Family Lessons 161: Thomas Dilworth

I continue to enjoy reading The Diary of the Rev Peter Walkden (1733-1734), Presbyterian minister of Hesketh Lane Chapel near Chipping. There is little theology within, but interesting accounts of every day life, such as obtaining coal, buying penny pots of ale and visiting the various sick of his congregation. On what a later generation would call Holy Saturday of March, 1733, he arranged for one Thomas Dilworth of Arbor to make “an iron stension [stanchion, meaning a prop or pillar] for ye south payne of glass in ye great window in ye east end of ye chapel.”

Dilworth could not do the job, but recommended another smith who was also too busy shodding horses but might make it 'after dinner'. It then transpires that the 'Glasener' (glazier) hadn’t bothered turning up either, so Walkden bought some ale and then some brandy to pass the time. The second smith then did not trouble to appear to take measurement after all, yet Walken concludes:

“But it was no harm because ye wood would yet answer ye end” (the wooden frame would yet make do). It sounds like making repairs to an eighteenth century chapel was no more efficient than those of us charged with repairing them in the twenty-first. Local tradesmen were either too busy or too feckless.

Knowing that I have Dilworth ancestors about Chipping, I looked Thomas up to see if he was one of mine. The database yielded several by that name who might have been within Walkden’s orbit:

Thomas Dilworth, 1660-1726 (eight x great-grandfather), Chipping

Thomas Dilworth, 1683-1683, (first cousin, eight times removed), Chipping

Thomas Dilworth, 1713-1786 (half first cousin, eight times removed), Lancaster

Thomas Dilworth, 1713-1793 (seventh great uncle), Over Wyresdale

Thomas Dilworth, 1740-1822 (sixth great uncle), Quernmore

The relations I have from that area were either already dead, not yet born or lived too far away for the sake of making a window frame. Yet somewhere, two blacksmiths failed to assist with the repair of a chapel, possibly for good reason, possibly not. Had they been able to help, however, that might have scored better in Walkden’s diary, which is one of the few places in which their names live on. Furthermore, an act of service for the Living God, no matter how small, is always noted and recompensed in due time.

If an opportunity to serve, to bless or to give arises, do not let it slip by, for with it slips the Lord's commendation.

Let us not therefore be weary of well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. - Galatians 6:9, 1599 Geneva Bible

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