EXCHANGE HOTEL, Fox Street

EXCHANGE HOTEL    #

16 / 17 Fox Street

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Formerly the "FOX STREET TAVERN"
The "Exchange" takes its name from the days when the Lune Street
Public Hall was used as a Corn Exchange, where farmers brought their
produce to town to be sold. Both before and after their transactions they
dropped in at the Exchange to enjoy some refreshment.
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MINE HOSTS:

1853 - 67            William Fowler          d. 21.6.1867 aged 49 years

1868 - 69            James Coupe

1871 - 79            Mrs. Margaret Fowler   d. 8.6.1879 aged 61 years.

1879 - 89            Frederick Coward

1889 - 93            James Campbell

1893                    Richard Miller Taylor

1893 - 96            Walter Difford

1897 - 99            Samuel Pimley

1899 - 1900        Thomas Duckworth Yates

1900                   Samuel Pimley

1900 - 01            Fred Watson

1901                   John Cave   * See article, below, re: the Cave family.

1902                   Thomas Etherington

1904 - 05           Ada L. Dickinson

1907                   John H. Kirby

1910                   Ellen Kirby

1911 - 13           John Burke

1916 - 17           Edward Watt and Elsie Watt

1924 - 27           Mrs. Alice Greenwood

1931                  James Preston   d. 28th January 1931  aged 31 years.

1931 - 40           Catherine Preston

1944 -                Henry Fellows

1948                  John Clarkson

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EXCHANGE HOTEL

FOX STREET

CHOICE WINES, SPIRITS, HENNESSEY'S BRANDY,

FIRST-CLASS HOME-BREWED AND BITTER ALE,

CIGARS, &c.

EXCELLENT BAR-PARLOUR

JAMES COUPE, Proprietor

Preston Chronicle   19th December 1868

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Preston Chronicle  20th March 1869

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Under Entirely New Management
EXCHANGE HOTEL,  Fox Street,  PRESTON 
FRED WATSON, Proprietor
Two minutes from Theatre and Public Hall,
Five minutes from Station .
WINES, SPIRITS, and CIGARS
OF THE FINEST QUALITY.
W. HALL & Co's Famous Tithebarn
Street Brewery's Ales and Stouts
on draught.
Lunch from 11am to 1pm.  Call Solicited.
Lancashire Evenng Post  10th January 1901
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BLAMED THE CLOCK
A clock with the fingers set in advance of the hour, was 
said to be responsible for the appearance at Preston Police Court, today, of Ellen Kirby, licensee of the Exchange Hotel, Fox Street, who was summoned for selling liquor a few minutes before 6am, the specified hour for opening,
Mr. Oakey, who prosecuted, pointed out that according to the Licensing Act of 1874, licensed premises were to be closed on weekdays from 11pm to 6am.
On November 28th  Sergeant Rwe and PC Bickerstaffe were on duty near the hotel and saw the door opened.
At 5.52am a man named Fletcher entered, and the constables followed, and found the customer being served with coffee and whisky, and there was 3p on the counter.
Mr. Blackhurst, for the defence, called evidence to show that, unknown to the landlady or her sister, Miss Lea who served the man, had wound up the clock the previous evening and put it five minutes fast.
A fine of 5 shillings and costs was imposed
Lancashire Evening Post  4th December 1908
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Lancashire Evening Post  24th November 1920

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 Lancashire Evening Post  16th August 1930
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DEATH
On the 28th inst. at the Exchange Hotel, Fox Street, Preston, James, the beloved husband of Catherine Preston, aged 31 years.

On the 28th inst. at the Exchange Hotel, Fox Street, Preston, James, the beloved son of Annie and the late James Preston, Dog and Partridge Inn, Friargate. Lancashire Evening Post  30th January 1931
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Mrs Jas. Preston, and Mrs Preston and family desire to thank all Relatives, Worshipful Master, Brother A Kearsley, and Brethren of the Temple Lodge 4,477, Birkenhead, the Staff Matthew Brown & Co Ltd., Dr. Lowry, Nurse Simkins, Rev. J.H. Morson, and all friends for kind expressions of sympathy, and beautiful floral tributes, received during their recent sad loss.
Exchange Hotel, Fox Street, Preston.

