Lincoln Companies - Henry Poppleton & Sons Ltd

Henry Poppleton was born in Hull in 1829.  Within a few months of his birth the family moved to Lincoln, living in Sincil Street. William Poppleton, Henry’s father, was a shoemaker and Henry followed him, as an apprentice, into the trade, but realising it was not for him he worked for Thomas Hibbert at 36 Sincil Street as a baker at a wage of 4/- (20p) per week.

Henry worked for Hibbert for a number of years, eventually running the shop in his own name from about 1850, as a baker and flour dealer, when Hibbert moved to Canwick windmill as a miller. Henry married Thomas Hibbert’s daughter, Elizabeth Sarah, on Christmas Day 1851 at St Swithin’s church.

Henry was appointed secretary of a local bakers organisation in 1855 with the aim “that some uniform understanding should be come to respecting the retail price of flour, in order that something like unity should prevail in our charges to the public”. By 1859 Thomas Hibbert was back running the shop in his name, as a baker and biscuit maker, and Henry moved to 9 Guildhall Street, the Yorkshire Bank now stands here at numbers 8 to 10. He set himself up as a baker at Guildhall Street but soon saw confectionery as a more profitable business.

He was a Victorian entrepreneur, seeing the advantages of expanding the range and breadth of products offered in his shop, but this involved another move, this time to 198 High Street; confectionery included cakes and biscuits, bride (wedding?) cakes; pound, sponge and tea cakes; pastry; Rich Mixed Biscuits; Keiller’s marmalade; jams, jellies, Little John’s Rusks. Poppleton’s Butterscotch and Penny Cough packets. Number 198 was in a prominent position opposite the Cornhill and next to the Black Bull Hotel, it was demolished for the building of the British Home Stores department store

His ambitions soon outgrew the High Street shop, and in 1885 he bought premises, behind the shop, at Brayford Head to expand production of his range of sweets, the shop continued as a retail and trade outlet until it came into the possession of Samuel Patton, another confectioner, in the early 1890s. (There is an interesting and tragic post about Samuel Patton on the It's About Lincoln group page, click this link to view http://bit.ly/s-patton

At about the same time a John Chynoweth and Giles Jory Lockwood Lang (brother-in-law of George Poppleton) became partners with Henry Poppleton and his sons, George and Henry William, and company became: Chynoweth, Poppleton & Co. The partners needed land to build a factory and the Ellison family were selling land at the northern part of their estate for industrial development. Their new factory was built on the north side of Beevor Street, New Boultham in the early 1890s, there was a railway line on the south-side of the factory connected to the Midland Railway, giving the factory access to the rest of the UK. The architect was James Whitton and the builder, Crosby and Sons.

The partnership was dissolved in 1901 and the name of the business returned to H Poppleton & Sons. The business was turned into a limited liability company in 1910, becoming Lindum Confectionery Ltd; Henry Poppleton was Chairman, Henry William Poppleton was manager of the works and George and Frederick Lister Poppleton were commercial travellers selling to retail shops.

Henry Poppleton died on 21st September 1912. He was a Free Methodist preacher for over 60 years only retiring a year before his death. Henry and Elizabeth had eight children, four sons and four daughters, of the sons George (1855-1921), Henry William (1861-1932) and Frederick Lister (1869-1927) joined their father in the business, Charles Herbert (1857-1940) was a Methodist minister.
In the 1920s the address of the works became Rich Pasture Works, New Boultham, Lincoln.

Edward Ernest Tweed, solicitor, was chairman of the company from 1917 to 1933, he was succeeded by George Thomas Lawrence.

The business continued until 1936, when the company was voluntarily liquidated. Poppleton’s buildings stood until the 1970s and the site is now occupied by James Dawson's offices, car park and the west side of Tritton Road.

Why was such a successful company wound up? I speculate that after the death of Henry's three sons who worked in the business there were no family members interested in managing it, or it may be that Dawson's made an offer for the factory that was too good to pass up. Who knows, do you?

The research of the Poppleton's has been very interesting, do you have any photos of the factory, interior and exterior, of the people who worked there? Did you have relations who worked there? I have built a family tree from William Poppleton (1796-1867), Henry's father, are you researching the family? Please contact me via comments at the bottom of the page.

