The Royal Navy's press gangs came to the island and took who they wanted. The legal basis was contested everywhere in Britain; in Mann, where Parliament's authority was itself constitutionally questionable, the question of whether the press gang had any lawful power was never even raised. Men were taken from the herring boats and the merchant vessels. A man might leave his cottage intending to fish, and by nightfall be on a naval vessel headed for the Channel, with no message sent to his family. The naval records preserve the distinction between men who volunteered and those who were enlisted by civil power. The euphemism was precise — not military conscription, but civil power. The machinery of administration applied to the extraction of men, just as it had been applied to the extraction of revenue.
The Primitive Methodist Conference of 1837 reported losing thirty-eight members by removals to England, America and elsewhere. Thirty-eight out of seven hundred and fifty — five per cent of the entire Manx Methodist membership in a single year. The chapels that had given Manx people a structure for community were bleeding members to the same emigration that was draining the parishes. The chapel networks may have helped organise the departures: the 1827 ships carried Local Preachers, the communities they founded in Ohio were organised around worship, and the intelligence that flowed back to Mann followed the same networks that had spread Methodism across the island.
A post-medieval brewery recorded in Peel.
The reference is from the Isle of Man Times; no further information is available and the groid reference is centred on East Quay for indicative purposes only.
A post-medieval ships' biscuit shop recorded in Peel.
The precise location is not recorded and the grid reference provided is centred on the quayside for indicative purposes only.
At the administrative heart of pre-Revestment Mann. John Quayle held the post of Clerk of the Rolls — the Duke's principal administrative officer — and was simultaneously Comptroller of Customs at Castletown. Bridge House, standing on the harbour, served as both the lordship's administrative centre and the family counting house. His daughter married into the Taubman family. His son George Quayle — born of the marriage between John Quayle and Margaret 'Peggy' Moore — became a banker, politician, and Speaker of the Keys. George ran Quayle's Bank from Bridge House and in 1789 built the armed yacht Peggy in a concealed dock beneath the building, with sea gates, secret passages, and mechanical alarm bells. The Peggy was discovered in 1935 — the oldest surviving yacht in the world. John Quayle's testimony to the 1792 Commissioners provided the most detailed surviving account of the pre-Revestment administration. His verdict on the Revestment: 'All the old landmarks are taken away or destroyed, and no new ones substituted in their room.'
The Red House, Victoria Road, Douglas has a red tiled roof with masonry walls of exposed red brick at the ground floor with half timbered gables or vertical tiling above. The bargeboards are elaborately carved and painted red, white and green (as originally). The massing of the house is sculptural with a maximum expression of the interior functions and emphasis of entrance porches and Jacobean chimneys. The building is sited in well defined grounds. The interior has not been inspected but is thought to contain features necessary to the integrity of the overall design concept. The whole appears to being maintained to the highest standards and to the original specifications. The house is significant as a good example of its style blending the traditional British rural features with American influences. As the house belonged to the architect it seems reasonable to assume that the design was not compromised in any significant manner.
Eight days that ended a nation's independence. The Isle of Man Purchase Act 1765. The transfer ceremony on 11 July 1765, when the Duke of Atholl's authority was formally surrendered and Crown officers took possession. The Keys were silenced. The Tynwald fell quiet — no petitions heard, no laws promulgated in the old way, for over a decade. Parliament had purchased a feudal title. It had not acquired the Manx nation, and it had not assumed the duty of governance that came with the title.
In 1765, the British Parliament bought the Isle of Man from the Duke and Duchess of Atholl for £70,000. The Manx people were not consulted. They had no representation at Westminster. Tynwald was not asked.
Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough described it as “one of the most corrupt jobs ever witnessed in Parliament.” Was it?
The prosecution argues: taxation without representation, seizure of sovereignty without consent. The defence argues: fiscal necessity, the running trade costing Britain £200,000 a year.
Witnesses: George Moore (merchant), Charlotte Murray (Duchess, whose consent was legally required), Charles Lutwidge (intelligence), George Grenville (Prime Minister).
Research briefs for each witness included. The jury is your family.
Shieling settlement. This well-developed shieling, surrounded on three sides by stream gullies and on the fourth by a bank, was first identified by Megaw and Gelling in 1960. Of particular note is the funnel-shaped arrangement of banks through which stock could be driven into the enclosure. Gelling's small-scale distribution map shows 17 shieling mounds; more recent re-survey suggests that several more survive.
Medieval shieling. A curvilinear bank encloses the peninsula on which the shieling is located, all other sides being cut off by watercourses and gullies. An entrance at this point allowed stock to be driven down the slope and into the enclosure, through the funnel-shaped arrangement of the banks which extend to the east and west.
Roundhouse settlement. The foundations of seven roundhouses survive, with internal diameters of 6 to 7m. Some are quite substantial, with stone visible in the walls, while others are barely visible below vegetation. A boundary of orthostats runs for around 50m in a south-westerly direction from the settlement before petering out.
Burial mound cemetery; standing stone. Three ditchless largely grass-covered burial mounds which show strong quartz content at SC 3592487950, SC 3592287963 and SC 3591787984. The first mound has a diameter of 9.0 m and average height 0.6 m. Some of the quartz stones may be the result of modern cairn-building. A fallen standing stone is located to the west of it at SC 3591687946.