Lancashire Evening Post  2nd February 1931 
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THE CAVE FAMILY OF PRESTON: PUBLICANS, POLICE - AND OTHERS

A number of us have pub licensees, brewers and maltsters in our Cave family trees, so I was interested to find the website ‘Pubs in Preston - Preston’s Inns, Taverns and Beerhouses - One man’s attempt to recreate Preston’s 19th-century social life and times’. Its creator, Stephen Halliwell, has traced the life and times of hundreds of public houses and their occupants, in the Lancashire town of Preston.

The search facility revealed two Caves who were licensees in Preston -

1869-1874 - Samuel Cave (with Thomas Turner), the Fylde Tavern

1893-1894 - John Cave, The Glover Street Tavern

1897 - John Cave, The Wellington Inn

1901 - John Cave, The Exchange Hotel

1902 - John Cave, The Blackamoors Head

From just these two names has emerged an extensive and very interesting family tree. There appear to have been no other Caves in Preston at the time – always helpful in following a line – and almost without exception they stayed in the town.

Firstly, censuses indicated that Samuel and John were father and son. Samuel Cave was born in Preston in 1801 to Sarah Cave, no father was named, and he married Mary (maiden name not known). In censuses from 1841-1871 Samuel is described as M.S. (manservant), coachman, servant, and cabdriver. Census data doesn’t describe either Samuel or John as licensees, but there is sufficient evidence to indicate that they are the same people. Perhaps their time in the licensed trade was short and did not coincide with the census, or maybe they had multiple occupations. In May 1874 the Preston Guardian reported that Samuel Cave, landlord of the Fylde Tavern, was summoned for selling drink during prohibited hours, but the case was dismissed.

Samuel and Mary had at least seven children – Samuel (1833), Ann/e (1835), Isabella (1837), Sarah (1841), William (1844), Richard (1846) and John (1852). Because of the original link with the licensing trade I was initially concerned with John, the youngest, but the other siblings have also proved interesting.

John Cave (1852-1927)

In 1871 John was aged 19 and a footman (out of work). The Lancashire Record Office website also lists a John Cave who served with the police from 1871-1873, and information in a later newspaper report confirms that this was the same person.

On 11 February 1880 at St Peter’s Church, Preston, John was married to Lucy Watson, the daughter of the late William Mason, a publican. Lucy was a widow and had a small daughter Eliza Alice. Before her marriage to John, Lucy had lived with her aunt and uncle who were publicans at the Fox and Goose Tavern; and the Fox Street Tavern (later the Exchange Hotel). At the time of his marriage John was a Sanitary Inspector, also referred to as Inspector of Nuisances, and it appears that he was responsible for what we would now call weights and measures, or trading standards. Tragically, Lucy died the following year. Her daughter, Eliza Alice, later married a doctor and had three daughters. In 1883 John married Alice Foster, daughter of the late Richard Foster. They appear not to have had any family.

We know a little more about John from local newspapers. In 1878 the Preston Guardian reported a case where John Cave, inspector of nuisances, gave evidence in a case of adulterated milk. The case was proved and the defendant fined 40s. with costs. In 1880 the council minutes reported that John Cave, inspector of nuisances, had applied for an increase in salary. This was shortly after his first marriage to Lucy. The application was ‘referred to committee’ and the outcome not known.

At the end of 1892 there was considerable local press coverage about ‘The Slink Meat Traffic in Preston – Startling Disclosures’ and ‘Reorganisation of the Sanitary Dept.’ Slink meat was a term used to describe diseased meat which was unfit to eat, and as Sanitary Inspector John Cave was responsible for monitoring this traffic in the town. Some allegations state that slink meat was moved out of the area for onward sale, with the Sanitary Inspectors receiving ‘tips’ from farmers for this service, and that although S.I. Cave and his colleague had been in post for 20 years the service was negligent and corrupt, and that Preston had the highest death rate of any town in England. Probably largely in consequence, it was proposed that John Cave’s employment be terminated as part of large-scale reorganisation. However other members of the corporation spoke out in strong defence of the two Sanitary Inspectors, and a letter from John Cave was submitted. Again, it is not obvious exactly what the outcome was, but it seems likely that John Cave’s employment with the Corporation ceased, and that he then became licensee of the pubs mentioned above.

In the 1901 census John aged 45, was ‘living on own means’ with Alice, 40, at Lauderdale Street. By 1911 John and Alice, were aged 54 and 50, had been married for 27 years, and John was hotel manager at the Boreatton Arms Hotel, Baschurch, Staffs. John died aged 75 in 1927, having returned to Preston, and left the not inconsiderable sum of £3,749.4s.1d. to his widow Alice.

