The Preston Guilds

‘Venice may have its Water Carnival, New Orleans its Mardi Gras, but Preston has its Guild.’
 

In 1179, a royal charter of Henry II established Preston Guild Merchant, to be held in the week after the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (29 August). 

From its inception, the celebrations were as lavish as circumstances permitted, and have been held every twenty years, even during times of hardship and social unrest, except when war made it impossible: the planned celebrations for 1942 were postponed until 1952. 

Originally, the Guilds were trade associations to protect common interests, to regulate standards, conditions and prices, but even then there was a religious element, as many Guilds were dedicated to a patron saint and linked to a church. This was to the benefit of both parties: the church connection gave respectability to the Guild, and the Guild endowed the church. 

At first, members had to have been apprentices, and only the wealthy would have been able to afford to indenture sons to a master craftsman, but by the seventeenth century, even pauper children could be enrolled.  Members were also expected to fulfil certain religious duties, such as assembling each Sunday for half an hour before morning Mass and again in the afternoon for Benediction.  Absentees and latecomers and those whose behaviour was considered dissipated, intemperate, immodest or profane were pursued by Guild officers, and uniforms were worn.

The economic functions of the Guilds were eventually rendered redundant by social and political changes such as the introduction of National Insurance and the Second World War, but there was nevertheless resentment when Guilds were wound up in the 1940s and 50s as local government authorities assumed the responsibilities of caring for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed.

 The parish Guilds had the same social and religious purposes as their mediaeval ancestors.  St. Wilfrid’s Guild was established in 1838-39, to provide sickness benefits, death grants and medical care, to encourage attendance at Mass, and to arrange communal and social events.  By 1840, there were two charitable societies and three guilds at St. Ignatius’, with banners, regalia and uniforms: for the men, bowler hats, blue ties and white gloves.  There was much rivalry as to who would present the most impressive display in the Whit Monday procession, with floats and tableaux and much jockeying for position.

 The 1842 Guild was threatened with disruption as a consequence of the cotton workers’ strike: handloom weavers’ wages had been cut by 25%, the wages of spinners by 10%. The Chartists encouraged joining the strike already spreading across the north-west.  The Guild Mayor, Sam Horrocks, whose home now houses Cardinal Newman College, instructed the 72nd Division of the Highlanders to draw up in line across Fishergate and, as the angry mob approached, read the Riot Act, only to have the paper knocked from his hand by a stone.  The police tried to clear the crowd but were driven back by missiles, and the order was given to fire.  A singularly ugly monument in Lune Street commemorates the deaths of five of the ‘rioters’.  But two weeks later, the Guild went on as usual.  However, the Loom Weavers’ Union did not join the next two Guild processions, and when they did march again, in 1902, they carried a banner proclaiming defiantly, though rather ungrammatically:  

          They that permitteth oppression shareth the crime.

 In his history of St. Ignatius’ parish, Leo Warren recounts how in July 1888, the Preston Chronicle reported:  ‘Fists, sticks, clogs, and swords were used very freely in the attack by Orange Men on the Catholic processionists in Walker Street.  Children were threatened and little girls fainted.  As late as 1914 the Chief Constable expressed great unease at the proposal to carry in the procession the Statue of Our Lady and saw the danger of attack by Orange Men.  According to The Tablet ‘the few who ventured to try to break up the procession had their heads treated and were carried away by their friends’.

As Alan Crosby relates: Before 1835, the Corporation, exclusively Anglican, had studiously avoided any recognition of the existence of a very large and growing Roman Catholic population in the town…The Catholics had held Guild events of their own since 1802, when a High Mass was celebrated in St. Mary’s Chapel at the same time as the Corporation was attending the civic service. However, these events were unofficial, and not given any recognition by the Guild organisers.

