An entrepreneurial age?

On the Stoke Road opposite the path to the tunnel mouth is a farm house, see image 30-25,  which was once the foreman’s accommodation and office for a large limestone quarry on the hill behind. The quarry has been land-filled and little evidence remains of it. It was one of a line of old quarries extending to the west towards Gayton Wilds on the other side of the road to Towcester. No doubt many of the plain stone houses of the village were built of stone from them.

For more on the operation of the quarry please read an article on the limestone railway.

A reference, albeit oblique, to the Duke of Grafton’s first interest in the quarry comes from a 1837 letter between his agent and his solicitor. From the letter one can deduce that the then Duke’s agent, John Roper, with Robert Rogers as foreman, put the quarry into commission, for the Duke, in around 1805 - 1812. By 1819 a John Dix, was installed as foreman by Roper and he remained until 1825 when he was sacked by Roper, who replaced him with his son, Benedict Roper. In 1837, John Dix was interviewed by the agent and disclosed that no accounts were kept for stone sales before 1819 and hinted that the ones that he kept did not cover the stone that was sold ‘on the side’ by Roper. The arrangement at that time, as far as John Dix could tell, was that for every ton of stone lifted and included in the account (around 6000 tons per year), 20 pence was received from its sale. Just 8d would go to the foreman including his men, 6d to Roper, for doing almost nothing, and 6d would go to the Duke.

The main problem with this was that the Duke trusted Roper to a point beyond negligence. He did not audit accounts and left him with all the scope he needed. This is surprising because his reputation had not been always good. He had caused fear amongst canal users who thought that he, in his partnership with James Barnes and ‘good offices’ with the Duke’s father, then 3rd Duke of Grafton, would try as far as possible to delay the completion of the tunnel so as to promote more trade for himself at Blisworth Wharf. But perhaps all he really did was look happy while Barnes and Jessop were having so much trouble with the tunnel! Anyway, he was trusted by the 4th Duke who took over in 1811 and continued to employ him as agent.  John Roper originally began work as agent in 1783 on a salary of £100 a year, £30 board wages, £18 riding expenses and the services of the household apothecary - quite a generous remuneration package.

Many of John Roper's deceits became known in the 1820’s, after auditing had been introduced. Some more revelations for the Duke emerged after Roper was sacked in 1831. Allegedly, he had falsified rental incomes from many cottages, ran businesses based on estate resources for mainly his own gain - stone and timber at Blisworth, tiles and bricks at Alderton etc; he used the Duke’s capital for his own trading and executed his duties in an autocratic manner, favouring only his friends which, as we recall, did not include the Baptists in Blisworth. Apparently, his dishonesty extended down to minor issues such as a claim that the quarry railway lines were his property when in fact they had been given gratis by the Canal Company to promote trade by canal.

The Duke reviewed how to deal with him in 1833 but, overall, issued a very moderate claim for lost revenues, without recourse to the courts. He had no desire to damage Roper’s family whom he regarded as honest. At about that time, the Duke was under the impression that the quarry at Blisworth came into production in 1821 and this seems to be a sign that his faculties, at over 70 years of age, were failing him. By Dix’s evidence the quarry was in production for ‘several years’ before then (see NRO G4113/2) and the tithe survey of 1808 show there was a quarry there. The quarry was not brought under proper supervision until 1838 when Benedict Roper was sacked for reasons of a lazy approach and allowing a worker’s bullying monopoly to operate in the pits. Perhaps significantly, Benedict was not removed until just after the death of his father.

John Roper’s performance seems spectacular but he was not an exception; a few of the tunnelling subcontractors were sacked for corruption and one defaulted as he found himself in prison. Even the rector at the time, Rev. Ambrosse, acquired a reputation for dubious financial dealings and for following a questionable absentee lifestyle. He was called to the court for bankruptcy a few times.

In explanation:  John Roper was born in 1756 in Suffolk and he died in 1837 at Potterspury.  He gained the job of steward to the Duke of Grafton in 1783 on a salary of £100 per year.  In the Spring of 1789 he set up experimental sowing to compare later yields, comparing clover and cow grass.  By 1791 he was engaging botanists in discussions on how to improve seed-stock.  Because any improvement in land productivity would immediately benefit the Duke in justifying a rent raise from more prosperous and confident farmers, John Roper's "stock" with the Duke must have improved for he was soon appointed land agent.  This succession to such an influential job must have occurred before the Canal works had arrived at Blisworth: say by 1794, because it was Roper that was involved in setting out land for traders at Blisworth wharf and Roper who was involved in some politics surrounding the wharf.