsey’s county surveyor - hence the name. The bridge it replaced was described in the early 19th century as “perhaps without equal in the county for danger.”
1829: Scawby’s tower mill was built.
1834: The Wesleyan Chapel was erected on West Street, Scawby. The Rev Charles Cotterill was appointed headmaster of Brigg Grammar School, staying until 1876.
1835: Horkstow suspension bridge was completed on the River Ancholme, designed by Sir John Rennie. Robert Carey Elwes was Brigg’s Lord of the Manor, occasionally holding a court; some 1,800 people were then living in the town.
1836: Bell’s windmill constructed on Mill Lane, Brigg.
1837: Brigg Workhouse was completed off Wrawby Road - managed by the Brigg Poor Law Union; it served 52 parishes. A. M. & E. Sargent’s brewery was established in Brigg - water from a spring at nearby Castlethorpe being considered eminently suitable for making beer.
1840: Laying of the foundation stone for a Primitive Methodist Chapel on Bridge Street, Brigg - known locally as Bourne Methodists after one of its supporters. Redbourne School was constructed with funds from the 10th Duke of St Albans.
1841: A trade directory listed an impressive 30 licensed premises of varying sizes in Brigg.
1842: School built on Vicarage Road, Wrawby.
1843: St John's Church, Brigg, was constructed on the site of a former chapel of ease. A steam-powered 'carrier boat’ began operating a daily service between Brigg and Hull. In the 1840s it was said that 1,000 vessels a year left Brigg - many transporting coal and corn.
1844: Brigg was infected with more pickpockets and vagabonds than we can remember to have seen on any former occasion (newspaper report from May that year). Improvements to the River Ancholme were finally completed under Sir John Rennie, creating an efficient waterway and offering suitable land drainage. Walker’s shoe shop was registered at 65 Wrawby Street, the business having opened in the late 1700s (details supplied by Josie Webb).
1845: Smallpox outbreak in Brigg.
1846: Work started on building Brigg’s first police station & courthouse.
1847: William Cressey became the town's first Postmaster.
1848: Barnetby and Brigg railway stations were opened by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, together with those serving Howsham and North Kelsey.
1849: Brigg town centre stocks were used for the last time as a punishment - the offender being a local drunk! The first sewers were laid in the town, where sewage had previously flowed into the "stinking Town Drain" (it occupied a route similar to today's A18 on Barnard Avenue). Scawby & Hibaldstow railway station and the one serving Kirton Lindsey both opened with the completion of Kirton Tunnel – 1,325 yards long through the Lincoln Cliff. In his book Through Kirton Tunnel, Stephen Gay notes that MS&LR chief engineer John Fowler was so impressed “he gave immediate orders that all 130 men contracted by John Stephenson & Co. be treated, at his expense, to one gallon of ale each and a first rate slap-up supper!” John Fowler late became Sir John and was chief engineer on the world famous Forth Bridge project.
1850: Brigg pubs included the The Railway Inn on Albert Street (not long after the opening of the nearby station), The Hammer in Hand on what’s now Elwes Street and The Moon and Stars in the Market Place. There were also temperance 'watering holes' serving only soft drinks - The Waverley, Stringers and Hunters. The town saw a major influx of Irish people who had fled their country because of the Potato Famine (1845-49). Most of them lived in cottages within the town centre courtyards.
1851: Brigg Corn Exchange was built for a joint stock company; John Hett was the Exchange’s secretary. The Elwes family sold considerable land for new housing development to the east of Queen Street.
1852: The Sargent and Co Brewery was built on banks of the Old River Ancholme (behind today’s White Hart pub). An Act of Parliament was obtained to establish a water works, replacing the Wharf Well which had been used for more than a century.
1854: National School built at Searby.
1855: Kelly’s Lincolnshire Directory called Brigg a town of extensive trade – one of the most important in Lincolnshire for coal, corn and timber. Building of the Brigg National (Church of England) School in the town centre; it was opened by the Bishop of Lincoln. Grasby School was rebuilt and further enlarged in 1897.
1857: Brigg Cemetery opened while Wrawby’s churchyard closed (the new cemetery was a joint venture). The Statute Fair was reported to have attracted 10,000 people to Brigg.
1859: Work started on the Trent, Ancholme and Grimsby Railway which, by May 1866, had been extended to link with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway line at Barnetby and the South Yorkshire Railway at Althorpe. Seventy Brigg people emigrated to New Zealand, with 20 more doing so the following year. They included chemist Thomas Ball who became a successful businessman, landowner, politician, magistrate and lay preacher on the other side of the world.
1860: Kirton jail, serving the district, had 369 inmates, 65 of whom were female.
1862: Robert Owston, a solicitor, sold the large property that would later become the Exchange Club, on Bigby Street, including 35 dozen bottles of port in the deal. Barnetby School, on St Barnabas Road, opened.
1863: Brigg suffered a typhoid outbreak centred on some of the crowded courtyards.
1864: First meeting of the Local Board, establishing effective ocal government in this area. Brigg Town Football Club was founded. Barnetby’s Joshua Slowen drove the first train over the River Trent, using the new Keadby Bridge.
1865: Opening of United Methodist Church on Bigby Street (demolished 1966).
1866: Elsham railway station opened on the new Barnetby-Scunthorpe line.
1867: First issue of the Hull Times weekly newspaper, later to become the Lincolnshire Times, with offices in Brigg.
