{"id":2237,"date":"2021-06-20T09:59:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T09:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/?page_id=2237"},"modified":"2021-06-20T16:11:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T16:11:29","slug":"the-curious-case-of-the-cheesemongers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/evidence-and-data\/library\/the-curious-case-of-the-cheesemongers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curious Case of the Cheesemongers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\tThe Curious Case of the Cheesemongers\n\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"1732_MACKAY\"\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t

This rare chart of the mouth of the River Dee was prepared by mathematician and surveyor John Mackay in opposition to A Bill to Recover and Preserve the Navigation of the River Dee, in the County Palatine of Chester, 11 June 1732<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The chart marks ‘Mr. Kindersley’s New Channel’, which crosses ‘SALTNEY MARSH’ from ‘THE RIVER DEE’ to ‘CHESTER’. There is a dividing line laid across the Wirral with the note ‘All on the East Side of this Line is laid down from a Draught of the River Mersey’.<\/p>\n

The proposal was for a new cut or channel to be built through Saltney Marsh, which would mean that the marine approach to Chester would follow the southern (Welsh) coast rather than the then northerly approach.<\/p>\n

It is likely that the chart was commissioned by the London Cheesemongers, to accompany The Case of the Cheesemongers<\/em>, in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, relating to the Bill to recover and preserve the Navigation of the River Dee, in the County of Chester; the Cheesemongers conducted their trade through the port of ‘PARK GATE’ on the northerly approach, and they feared this route would become silted up by the new works.<\/p>\n

In this broadside, they claimed that cheese exports from Parkgate accounted for nine-tenths of Chester’s exports; the lengthy explanatory text on this chart concludes:<\/p>\n\n

The opposing view was expressed in The Case of the Inhabitants of the County and City of Chester, Petitioners for the Bill to Recover and Preserve the Navigation of the River Dee<\/em>; in answer to the Petition of the London Cheesemongers, and it was this view that won out.<\/p>\n

The Act was duly passed, and in 1737 a new canal, the New Cut<\/em>, was completed from Chester, taking the course of the river below Chester to the Welsh side rather than English side of the estuary as before.<\/p>\n

\nNot simply a case of “maintaining a navigable channel”; but a battle between North and South
\n<\/strong>\n

Parkgate was a nationally important port that found itself at the heart of a number of economic disputes between London and the North, as detailed in Geoffrey Place’s 1995 book T<\/em>he Rise and Fall of Parkgate: Passenger Port for Ireland, 1686-1815<\/em>. <\/p>\n

During the 1600s, cattle and sheep imports from Ireland to Parkgate had been a growing threat to the English livestock trade, leading to a government ban in 1667. However, Irish livestock continued to be imported, including at Hoylake, until a permanent ban was enforced in 1681. <\/p>\n

Even after completion of the New Cut in 1737 detailed above, the “stranglehold” by the London Cheesemongers over the region’s \u00a0cheese producers continued to be a cause of concern for producers while stifling the export and import of other goods and trades.<\/p>\n

This network of wealthy Cheesemongers owned, rather than chartered, their ships, maximising profit, and effectively controlling the entire market for cheese, forcing very harsh terms on the producers.<\/p>\n

They used the deep port at Parkgate to load lead ballast, brought over via Bagillt from Welsh smelting mines owned by the London Lead Company, in order to stabilise their vessels because of the light weight of the cargoes of cheese.<\/p>\n

As resentment grew, it was hoped that diverting the channel and reducing the stategic importance of the port of Parkgate, or even shutting it down entirely, would destroy the apparent “monopoly” of the London Cheesemongers and the London Lead Company over trade in and out of Chester.<\/p>\n

While the New Cut did indeed quickly begin to benefit local exporters and importers at the port of Chester, The London Cheesemongers were proven right in their predictions about the silting up of Parkgate – which soon rendered the loading of lead ballast, and therefore the export of cheese from Chester via Parkgate, impossible.<\/p>\nThe silting up of the eastern side of the Dee and of the Hoyle Lake, and the eventual demise of Parkgate as a port, was therefore\u00a0 inevitable.
\n<\/em><\/strong>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n

In 1767 the Committee of Cheesemongers named five ships as Chester ships and eleven as Liverpool ships; they agreed to limit the Chester ships to one hundred tons of cheese each, to leave room for the city’s goods. 3<\/sup> Over the period 1740-69, forty-two cheese ships were recorded as calling at Parkgate, although for sixteen of them, only one visit was listed. 4<\/sup> The loads of cheese varied greatly, between fifteen and one hundred tons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

During the seventeenth century, until 1664, considerable and growing numbers of Irish cattle were imported into England, and the largest numbers came into the port of Chester. In 1664, in order to protect the English fatstock market, cattle imports were prohibited between 1 August and 20 December (15 Charles II c.7). The cattle went through a variety of local ports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further Act to stop the loophole had to be passed in 1668 (20 Charles II c. 12). This temporary prohibition lapsed in 1679, whereupon the imports of Irish cattle and sheep resumed, with Chester more involved, at least as a landfall, than ever, accounting for many more beasts than Liverpool. 14<\/sup> In 1681 a permanent ban on the import of Irish livestock was enacted (32 Charles II c.2).<\/p>\n

\nFOOTNOTES:
\n1 James Wimpey, Thoughts upon several interesting Subjects (1770), pp. 39-40, quoted by G. E. Fussell, ‘The London Cheesemongers of the eighteenth century’, Economic History, 1 (1929), p. 395.
\n2 ‘The Case of the Inhabitants of Chester’, B.L., 3 57 c.1.37.
\n3 Chester Courant, 29 Sept. 1767.
\n4 Cheshire R.O., QDN 1\/ 5
\n5 J. N. Rhodes, ‘The London Lead Company in North Wales, 1693-1792’, Ph.D. thesis, Leicester University (1970), p.316.
\n6 M. Bevan-Evans, ‘Gadlys and Flintshire leadmining in the 18th century’, Flintshire Historical Society Journal, 18 (1960), p. 92.
\n7 Arthur Raistrick, Two Centuries of Industrial Welfare, the London (Quaker) Lead Company, (1938), pp. 114-15.
\n8 T. Pennant, History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell (1796), p. 189.
\n9 London Lead Company court minute book, 30 March 1737, quoted by M. Bevan-Evans, Flintshire Historical Society Journal, 20 (1962), p. 58.
\n10 6 Geo II c.30 (1732) clause 3.
\n11 John Glegg’s account book, 5 March 1764, 19 Aug. 1764, 14 March 1765, 2 Nov. 1765, 11 March, 1 Nov., 10 Dec. 1767.
\n12 Cal. S.P. Dom., 1663, pp. 289,303; Cal. Treasury Books 1666-67, p. 221.
\n13 Cheshire R.O., QJF95\/2\/39: D. M. Woodward, ‘Anglo-Irish livestock trade of the 17th century’, Irish Historical Studies, 18 (1973), p. 500.
\n14 D. M. Woodward, ‘Anglo-Irish livestock trade’, pp. 502, 521.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Curious Case of the Cheesemongers This rare chart of the mouth of the River Dee was prepared by mathematician and surveyor John Mackay in opposition to A Bill to Recover and Preserve the Navigation of the River Dee, in the County Palatine of Chester, 11 June 1732. The chart marks ‘Mr. Kindersley’s New Channel’,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":782,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2237"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2266,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2237\/revisions\/2266"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablebeach.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}