1775-1778 Pickering / Hayes

The Weaver Navigation Tonnage books

Relative to the partnership, [the books] do give us a small insight into the extent of the trade. The partnership also participated in the return trade up-river shipping products such as potatoes, coal, wheat, salt-pan plates and salt barrows. It must have been successful, since both principals moved to Frodsham and became closely integrated, by marriage, with local families and particularly members of the Hayes family who were active in many areas connected with the port. Lengthy negotiations with Cholmondeley finally resulted in the conversion of the lease to purchase, described as ‘the old cheese warehouse’, plus surrounding land and the saltworks’ for the sum of £3,000. Their finances were stretched and protracted negotiations ensued over the instalment payments of the £3,000.

Both Urmson and Crosbie built substantial houses in the Main Street of Frodsham. John Urmson’s son, Thomas, had two children John and Harriet, both of whom married into the Hayes family. Earlier William Hayes II had a daughter, “Ann” Nancy Hayes (1782-1862) who married Joseph Pickering (1780-1839), another commercial family in Frodsham.

Much later we learn of the demise of the business, which changed its management over time. The Hayes family left a permanent mark on Frodsham in their graves and memorials in St. Lawrence’s churchyard, as did the Pickerings. James Crosbie has memorial tablets on the chancel wall recording his eleven children. The Hayes sisters had streets named after them (Hayes Crescent and St. Hilda’s Drive) and the houses of both John Crosbie and Thomas Urmson survive in Main Street, although neither are dwelling houses today.