Echoes of Old LancashireAxon, William E. A. (William Edward Armytage)
History
Echoes of Old Lancashire
Axon, William E. A. (William Edward Armytage)
Lancashire (England) -- History
Apparently nothing could be clearer or less open to doubt. After a
careful look out for the book, a copy has been secured, and is now in
the Manchester Free Library. The title reads:—“A Guide to Heaven from
the Word. Good counsel how to close savingly with Christ. Serious
Questions for Morning and Evening; and rules for the due observation of
the Lord’s Day. John 5, 39. Search the Scriptures. Manchester: Printed
by T. Harper, Smithy Door.” (32 mo, pp. 100.) There is no date, but the
name of Thomas Harper, printer, Smithy Door, may be read in the
“Manchester Directory” for 1788, and the slightest examination of the
“Guide to Heaven” will show that its typography belongs to that period.
From whence, then, did Ford get the date of 1664? If we turn to the
fly-leaf the mystery is explained, for on it we read, “Imprimatur, J.
Hall, R.P.D. Lond. a Sac. Domest. April 14 1664.” The book, in fact,
was first printed in London in 1664, and Thomas Harper, when issuing it
afresh, reprinted the original imprimatur, which Ford then misconstrued
into the date of the Manchester edition. The book is entered as
Bamfield’s “Guide to Heaven” in Clavell’s “Catalogue,” and the
publisher is there stated to be H. Brome. Either Francis or Thomas
Bamfield may have been the author, but the former seems the more
likely. Thomas Bampfield—so the name is usually spelled—was Speaker of
Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1658, and he was a member of the
Convention Parliament of 1660, and was the author of some treatises in
the Sabbatarian controversy. Francis was a brother of Thomas, and also
of Sir John Bamfield, and was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where
he graduated M.A. in 1638. He was ordained, but was ejected from the
Church in 1662, and died minister of the Sabbatarian Church in Pinner’s
Hall. He wrote in favour of the observation of the Saturday as the
seventh day, and therefore real Sabbath, and whilst preaching to his
congregation was arrested and imprisoned at Newgate, where he died 16th
February, 1683-4. His earliest acknowledged writing was published in
1672, and relates to the Sabbath question.
The first book printed in Manchester, so far as the present evidence
goes, was Jackson’s “Mathematical Lectures,” but it was the fruit of
the second printing-press at work in the town.
Thomas Lurting: a Liverpool Worthy.
Quakerism has a very extensive literature, and is especially rich in
books of biography; which are not only of interest from a theological
point, but are valuable for the incidental and sometimes unexpected
light which they throw upon the history and customs of the past. One of
the early Quaker autobiographies is that of Thomas Lurting, a Liverpool
worthy, who has not hitherto been included by local writers in the list
of Lancashire notables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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