Take the Grand Tour with the Bealeys and Hutchinsons

Date published: 23 January 2012

The historic and exciting adventures of two famous local families will be brought to life at Bury Library.

From the end of February, it will host a display depicting the travels abroad of the Bealeys and the Hutchinsons. It charts the different routes taken and countries they visited, with extracts from personal diaries and letters plus photos and descriptions of the places they went to.

The Bealey family lived in Radcliffe and was well-known from the early 1600s to the 1930s, leaving a legacy that prevails to this day. The Bealey Bleach and Chemical Works employed hundreds of local people. Radcliffe Library has a very strong connection with the Bealey family.

In 1902, the Urban District Council applied to Andrew Carnegie, a US millionaire of Scottish heritage, for a Public Library Grant. The Carnegie UK Trust responded with an offer of £5,000 towards the cost of building a public library for Radcliffe.

In response, the Radcliffe & District Literary & Scientific Society offered £300-£400 for book stocks and Adam Crompton Bealey, the society’s president, put up £500 for the site to mark his year of office.

Extracts from Grand Tour letters written by Richard Bealey to his mother, to his brother Adam and his sister Elizabeth while on his adventures in France and Italy, will also be on display. The whole collection of original documents can be viewed by appointment at Bury Archives, Moss Street, Bury. Bealey’s Blog tells the story of the cataloguing of the papers and some interesting finds which were made and is available at http://bealey.wordpress.com

The Hutchinson family owned Daisyfield Mill, spinning cotton on the banks of the Bury-Bolton Canal. Their workers lived in four streets of terrace houses built and owned by the Hutchinsons. The family lived in a grand house called Broom Hall where the library and art gallery in Bury now stand.