WILLIAM SHEPHERD, A NINETEENTH CENTURY PILLING FARMER 

By Joyce Askew

On Tuesday 27th September 1870, a new ship, the William Shepherd, was registered at Fleetwood. It was a wooden-framed, two-masted schooner, carvel built (with the planks flush), with a round stern and a scroll as a figurehead. It was 94ft (28.6 m) long, 22.8ft (6.95m) in breadth and had been built in the shipbuilding and repair yard run by Matthew Simpson at Glasson Dock at a cost of £2356 3s Od. The ship was named after William Shepherd, a farmer of Pasture House Farm, Pilling, who was the first to buy two shares from Edmund Porter, a shipbroker of Fleetwood.

The grandparents of William Shepherd were Obadiah Shepherd and Margaret Bradley, who were married in May 1763 at Giggleswick in Yorkshire. They had six children baptised at Long Preston, including William's father, Richard, on 16th May, 1773. Richard married Alice Fletcher at Whitewell on Saturday 9th March, 1799. From the baptisms of their children in Parish Registers, the family's journey can be traced from Burholme near Whitewell to Chipping and then to Preesall where, in 1820, they settled at Cocker's Dyke Farm. Their youngest child Joanna was baptised at the Chapelry of Stalmine on 23rd April, 1820. By 1828, their two eldest sons were married to local girls, Richard, who became a mariner, to Elizabeth Wilkinson, and Obadiah, who became a carrier, to Alice Fairclough.

William, their third son, was born at Chipping in 1811. He married Ann Fairclough of Preesall at Stalmine St. James on 3rd February, 1836. William and Ann had six children, the first. Richard, being born in 1836, then William in 1839, Alice in 1841, Thomas in 1844 and finally twin sons, Joseph and Benjamin in 1847. During this time, Parish Registers give William's Occupation as a mariner or as a farmer while, on the 1841 Preesall with Hackensall Census, he is recorded as an innkeeper. In 1851, William and Ann lived in Pilling Lane, Preesall, farming 60 acres and by 1861, they and their family, together with William's father, Richard, and younger brother James, were living at Pasture House Farm. It was around this time that William started to invest in ships that were trading from Fleetwood.

One of the first schooners in which William had an interest was the Ann Shepherd, presumably named after his wife. It was built in Preston by Thomas Smith in 1862 and, in the Fleetwood Register of British Ships, is listed as having one deck, two masts, a square stern and a female figurehead. It was carvel built, 76.7ft (23.4m) long and 19.5ft (5.9m) in breadth. Ownership of vessels was held in sixty-fourth shares, this having been formalised by an Act of 1825, and on 6th February, 1863, William Shepherd owned 10 of the 64 shares in the Ann Shepherd. R.G. Shepherd, a great-great nephew of William, wrote an article in the Evening Gazette on 3rd August, 1963. In it, he refers to an account book of the Ann Shepherd covering the years 1862 to 1867, "a stout, well-bound volume with pale blue pages, cash-ruled in red and marbled at the edges". The following are just some of the voyages documented:-

(1) The ship sailed from Preston on 19th February, 1862, carried coal to Dundalk, went from Dundalk to Whitehaven in ballast and then on to Ardrossan with iron ore and back to Fleetwood with pig iron, reaching home on 18th April.
(2) On 17th May, she left Barrow for Newport with 150 tons of iron ore, then took 164 tons of railway iron from Newport to Garston, 154 tons of salt from Garston to Eyemouth, 7 keels of coal from Newcastle to Dublin and arrived back at Fleetwood on 16th August. (A keel was the amount of coal carried by a keel or flat-bottomed vessel used on the River Tyne for loading a collier.)
(3) On 27th August, she sailed from Garston with 121 tons of salt for St. Petersburg in Russia and arrived on 13th September. She continued through the Baltic and the North Sea to Dundee with flax, and then sailed home to Fleetwood in ballast in mid- November.

In 1867 William bought shares in a larger three-masted schooner, the Dairymaid, a new ship which had been built at Glasson Dock at a cost of £2916 11s Od. At 3pm on Thursday 4th April, he owned 30 of the 64 shares, Edmund Porter, a shipbroker, owned 30 shares and John Bell of Fleetwood, master mariner, 4 shares. The shares immediately began to change hands, some being bought by members of the local community. On 4th April, William sold 4 shares each to James, John and Robert Bradley, all of Pilling.

On the following day at 10 am, he sold:

(1) 1 share to John Dodgson of Preesall, farm servant; 
(2) 1 share to Thomas Clarkson of Pilling, labourer;

and at 11 am:

(3) 4 shares to Edward Porter of Pilling, farmer; 
(4) 1 share to Thomas Clarkson of Pilling, labourer; 
(5) 2 shares to John Bradshaw of Pilling, farmer;
(6) 2 shares to William Fairclough of Preesall, labourer.

The Dairymaid normally sailed with a master and crew of five. Trading was often around the coast of the U.K., but at other times, a voyage could be to ports in Portugal, Spain, the Mediterranean, or on the coast of Morocco. On 5th February, 1869, the Dairymaid sailed from Cardiff bound for Gibraltar, then continued to Pomaron in southern Portugal, and returned to Liverpool, arriving on 10th May. Each day, the crew were allowed a ration of 2oz sugar, oz coffee, 1/8 oz tea, 1 lb bread, lb flour or 1/3pt peas, 11b beef or 11/4 lb pork and 3 qt water, but no spirits. Substitutes were at the captain's option and when butter was given at the rate of 1 lb per man weekly, the quantity of beef or pork was reduced to 1 lb daily. The wages per month for this voyage were £5.0.0.for the mate, £2.15.0.for the cook/ steward, £2.15.0. for an able-bodied seaman and £2.0.0. for each of two ordinary seamen.

The Fleetwood Register of British Ships shows that, in the years 1862 to 1880, William had shares in ten different ships including the William Gilmore, John Wignall, James and Mary, and Princess Marie. The investments, however, risks. William held 12 shares in the Catherine which was lost were not without on the Horse Bank of the River Ribble on 20th April, 1867, and seven shares in the Janet Wignall, which was totally wrecked on 17th or 18th January 1879 at Bowness Point, Kirkcudbright. He also held eight shares in the Ann Shepherd when it sank in the River Mersey on the 11th November, 1879 after being in collision with the Dock Wall, Liverpool. The wreck was blown up by order of the River Authorities. William sold the majority of his shares in 1878 and 1880, including his remaining shares in both the Dairymaid and the William Shepherd, which were sold to Porters Shipping Co. Ltd. of Fleetwood by Bills of Sale dated 14th May 1880.

William continued to farm successfully and, on the 1881 Census, he is shown to be farming 90 acres. He is listed, aged 70, living at Pasture House with his wife Ann, bachelor brother James, son Richard, widowed daughter Alice Ainsworth, widowed son Joseph, three grandchildren and six servants. On the following Census in 1891, he was still head of the household at Pasture House, but by then his wife Ann had died. On 25th June the following year, William died at the age of 81 and was buried 3 days later at St. John the Baptist Church, Pilling. William's estate was valued at £1401.7s Od. with probate being granted to his sons Richard and William.

The schooner William Shepherd, with which this account began, sailed on for a further 25 years until it was sunk by an enemy submarine on 17th April, 1917, 30 miles south-west of St. Ann's Head, South Wales, and thus the Registration of the ship was closed on 17th May, 1917 at Fleetwood.

Sources -

Lancashire Record Office

SS1 - Crew Lists of Ships Registered at Fleetwood, Lancaster and Preston
SS3 - Fleetwood Registers of British Ships
SS4 - Fleetwood Registers of Shipping Transactions