Otley in late 1840s was a town of thatched cottages, cobbled streets, cattle drovers; covered wagons and evil smelling tanning yards; It was a small
market/ industrial town with worsted mills; tanneries; malt kilns; a paper mill and a corn mill with people also working on the land or in small trades.
In the 1841 Census the population was 3,400.
In that population were people of Irish background – a little over 2%. Three families from Ireland Conley (Connolly) family at 19 Gay Lane; the Laughey
family at 3 Union St , and John and Jane Hughes at 57 Gay lane stand out in terms of continuity. One of the heads of household, Patrick Conley (Connolly),
a baker who lived in Gay Lane. His wife Mary and his eldest son James were born in Ireland. James was 13 in 1851. John another son was 11 in 1851 but born in
Otley so presumably the Connelly family moved to Otley sometime in 1839. We know Patrick was from Mayo in Ireland but there is no information on what part of
Ireland the other Irish people in the town came from.
Also living in the town was Thomas Constable and Englishman and Catholic. He was born on 16th June 1805 at Allerthorpe near Pocklington, the son of Charles
Constable Stanley by his second wife Mary McDonald. Thomas ‘ great great grandmother was a Constable and she married a William Haggerston but because of the
benefits resulting from inheritance and matrimonial arrangements in Thomas’ father’s generation and earlier his uncle Marmaduke’s surname was Constable
Maxwell; his uncle William’s was Middelton and his father’s was Stanley. Amazing that the Constable surname survived!! The different branches of the family
were recusants (a term denoting those who refused to attend services of the Church of England and thereby committed a statutory offence). An ancestor of
Thomas Constable Sir Robert Constable was a leader in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 which was an attempt to stem to the tide of the Reformation. He was
arrested ,tried for treason and hung at Hull in 1538. The family suffered fines before, during and after the Civil War. Philip Constable Thomas’ three greats
grandfather was imprisoned in 1678, suspected of involvement in Popish plots that Titus Oakes said existed were in fact fictions. Even so after release Philip
fled to the Continent with his father Marmaduke. Philip fled again after 1688 but returned to a life involving no public activity. The family managed however
to keep their land holdings and as a result of those matrimonial arrangements became large landowners in Yorkshire with holdings also in Lincolnshire and
Scotland. William Middelton Thomas’ uncle owned Myddleton Lodge above Ilkley and large amounts of land in and around that are.
Thomas had been educated at Ushaw College Durham and afterwards articled to a firm of Stockton solicitors. No great land holding for him!!! At the age of
28 in 1833 he came to reside in Otley where he took over the legal practice of a Mr Smith. He bought the Manor House in 1836. Constable by the late 1840s
was established in the local community. He was estate agent for the Fawkes family at Farnley Hall; for the Darwin family of what is now Creskeld Hall in
Bramhope as well as undertaking work for Crompton Standsfield MP of Esholt Hall; his relatives the Middeltons in Ilkley and the Maxwells in Dumfries.
As a Catholic like the Middeltons, Thomas reportedly travelled on a Sunday to Myddleton Lodge to join his relatives for mass as there was no Catholic
Church in Otley.
The Catholic community however in Otley was evidently increasing by the mid -1840s because on 28th July 1845 Thomas Constable had written to Bishop Briggs about
‘building a chapel for the benefit of souls in the vicinity’. He outlined his intention not to start building before the spring of 1846 but when he did so he
intended to build it with decent simplicity in the Gothic style and endow it in a moderate way. The building did indeed commence and the Chapel of Our Lady and
All Saints, next to the Manor House opened on 24th June 1851.
Between that letter of July 1845 and June 1851 events occurred which changed the
population of Otley. In August 1845 a European wide potato blight caused by an attack of ‘Phytopthora infestans’ played havoc with potato crops across
Belgium, France and other countries . While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across Europe, particularly harshly affected were the Scottish
Highlands and Ireland. Many people starved due to lack of access to other staple food sources and the failure of the authorities to intervene effectively.
The situation in Ireland was particularly bad because the combined impact of the blight and the failure to sow the crop led to the yield being lower by
three quarters in 1846 and 1847, with the blight returning in 1848 followed by failure in 1849
People who could were leaving from every port in Ireland after 1846 - some one quarter of a million Irish men, women and children left Ireland and this was
to continue at that level and sometimes higher for the next four years.
Liverpool was one of the main ports of reception. Franks Neal in his study of ‘Lancashire ,The Irish Famine and the Poor Law’ notes that in 1846 18,987
people were helped by private charities which were a prop to survival. In general Irish people had no settlement rights in England which meant they were
ineligible for Poor Law relief. However an 1837 regulation required food and a night’s shelter to be given to any destitute person in case of “sudden or
urgent necessity “ in return for them performing a task of work. There was some obligation on Poor Law Unions to give emergency relief. During 1847, Liverpool
to stave off starvation amongst people arriving, introduced a coloured ticket system for obtaining food or relief. The Liverpool Guardians appealed to the
Government for help to help pay for this but were refused. The costs were to be borne locally. As a measure of desperation the Guardians then asked the
Government to stop the Irish coming across from Ireland. However under the Act of Union of 1800 Ireland was a part of Britain ruled from Westminster.
Labour and capital was free to move wherever it wished. The Guardians therefore resorted to the Law of Removal. The 1847 the Poor Law Administration Act
made it easier for them to do this as they no longer had to serve a summons. The increase in the use of removal orders had the effect of discouraging
applications for relief and encouraged many to move inland.
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