The Loyal Declaration of the County of Leicester was a response by Government supporters to the protests against the Peterloo Massacre of 16 August 1819. Though far from the events themselves in Manchester and the political pressure-points of London, Leicestershire had not entirely escaped from the turmoil of the times. On 23 March 1820 the radical leader Sir Francis Burdett had been brought to trial in the Leicester assizes on a charge of Seditious Libel.
On 9 December 1820 the Leicester Petty Sessions agreed to a Resolution to adopt the Declaration and send it out across the county. Local landowners like Henry Halford in Wistow, Thomas Burnaby of Misterton and the Duke of Rutland received printed copies of the text of the Declaration. The Rev. James Tindall held the post of Rector of Knaptoft as the Duke’s appointee and it was he who brought the Declaration to his chapelries in Shearsby and Mowsley.
Tindall had been asked to call a meeting for any ‘Gentlemen, Clergy, Freeholders and others’ who may be sympathetic or persuadable to the cause. The most likely venue in the village would have been the New Inn on the Turnpike Road since that was large enough to accommodate hunting parties. It is telling that George Hardey of the New Inn was the last person to add his name, bring the proceedings to a close. The population of Shearsby amounted to 310 when counted in the third annual census of May 1821, so the names added to the Declaration were just a small sample from the village as a whole, but the Rector was aiming to include as many of the influential males in the parish as he could.
James Tindall had been appointed as Rector of Knaptoft in 1817 and so was relatively new in the post in which he was to serve until 1852. Nevertheless his role commanded enough respect that when he called a meeting people would show up. Those gathered; the gentlemen, freeholders and others of the parish, listened to Tindall outline the main themes of the Declaration. He criticised the protestors who ’caused disaffection in the country’; aligned pride in one’s country with support for its government and pointed a finger of blame at newspapers and pamphleteers for upsetting the moral as well as political order in the kingdom. This done he signed the document himself and looked to those present to add their names to the Declaration. One by one, fifteen names were added.
William Walker was still noted as the major freehold farmer in 1846 in William White’s ‘History, Gazetteer and Directory of Leicestershire‘ (even though he had died in 1841). The Walker family, represented by Thomas Walker’s two sons William and Job, had built up their land holdings after the Enclosure Act of 1773. They were used to being involved in affairs beyond their own village. Later in the 1820s, for example, they were founder members of the Leicestershire General Association for the Prosecution of Horse, Cattle and Sheep-Stealers.
The other two freeholders noted in 1846 were William Ward and William Reeve. The Ward family had participated in the Enclosure of the village lands, paying in the second highest amount, almost £70, for their allotted areas. Thomas Ward ran the mill alongside his farm. His brother William was not among those signing the Declaration, and nor was William Reeve, though his interests in developing spa at the Bath to the south of the village may have prevented him from taking part.
Thomas and Joseph Read also had diversified beyond agriculture and were involved in fellmongering: processing the skins of sheep and other animals into leather for the shoe and glove-making trades. Much of the character and prosperity of the village in the nineteenth century was based on their combination of farming and leather manufacturing.
Richard Messenger and Thomas Simons were both involved in the daily life of the village. Richard Messenger had taken his turn as constable. This role was more a village liaison than policing role, though his successor had to take charge of leading the investigation into the disappearance and murder of James Read a few years later. Thomas Simons had served as the village clerk for as long as anyone could remember. Both would have been involved in managing the two charities set up to look after the welfare of the poorest among the villagers. For them December was a busy month with coals to distribute on St. Thomas’ Day (21st of December) and bread on Christmas Day. Thomas’ son William would become the village schoolmaster in the 1840s.
There were two people signing who shared the name Thomas Weston. One was landlord at the Old Crown supplying ale to the village and the other was the son of John Weston. That both father and son were to end their days outside the village shows that their family interests spread beyond the parish. John Weston died in London and Thomas in Gateshead in 1834. Thomas’ sisters were running a boarding school in the village by the end of the 1820s.
The Rev. Tindall had succeeded in gathering the most important and influential men of the parish and encouraged them to put their names to the Loyal Declaration. There may have been some absences, but these were people with responsibilities, even in Winter. In nearby Bitteswell it was noted that none of the dissenters had signed the Declaration. With a Baptist Church in Arnesby so close by there would have been some in the village with less sympathy for the Loyal Declaration’s aims.
The Declaration that was signed in Shearsby read:
We, the undersigned Noblemen, Gentlemen, Clergy, Freeholders and others, of the County of Leicester, deeply feeling it to be the Duty of Englishmen to avow their Principles, whenever the welfare of the Country may demand it, and observing that the present State of the Nation imperiously calls upon every TRUE BRITON solemnly to declare himself, do make the following DECLARATION.
That we, as faithful and loyal subjects, maintaining an inviolable allegiance to the THRONE of the REALMS and the person of our most glorious SOVEREIGN, behold with the deepest abhorrence the attempts which factious and designing men have long been making, in an infinite variety of ways, to excite disaffection in the Country; and that we consider it the first duty of Loyal Subjects and Honest Men, to Honour and Support the CROWN and GOVERNMENT under which we enjoy the blessings of Liberty, Protection and Comfort, of which no other Nation under Heaven can boast.
That we hold the fearless, just, and equal maintenance of the Laws to be the great safeguard of every National and Private Blessing;- that it ought to be the Pride and Glory of every Englishman, not only to Venerate our Legal Institutions (lately so disgracefully insulted) but by every Means of his Power, to assist both in honouring and obeying these Laws, which are so wise in their Enactment, and so equitable in their Administration, as to be an object of Imitation to many other Nations, and the Envy of all.
That we see with horror and detestation the venerable and sacred fabric of the Christian Religion, attempted to be thrown down by unparalleled Art and diabolical Industry; and we are grieved to find these Evils inflicted through a blasphemous, abandoned and licentious Press- which, indifferent to the Miseries, both Temporal and Eternal, it may be creating, insults the Majesty of Heaven, and outrages everything that Man, in a civilised state, has been used to hold in awe and veneration. With this conviction on our minds, we feel it our duty, and Men and Christians, to express our utmost detestation of the many blasphemous and seditious Publications of the present day, wherein Religion is defamed – our Sovereign openly insulted and reviled – and the Authority of the LAWS defied. We pledge ourselves to discourage, and, to the utmost of our Power, to suppress such Publication; and we earnestly call on our Fellow Subjects, to discountenance the Dissemination of Sentiments alike injurious to Domestic Morals and Public Peace,
Leicester 9th December 1820
Signed by:
Joseph Jelley
Thomas Weston
References
National Archives. Loyal Declarations 1819 and 1820. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/f415b7e8-036d-411a-aa4e-d53b867fb44c
Shearsby History Notes 