Peter Lathom, of Bishpham, Founder of the Charity

Peter Latham of Bishpham. "Founder of Charity".

Of the present day charities for the County of Lancashire, one of the most widely operative is that known after its founder as ,” Peter Lathom's Charity ". Today it is centrally administered from Ormskirk and covers a wide area. of South- West Lancashire.

Yet of Peter Lathom himself but little is known. From his will, which he signed in his own handwriting. and other legal sources we learn that he called himself Peter Lathom, yeoman, of Bispham; that the Will was dated 2nd April, 1700, with a codicil dated 19th February 1700/1 ; that the “ Testator departed this life October, 1701,” and finally that the will was proved in the Consistory Court of Chester on the 11th February, 1701/2. With so few details available it is hardly surprising that there should have grown up around the personality of the man a number of 1ocal beliefs and traditions, to test the probabilities of which the present enquiry has been undertaken.

In the Croston Registers there is another significant entry, the burial at Croston on the 14th October. 1701, of Peter Lathom of Mawdesley. As the maker of Peter l.athom's Will died in that same month of October, 1701, it seems not improbable that here lies buried the Founder of the Charity. If the Standish register of baptism. just mentioned, refers to the man buried at Croston, then we have both the birth and the death of that Peter Lathom who founded the Charity. Unfortunately there is no absolute certainty that they do refer to the same man. It is quite possible that they do not, for the Peter Lathom baptized at Standish may he the same person whose wife, Alice, was buried at. Upholland in 1706-7.

From the negative evidence of the Will, wherein is no mention of either Haigh or Upholland; from the fact that none of the Trustees named in the Will are from these townships; from the topography of the beneficiary districts, and finally from the fact that the entries in the Standish ,and Croston Parish Registers of baptism and burial fit the required chronology, and are apparently the only ones that do so, we may leave it as an asumption that Peter Latham of the Charity was born, as the son of William Lathom of Haigh, in the year 1651, as a certainty that he died in October, 1701, and as almost a certainty that. he w'as buried at Croston on the 14th of that month. (See note from Rector of Croston in References). Even though all this be granted it still does not prove that the Peter Lathom of the Charity .was actually descended from the Lathoms of ParboJd. Before speculating on the probabilities of such descent it may be helpful to record some of Peter Latham's presumed activities during his lifetime.

Peter Lathom’s life (1651-1701) was cast in very stormy times. He grew up during some of the most disturbed periods of English history. He saw the confiscation of the Parbold. Wrightington and Allerton estates; he witnessed the extremes of poverty into which this Confiscation had thrown the Lathom family; he saw some of them with not the value of 5/- either in goods or lands, and constantly harried by religious and civil strife; and seeing all these things it is hardly surprising that he leaves money for the benefit of the poor – among whom the Lathoms of Parbold were now to be numbered; that he remembers the St, John Roman Catholic Mission in which Christopher Lathom, the priest, and a possible relative (25), is interested; that he bequeathrs £40 to the children of another possible relative, ' Mistresss Katherine Lethem’ (22) ; that he forbids any public offlcer to be employed in the distribution of his charity -an understandable family dislike of. the officialdom which had oppressed the Lathoms of Parbold- and that he does not forget even the poor prisoners in Lancaster Castle, in which again he may have had some family interest.

Peter Lathom’s choice of Executors is not that of a man who had earned his fortune by peddling or begging. His Executors are eight in number, of whom six are. described as gentlemen, and only two are husbandmen. With the exception of Robert Scarisbrick of Scarisbrick and John Heyes, Gentleman of Ormskirk, all hail from the immediate vicinity of Parbold and Wrightington. The former was probaby . that Robert Scarisbrick whwho is mentioned in the Victoria C.ounty History as having been a Jacobite and imprisoned therefor, though eventually his estates were returned to him. All the Lathoms were Jacobites and recusants. so Peter's choice of another Jacobite is again suggesttive of a connection between them and him. As has already been mentioned Robert Scarishrick was oneof the only two survivors of Peter Lathom's trustees

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightington#Peter_Lathom.27s_charity