When did Lincoln become a city?

I came across this question on Google when I was researching something else.  There were several answers, 1072, 1350, 1660, 1837, so I had to find out.

Lincoln had been a port since the time of the Roman Empire, shipping grain and produce to other parts of Roman Britain via the Foss dyke canal (it is not known if the Roman's built the whole of the canal, but they may have built the canal from Torksey to Hardwick near Saxilby) and the River Witham.

The population of Roman Lincoln is believed to be between 6,000 and 8,000.

Within a century of the Roman's departure Lincoln was virtually deserted, it wasn't until the Viking conquest in the late 9th century that Lincoln started to grow again.  By the Norman Conquest Lincoln was a important Viking town.  William I, built his castle here not just because of its superb defensive position but also to subdue the Viking population.  Four years after the building of the castle the building of bishop Remigius' cathedral commenced, enhancing Lincoln's (known as Nicole by the Normans) status even further.  Estimates based on the Domesday Book give a population in Lincoln at that time of about 6,000.

Lincoln grew rapidly in the 12th century, the main driver of this was cloth-making, the famous Lincoln Green used by Robin Hood, and Lincoln Scarlet, for those that could afford it.  By 1150, Lincoln was one of the wealthiest towns in England.  Lincoln cloth-makers travelled to fairs throughout England; Flanders, Castile and Portugal were important export markets. English Kings bought Lincoln Scarlet.

Lincoln became a Staple Town in 1291, exporting wool and cloth to mainland Europe.  Many landowners changed at this time from arable farming to rearing sheep, the Lincolnshire Wolds had been one of the most densely populated areas of the country, the change in farming brought about a decline in the population of the wolds.

Over the years the River Witham became more and more impassable, so much so that in 1369 the Staple was moved to Boston, this on top of the Black Death of 20 years earlier, had a devastating effect on the prosperity of Lincoln.

In an attempt to improve Lincoln's prosperity, Henry IV, by a charter of 1409, raised Lincoln to the status of a county, "The County of the City of Lincoln", this allowed the city to elect two sheriffs, and to receive the taxes previously paid to the county.  Henry also granted a 31 day fair to be held 15 days before and 15 days after 17 November, St Hugh's Feast Day (a 31-day market! Can you imagine Lincoln Christmas Market lasting that long?).

Even after this charter, Lincoln continued to deteriorate and depopulate and in 1461 Edward IV granted a charter that removed the villages Branston, Waddington, Bracebridge and Canwick from the county and added them to "The County of the City of Lincoln".

Lincoln had city status conferred on it by letters patent in 1540, along with 19 other cities, but Lincoln had been known as a city since "time immemorial", in fact since the year 1072.  All the places qualified for city status due to them having a diocesan cathedral

Marwood and His Long Drop

Until 1815 the place of execution in Lincoln was at the corner of Burton Road and Westgate where the convenience store and adjoining cottages now stand, known as Hangman’s Ditch.

Mary Johnson murdered her husband and, as was normal practice at that time, she was burned at the stake, before her burning in April 1747 she was garroted by the executioner.  Another woman received the same punishment in 1722,

In those days prisoners sentenced to be hanged were often executed in batches, often for very minor offences.  On 18th March 1785, nine prisoners were hanged at one time, three for highway robbery, two for sheep-stealing, two for cattle stealing, one for horse stealing and one for housebreaking.  It was reported that a crowd of 20,000 watched the executions.

The last person hanged on the old gallows was William Ward, for shop breaking at Mareham, on 1st April 1814.

From 1815 to the passing of the Act abolishing public executions in 1868, the tower in the northeast corner of the castle, known as Cobb Hall, was the place where those sentenced to death were hanged.  The gallows was erected on the lead flat roof at the top of the tower.

The Strugglers Inn

Hanging was once a crude affair, those being hanged died of strangulation which meant that they took a long time to die, they struggled on the gallows, hence the name of the inn at the north-west corner of the castle:  The Strugglers.

The Strugglers is said to be haunted by a lurcher that belonged to William Clark who was executed on 26th March 1877 for the murder of Henry Walker, a gamekeeper.

