TWO CENTURIES OF LANGHORN BUTCHERS

First mention of butchery in the Langhorn family is in a document leasing some property by Easter Routh dated 1738. In this, it mentions William Langhorn¹, 'butcher of Snaith in the County of York.'   He was Easter's second son, and would have been 21 at that time.  Only conjecture can explain why he took up the trade.  There was no tradition of any retail business in the family of his father who was a landed gentleman and yeoman, but the Routh tree does query the possibility that his maternal grandfather might have been a druggist.  His mother's cousin Thomas Routh of Pontefract, mentioned in her will, was certainly a grocer.

Easter Routh's tenth child, Miles², was 17 years younger than his brother Thomas, and the PR's show him to be a butcher at his marriage to Ann Moseley in 1755 when he was 21; and again he is repeatedly mentioned as a butcher in all his children's baptisms, and also in his mother's will of 1767.

We know that three of Miles' sons became butchers. Firstly John³, born 1762, was married in 1781 and whilst at that time his marriage record entry says that he is a builder, he is by 1782 a butcher of Gowdall when his first child was baptised in 1782 (Snaith PR's).  At his next daughter's baptism in 1787 he is a butcher in Pollington and was still there in 1822 (Baine's directory). Miles' second son Thomas⁴, born in 1763, married a Castleford girl Sarah Horne in 1790 and at all his children's baptisms from 1793 to 1813, his occupation is listed as a butcher (Ferry Fryston PR's). He died five years after his last child in 1818 aged 55.

Thomas had 10 children, two of whom are recorded as butchers. His first son James⁵ who was born in 1793, married Elizabeth Gaggs in Pontefract in 1828, and is styled a butcher in 1830 and 1835 at the baptism of his children in Ferry Fryston. In Pigot's Directory of 1834 he is found to be a butcher in Ferrybridge. Thomas's third son, John was born in 1800 and he is also in Pigot's Directory for Pontefract as a butcher in Castleford.   He died in the same year 1834, the Ferry Fryston burial register listing him as a butcher aged 33.

Miles's seventh child, Richard⁶ was born in 1770 and at the age of 25, at his marriage to Sarah Laurance, the marriage record shows he is in the trade as a butcher in Pollington, presumably with his father and brother John. In Baine's Directory he was still a butcher in Pollington in 1822 and in the burial registers for Snaith in 1828 he was mentioned as being a butcher in Pollington.  He died at the age of 57.

Of Richard's ten children, three were to enter the business. His first born Robert⁸ was born in 1795. In the Baine's Directory is a butcher in Pollington (1822) and by 1838, White's Directory enters 'Langhorn Rt. ∓ Newby Jno, butchers of Pollington'. In the Pigot Directories of 1834 and 1841 he is a butcher in Snaith itself, and in the 1841 census, he is a butcher in Ferry Lane, Snaith. Slater's Directory for Snaith (1849) confirms that he was a butcher in Snaith but by the 1851 Census, he had changed his address to 22 New Bridge, Snaith, still called a butcher.

His son William⁹, who was born in 1819 is himself called a butcher in Snaith on the birth certificates of his daughter Mary in 1848 and his son William in 1857.  It is reasonable to believe that he worked with his father in Snaith at this time and he was still a butcher in 1876, as mentioned on his son William's marriage certificate. This William was a bricklayer as was his own son Harry, but it is interesting that his grandson, another William¹⁰ (and Terry Langhorn's father), is a butcher on his marriage certificate in 1936 and a foreman butcher on his son Terry's birth certificate, in the following year. Perhaps there were other relatives who kept the business going in between the generations.

Richard's sixth child William¹¹ also became a butcher. Born in 1805, he is a butcher in Heck in 1827 when he married Mary Ann Brittain. In White's Directory of 1838 he is a victualler and a butcher in Heck which seems to suggest that he carried on his butchery in Heck. The 1841 census for Heck confirms that he was a publican and a butcher, (a frequent combination historically,) and lived at Bay Horse Inn (now extensively refurbished.) In the 1851 census for Heck, he is still 'a butcher and publican.'  At his daughter Anne's marriage in 1854, he had elevated himself on the wedding certificate to the position of Innkeeper.  He may of course have retired from the butchery business by then in favour of his son, but he was only 49 and the income from a country pub in those days probably needed supplementing!