1868: Ancholme Rowing Club was founded in Brigg (still going today); suitable Victorian attire included straw boaters and knickerbockers – the main activity then being rowing along the river to enjoy bank-side picnics . Brigg Market attracted buyers from as far afield as Sheffield, Wakefield and Leeds, who came by train on Thursdays.
1869: Some Brigg streets and courtyards were renamed, including The Butchery which became Elwes Street. Grasby Church was rebuilt with money from the vicar, whose brother was famous poet Lord Tennyson. The Ancholme Lodge of Freemasons was formed in Brigg.
1870: The first Elsham Show was held in the grounds of Elsham Hall on August Bank Holiday.
1871: Building of Bigby School for D. H. Carey-Elwes.
1872: The rabbit fur trade in Brigg was reported to have ceased, which had been a major centre for many decades. Fifteen cases of smallpox were reported in Brigg. Local road tolls were abolished. Brigg became an ecclesiastical parish for the first time. The public elementary school was built in Elsham and a school opened in Worlaby. Kirton Lindsey's House of Correction closed.
1873: Brigg Vicarage was built on Bigby Street (later to house the Prep School and now used by Demeter House).
1874: Building of Hibaldstow School on Redbourne Road.
1875: A Roman Catholic School was established in Brigg with Miss Cowlam as headmistress. Spring’s began making food products in a town centre courtyard – initially on a modest scale. The Labourers’ League held a meeting in Brigg; it campaigned for land reform.
1877: A new chapel opened in Brigg Workhouse.
1878: Thomas Bell & Sons was established - forerunner of today's Country Store on Bigby Road. Brigg Grammar School was improved and extended with a large boarding house added; John Parker of Brigg tendered for the work. Richmond Flowers, who took over as headmaster in January 1879, liked to ‘ride to hounds’ and was a fine cricketer with the Brigg club.
1879: Brigg Subscription Band formed.
1880: Lincolnshire County Show held in Brigg.
1881: A new light railway between Lincoln and Brigg was suggested.
1882: The Bigby Road Bridge Halt was closed by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway; located on Bigby High Road, near today’s A1084 Kettleby bridge, it was used for about 30 years by Brigg people to access trains on the Barnetby-Lincoln line. Men against boys?... Brigg Town Football Club thrashed Brigg Grammar School 18-0. In the first round of the Lincolnshire Challenge Cup, Grimsby Town beat Brigg Ancholme 5-3 while Brigg Britannia lost 1-0 to Barton Town.
1884: Cottages were built on Glebe Road, near the grammar school field.
1885: The Brigg Parliamentary Constituency was created, Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson becoming the first MP.
1886: A prehistoric log boat unearthed during excavations to build a gasometer in Brigg; it was moved to Hull Museum in 1909 but destroyed by bombing during World War Two in 1942. Mr Justice Chitty, sitting in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in London, ruled that the pre-historic boat discovered six feet below the surface of land being excavated by the Brigg Gas Company was the legal property of the Elwes family who owned the land and not the gas company which claimed ownership of the boat (information kindly supplied by Judge Michael Heath, now retired, a former Brigg resident). Samuel Danks Waddy took over as the local MP.
1889: “Tumultuous reception” for local land and property owner Gervase Elwes and his wife Lady Winefride, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh; following their honeymoon they arrived in Brigg by train; estate workmen erected a triumphal arch on the station approach which they passed under on their way to the local Manor House; people crowded the streets, flags were flown, feasting took place and all the shops were closed. Henry Spring began lemon curd manufacture in Brigg. However, trade on the River Ancholme up to Bishopbridge, a centre for farmers shipping corn, had virtually ceased following the arrival of the railway.
1890: A sanatorium (later to be used as a canteen) was added on the field at Brigg Grammar School.
1892: Brigg’s boundary was extended to include parts of the town to the west of the County Bridge, formerly in Broughton and Scawby parishes. Canon John Booth Good, who for many years ran the Mission to the Thompson and Fraser River Indians in British Columbia, wrote a book about his travels and experiences, and also gave a vivid account of his time as a pupil at Brigg Grammar School.
1893: Dunn’s shoe shop opened on Wrawby Street, Brigg. George Layne established a cycle business in the town; in future decades he was to sell cars and motor-cycles on Bigby Street; George was one of the first people in North Lincolnshire to own a car.
1894: Glanford Brigg Urban District Council was created, taking on duties previously undertaken by the Brigg Local Board and the Poor Law Union. Brigg Rural District Council, based in the town, served surrounding villages. The Peacock and Binnington agricultural engineering company founded. John Maunsell Richardson became Brigg MP in a by-election.
1895: Harold Reckitt was returned to represent Brigg in Parliament.
1896: Rebuilding of the Angel Hotel frontage to simulate an older half-timbered 'mock Tudor' building. The Council School in North Kelsey was completed. The Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway – operating all local stations and goods depots – became the Great Central Railway.
1897: Local businesses decorated their premises to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and a special dinner was held; however, the Brigg Board of Guardians decided not to allow a pint of beer apiece to be made available to elderly men living in the Workhouse so they could drink the Queen’s health. Wallhead's Outfitters was established - still trading today on Wrawby Street. A monument to the late Alderman Shaw was unveiled. The Hull Times ran a column called Heard in Brigg Streets
1898: Eight people died as a result of the area’s worst ever railway accident – at Wrawby Junction. Spring’s in Brigg added lemon cheese (or curd) to the product range; it proved very popular.
1899: Dunham's - bakers and confectioners – were established (still in town today). A new Post Office opened on Wrawby Street.
PICTURED ABOVE: Brigg Market Place circa 1830, Sargent's Brewery and the cemetery's chapel.