William Marwood had developed a method of hanging called the “long drop”.  Using the prisoner's height and weight he calculated the length of rope required to instantly break the prisoner's neck at the end of the drop and cause instant death.

William Marwood was born at Goulceby in 1820, about six miles from Horncastle, and lived for some years in Old Bolingbroke, moving to Horncastle about 1860; where he was a shoemaker in Church Street.

Marwood began his career as a hangman assisting his predecessor, William Calcraft, succeeding him in 1872; continuing the duties until his death on 4th September 1883.

Marwood was appointed the official Crown Executioner in 1874 and carried out 178 executions in his 9-year career, His first official act was to hang a man named William Francis Horry, at Lincoln, who murdered his wife at Boston, in 1872; his last was to hang a man, James Burton, at Durham, who murdered his young wife, aged only 18, from jealousy. On this occasion, the man fainted on the scaffold and got entangled with the rope under his arm, and Marwood had to lift him in his arms to get him disentangled, and then drop the unconscious man down - a painful scene.

He hanged the "Irish Invincibles" at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between 14th May and 9th June 1883, five Irish nationalists who murdered Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, with surgical knives in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Marwood’s wife was unaware of her husband’s official occupation, he would tell her that he had to go away to settle some legal question. 

Locations of Hangings in Lincoln:

The image on the left shows the gallows location 1784, hangings were moved to Cobb Hall in 1815.  From 1868 hanging took place in the county prison in the castle.  Only crimes committed in the county were dealt with in Lincoln, the city gallows was at the top of Canwick Road (Hill)

Drawing by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm.

Lincoln's Caroline Martyn - "the leading socialist of her day"

Caroline Eliza Derecourt Martyn (3 May 1867 – 23 July 1896), was born in Lincoln, the eldest child of Superintendent James William Martyn, who later became Deputy Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, and his wife Kate Eleanor (née Hewitt). Her parents were devout High Anglicans and active in the Conservative Party. She was educated at Miss Roome's Beaumont House School on Asylum Road (now Spring Hill) and at the age of eighteen began work as a governess.

Caroline joined the Conservative Primrose League, but while working as a teacher in Reading she lodged with her maternal aunt, Mrs Annie Bailey, who held strong left-wing views. She briefly became a radical and then a socialist. In 1891, she was appointed a governess at the Royal Orphanage Asylum in Wandsworth, London, and joined the London Fabian Society. 

The following year, ill-health forced her to give up work and she began to devote herself full-time to the socialist cause. However, this was tempered by the devout religious views she had inherited from her parents, and she strongly disagreed with the Marxist principles of many of her contemporaries. She gained a reputation as one of the foremost social orators of her day, large crowds turning up to hear her speak as she travelled the country. The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, described her as ‘one of the most indefatigable lecturers of the Independent Labour Party.’ The Aberdeen Weekly journal considered Caroline to be ‘endowed with rare intelligence matured by a liberal education and close study’ and ‘one of the few female public speakers whose enthusiasm for their subjects is such that they seem to drop their identity for the time being and become thrilling mouthpieces for the arguments they adduce.’

​For a while, in 1893, she was a sub-editor on the Christian Weekly.

Although she had many articles published in journals, Martyn was predominantly known as a lecturer. She became nationally recognised and large crowds turned up to hear her speak as she travelled round the country, predominantly in Lancashire and Scotland. In 1896, she was elected to the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party and became editor of Fraternity, the journal of the International Society for the Brotherhood of Man, and ILP trades union organiser for the North of Scotland.  Due to her rapid rise in the ILP many spoke of her as a future leader of the Party, even though Keir Hardie called her a middle-class woman.

The work and travel, however, undermined her already fragile health, Caroline had arrived in Dundee on the 13th July 1896 to encourage female workers to join the Dundee Textile Workers Union.  She collapsed after a meeting on the 22nd July, a telegram was sent to her mother to go to Dundee. Caroline died of pleurisy in the late evening of the 23rd July at 107 Murraygate. She was buried in Balgay Cemetery in the city on the 24th July, her funeral was attended by her mother and her brother.

Keir Hardie wrote that she was the leading socialist of her day, with 'a power of intellect and moral-force'