The Daughters:

Sarah Cave (m. Thomas Turner)

Sarah, b. 1841 is listed as a cotton weaver at home with her parents in 1861 census. In July 1861 at St John’s Church Preston, Sarah married Thomas Turner (b.1837, son of Richard Turner). In 1861, prior to his marriage, Thomas was a policeman but by 1871 Thomas was a beer house keeper – another link to the licensed trade. Presumably he was the joint landlord of the Fylde Tavern with Samuel Cave in 1869-1874. By 1881 he had become a corn dealer, then a farmer. Sarah and Thomas stayed in and around Preston and had 11 children of whom 8 were surviving in 1911. Two of their sons were butchers. Sarah and Thomas both lived into their 80s.

Ann(e) Cave (m. John Hunt)

Ann(e) was born c. 1835 and married John Hunt in 1846. They had two sons, James (b. 1864) and Richard (b. 1869), and four daughters – Mary, Sarah Ann, Ruth, and Elizabeth Ellen. This was a family mainly employed in the local cotton industry – John was a cotton yarn dresser, Ann a cotton weaver, and their daughters all followed them as weavers. James aged 17 was an apprentice coach builder.   Should '1846' read '1864'??

Isabella Cave (m. Hugh Ashcroft)

Isabella Cave (b. 1837) was a cotton weaver in 1861, at home with parents. In 1871, after a little bit of detective work, I found her in the guise of Bella Ashcroft (nee ‘Kay’) living in Mount Street, Preston at an address between parents Samuel and Mary, and brother William. Neither Isabella nor her husband Hugh, a farmer’s son, were literate – they signed the marriage register with a cross - and so the name had apparently become corrupted. It is curious that neither her brother or father, who were present at their ceremony, noticed the mistake, and father Samuel’s name was also mis-spelt. By 1881 Isabella and Hugh had two daughters and two sons, in 1901 Isabella, now widowed, was a lodging house keeper.

Samuel Cave (Jnr.) (1833-1912) and his son William Henry Morgan Cave (1862-1942)

Returning to the Cave brothers, Samuel (Jnr.) is unusual in this family as he was ‘the one who moved away’ from Preston. He married Mary Morgan in July 1857 at Trinity Church Paddington. They had two sons, as well as other children. Samuel was a bank messenger. By 1901 he was widowed and had returned to Preston to live with his younger brother Richard.

Samuel and Mary’s eldest son, William Henry Morgan Cave (b. 1862), is the one who can be said to ‘have made good’. In 1881 he was clerk to an accountant, his brother Frederick (b. 1865) being clerk to an agent. In 1885 William married Elizabeth Randall in Peckham, daughter of a toy merchant. In 1891 and 1901 William H.M. and Elizabeth were in Deptford and in 1911 in Brockley, SE London, with their son Henry Randall Cave (bc 1884) and two daughters, Grace (bc 1891) and Mary (bc 1896). As the oldest grandchild of the Preston Cave clan, William was fortunate to inherit money from his father Samuel (Jnr.) in 1912 (£634.1s.6d) and from his (childless) uncle Richard who left him £1,976.8s.6d in 1929. William H.M. was a stocks and shares dealer at the Stock Exchange and he died in September 1942 in Haywards Heath, leaving £22,461.4s.1d to his eldest son, Henry Randall Cave, who was a member of the Stock Exchange. Henry Randall Cave had served in the Great War from August 1914 to March 1918, when he was discharged because of wounds following service overseas, and awarded the Silver War badge. From 1916, this was given to men of serviceable age who had been honourably discharged due to wounds or sickness and was worn with civilian dress to prevent accusations of cowardice.

William Cave (1844-1933)

William Cave was the second son of Samuel Cave Snr. and Mary. William married Alice Miller in Preston in April 1870, and their children were all born in Preston – James Miller (1871), Mary Ann (1872), Samuel R. (1875) and Edith Isabella (1877). In 1881 and 1891 William was listed as a police sergeant and police inspector, but his earlier and more exciting career was discovered from the Lancashire Daily Post. In April 1930 on the occasion of his Diamond Wedding anniversary, and three years later, his obituary in 1933, his early life was described as “an adventurous lifetime of 65 years in which he – left school at 9; ran away to sea at 14; joined the Army at 15; was in a mutiny at 16; fought the Maoris at 17, and joined the police force at 24”. The newspaper reports:

Willie Cave had been an errand boy, a grocer’s assistant, and a plumber before he made up his mind to run away to sea at 14. So he went to Liverpool, and after wandering about the docks for a day and a night, fell in with a recruiting party. The recruiting sergeant bought him over for a shilling, kept him in bed a week to ‘stretch’ him, and then giving his age as 18 enlisted him in the 65th Foot, the Royal Bengal Tigers. After 12 months in Ireland they were sent out to New Zealand to assist in quelling the Maori rebellion. The troop ship took four months to reach Auckland, and during the voyage the soldiers mutinied, owning to a shortage of fresh water. Mr Cave spent six years in New Zealand fighting the Maoris, and he took part in the battle of Rangariri on 20 November 1863... where between 300 and 400 British soldiers were killed ... At 24 Mr Cave left the Army and joined the Preston borough police force ... rose to the rank of inspector, and retired after 26 years’ service.

Since then Mr & Mrs Cave have jogged along comfortably. For the past 22 years they have acted as caretakers ... in Lune-street, Preston, and there they live in a cosy little kitchen right in the heart of the town, yet tucked away from the noise and bustle of modern traffic.

William Cave’s 1933 obituary begins “Old Billy Cave has not lived to see the spring. The doyen of Preston police inspectors died this morning ... but a month ago he posed for a photograph with the five oldest police pensioners in the town”.

In 1893 William Cave was named in a case where an ‘absent’ landlord was accused of harbouring an officer on duty, although William Cave, an officer with nearly 25 years’ service, was allegedly searching the premises for suspected intruders. The landlord was convicted and fined £5 but it is not clear, from the lengthy and wordy reports, how this affected P.I. Cave. Later reports imply that he continued to serve in the police force.

Richard Cave (c. 1846-1929)

Richard married Susannah Fielding in 1879. Susannah was from Dolphinholme, Lancs., and they may have met when Richard worked in Salford as a servant to the Dean of Manchester, as it is recorded in the 1871 census that Susannah’s sister Nancy was also a servant there. Prior to this in 1861 Richard, aged 14, had been a footman. By 1881 he was a prison warden and appears to have followed this occupation until he appears as a pensioner, retired warden, in 1911. Richard and Susannah had no children but I view them as a kind couple - in 1901 they shared their home with Richard’s widowed brother Samuel, who had returned from London, and also Susannah’s sister Nancy who had not married. In 1887 Samuel Cave Snr., Richard’s father, had died at their home where he too may have been living after his wife died in 1880.

Having started to look for links with pubs in this family, they have proved to be of much broader interest – and there is more to find. For anyone with local knowledge of Preston, it would be easy – and fascinating – to trace where this Cave family lived and worked, often moving short distances around a small number of streets, and would provide a great family history trail.

There are still a number of Caves listed in Preston today and I wonder if they are descendants? I would like to know if anyone else has followed this interesting line, which I have been able to trace in the area for over a hundred years. Nearly all of the information in this study is sourced through mainstream genealogy websites; from the Cave FHS Table NZ, and the excellent Lancashire Online Parish Clerk website. I am especially grateful to Steve Halliwell of ‘Pubs in Preston blogspot’ for his help and interest.

Wendy Wright

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CENSUS RETURNS

1871

Margaret Fowler              50 years                    Hotel Keeper               b. Farnworth

Alice Grace Fowler          83                             Aunt                             b. Burscough

Richard Watson               26                   Nephew / Plumber's glazier     b. Preston

Lucy Watson (nee Mason) 22                           Niece                           b. West Bromwich, Staffs.

Eliza Alice Watson            1                              Niece ?                        b. Preston

Ellen Abbott                     15                             Domestic Servant                 do

Thomas Johnson               12                             Domestic Servant        b. Penwortham

1881

Frederick Coward            38 years                    Lic. Vict.                     b. Preston

May Coward                    35                             Wife                                    do

Ernest Coward                  10                             Son                                     do

Thomas Coward                 8                              Son                                    do

Nellie Coward                    6                              Daughter                             do

Fred Coward                     5                               Son                                    do

Grace Coward                   1 month                     Daughter                            do

1891

Jane Campbell                 65 years                                                        b. Lytham

James Campbell              35                               Son / Lic. Vict.           b. Preston

Thomas Campbell           27                                Son                                    do

1901

Fred Watson                   35 years                      Publican                     b. Oldham

Mary H. Watson              34                              Wife                                   do

1911

John Burke            2 males and 1 female living here.  No further details yet.

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