The first official Roman Catholic involvement was a concert of sacred music in St. Wilfrid’s Chapel during the1842 Guild.   In 1862, the Bishop of Liverpool celebrated High Mass at St. Augustine’s – the first time any bishop had appeared officially at the Preston Guild, and Catholic parishes took part in the Church Schools Procession, despite repeated protests from the Methodists, who objected to their taking position immediately behind the Anglican parishes and thus dividing the Protestant participants.  The schoolchildren paraded through the streets to Avenham Park, where, in front of a crowd of thousands, they sang ‘Hurrah for England’s Queen!’ and the national anthem and were given a Guild medal on a blue ribbon.  Some of the spectators were sitting in goods wagons parked along the railway viaduct, and were spattered with soot and cinders by trains, which blew a salute on their whistles as they passed.  This Schools procession was the great success of the1862 Guild, so in 1882, they played an even bigger role, and the Roman Catholic procession became a separate element.  An eyewitness account describes it as: a gigantic and magnificent demonstration.  Never before was there such a muster, such a march of Roman Catholics in Preston.  For this Guild they exercised all their spectacular skill, and aggregated all their processional forces.  Splendid flags – banners innumerable, of all forms and hues – crosses, crucifixes, images, &., adorned their ranks; a world of artistic beauty and emblematic elaboration was manifested; and, well attired as the members of the various guilds were – many of the females being in white, while all or the greater part of the processionists wore sashes- they made a most admirable and long-to- be remembered display.

5147 Guild members marched, followed by many United Catholic Brethren.  After the procession, they assembled at Larkhill Convent, now Cardinal Newman College, in the presence of the Bishops of Liverpool, Salford and Leeds, to hear Cardinal Manning say he had ‘never looked on anything that touched him more and moved him more than the procession.’

As Alan Crosby relates: On the first morning of the Guild,…High Mass was celebrated simultaneously in all the Roman Catholic churches of the town – at St. Wilfrid’s by the Bishop of Clifton, at St Augustine’s by the Bishops of Liverpool, Salford and Leeds, at St. Walburg’s by the Bishop of Shrewsbury, and at English Martyrs’ by the Bishop of Middlesborough.

 Preston had a large Irish population, and in the early 1880s, anti-Catholic feeling ran high in the Orange Order; members of the Preston branch attacked the 1882 procession and there was serious street brawling. Tensions remained, though the institution of a separate procession for Nonconformist parishes eased some of the potential friction.

 In 1902, the procession was instructed to assemble in Winckley Square, and proceed at 10 a.m. ‘along Chapel Street, Fishergate, Corporation Street, Wharf Street, Lune Street, Fishergate, Church Street, Stanley Street London Road, (double at Thomas Street) New Hall Lane, Skeffington Road, Ribbleton Lane, Deepdale Road, Meadow Street, North Road, Garstang Road, Ripon Street, Plungington Road, Adelphi Street, Friargate, and disperse at the Market Place.’

In 1952, the Catholic procession included a contingent of Ukrainians in national dress, and in the torchlight procession, the Polish Ex- Servicemen’s Association presented a grand and impressive float entitled ‘A Polish Wedding’.

In 1972, an ecumenical Walk of Witness to Avenham Park preceded the official opening of the Guild. The opening service in the Parish Church, now the Minster, was also ecumenical, though the processions remained separate.  Cardinal Hume, Archbishop Carey and the national Moderator of the Free Churches all attended.

But in the 1992 procession, the Plungington churches – English Martyrs’, Emmanuel, Eldon Street and Saint David’s - walked together, presenting six floats illustrating Preston’s links with ‘the Third World’: first, the River Ribble and a sailing ship; next, the vital importance of water; then the Corpus Christi High School Steel Band; a fourth float portrayed missionaries – traders, doctors and healers – bringing the Good News to the four corners of the world; the fifth float, ‘Challenge’, invited us to learn, share and work in partnership; and the last float looked back to the old days of Rose Queens and parades, as recalled in verse:

          Such shoving, such squalling, such squeezing between

          Such tearing of clothes sure there never was seen,

          Such rattling of coaches, upsetting of gigs,

          With the loss of their aprons, their garters and wigs,

          There were some with their petticoats trailing

          And some their new bonnets bewailing

          While the boys tumbled over the railing

          To get a full view of the Guild.

 

Disclaimer:   The contents of this website are provided in good faith and are not necessarily the views of the website authors, (St Thomas of Canterbury & the English Martyrs, Preston),  the Diocese, the Catholic Church or any other implied body.  The website authors are not responsible for any content of external websites linked to this site or material submitted by website visitors and users.  Your suggestions and views on the site content are welcomed and visitors are encouraged to communicate their comments to us. A comments page is included in this website and all legitimate or appropriate comments (and responses) will be posted for viewing.  All materials submitted to this site are carefully screened prior to publication; however, we apologise for any unforeseen offence or distress caused by any material contained herein.