Unrecorded memoir of Lancashire life written by the son of the Congregationalist preacher in Darwen, Lancashire, Samuel Nichols.
Bound in recent quarter burgundy morocco over buckram covered boards. First printed page, effectively a drop hear title reads: ‘Published in the “Darwen News” on Successive Saturdays commencing January 8th, 1898’. This collection of 156 printed leaves, rectos only, appears to be a privately printed version of Nichols’ newspaper column which appeared in the Darwen News for six months in 1898. No institutional copies located. The author has signed his name at the end of Article VII.
The autobiographical narrative by Nichols (presumed to be also Samuel Nichols like his father) describes Nichols’ senior’s ministry first in Ranskill in Nottinghamshire and Bawtry before moving to Lower Chapel, Darwen where the writer spent most of his childhood. Over the course of the text Nichols offers memories of Lancastrian Chartism, the Penny Post and the experiences of accompanying his father in preaching expeditions around the Manchester area. Nichols describes the fierce partisanship for north and south in Darwen during the American Civil War and his own move to Uttoxeter near Birmingham. Nichols is known as the author of an 1893 history of the Darwen Cotton Famine but we can’t locate any extant copies of this book.