William's son John¹² born in 1829 had become a butcher at the age of 21 (1851 Census) presumably helping his father, and in the 1861 and 1871 Census for Heck he is a publican and a butcher at the Bay Horse Inn. There is no longer any mention of his father. John died in 1873. (You will notice that he married a Mary Woodhead, who incidentally is the sister of my great grandfather John, a brother and sister marrying a brother and sister.)

Richard¹³, the seventh child of Richard (1779-1828) was born in 1808 and the 1841,'51,'61 and '71 all list him as a butcher in Pollington. By 1881 census he had moved from 59 Main Street to 10 Village Road Pollington and at this time he is listed as a retired butcher! One interesting snippet is that living at the same address, are his daughter and one 'Nathan Newby, son-in-law, butcher, aged 28 born at Balne Croft.'  Is he a relative of Robert Langhorn's partner John Newby mentioned in White's Directory of 1838?

Finally, James¹⁴ the tenth and last child of Richard and Sarah, born incidentally when his mother was forty eight, is noted as being a butcher in Pollington on his daughter Ellin's birth certificate (May 1843). James and his wife Elizabeth (nee Dobson) are next seen in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1860 census where James is still following his trade as a butcher.

A short study like this will always pose more questions than it solves. For instance, it would be very nice to know the addresses of their butchery businesses and also those who were owners as opposed to being employed.  During the period in question, it was certainly customary to undergo an apprenticeship in this trade. An enquiry has been made to the Worshipful Company of Butchers in London and also to York Butchers Guild, but neither could find any reference to the name Langhorn.  It was suggested by them that whilst apprenticeships were probably central to a newcomer's training, being a family business probably meant that verbal agreements were more likely and that formal indentures were never taken out when new members of the family joined. Thomas⁴ is interesting in that he became a butcher at Ferry Bridge away from Snaith, and was succeeded by his two sons there. Pigot's Directory has two entries, one for William⁹ at Ferry Bridge and the other for his brother John¹⁰ under Pontefract at Castleford. Were these separate branches or has Pigot entered the same shop twice?

It is probably reasonable to assume that the owners lived on the premises, and the later censuses can pinpoint the shop. But where several families were supported by one business, they presumably they lived at separate addresses. John, Miles's first son, is listed in the PR as a 'butcher of Gowdall' but this would not mean that he ran a business there. My guess is that he would have walked to work, a mile and a half or so to Pollington every day. The Heck outlet at the Bay Horse Inn probably began with William¹¹ and finished on the death of his son John¹² in 1873. The Pollington business seems to have continued from at least as early as Miles in the 1750's right through to his grandson Richard¹¹ who had retired in 1881.

It looks as though Robert⁸ set up a business in Snaith itself between 1838 and 1841. Was it a branch or was it a breakaway? In 1841 his address was Ferry Lane and in 1851 it was 22 New Bridge.  Ken Sayner of the Snaith Historical Society thinks that Ferry Lane and New Bridge were the same road and indeed the same as the present Selby Road.  There is a butchery in Selby Road but the present owner knows nothing of its history except that it has been there a long time. Ken Sayner believes that this could well be the same premises that Robert occupied 160 years ago.  His son William, as already mentioned, was probably still a butcher working in Snaith when he died at the age of 57 in 1876. I have no confirmation of this nor any information how it was that our most recent butcher¹⁰ took up the trade in the 1920's.

I have no record of any other Langhorn butchers, but there could well be in the Castleford area. So far as Pollington butchery is concerned it looks as though the Langhorn connection finished with Richard¹¹; although did young Nathan Newby, his son in law, continue the business there?

Finally, where did these butchers get their meat from? Certainly it was customary over the centuries for small town butchers to get their supplies directly from farms or the local market, the animals being slaughtered in small numbers on the premises. (Indeed in my own town of Uttoxeter, pigs were driven from the 'cattle market' across the High Street into the side entrance of the pork-butcher's shop right up until the 1970's!) Perhaps the land-owning Routh and Langhorn families were pleased to have a ready outlet for their animal trade. No tanners are specifically mentioned in Pigot's Directory in 1834, but there were two saddlers and one leather retailer and several families who were cordwainers in Snaith at that time.

Michael Woodhead  December 2000

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