PAST AND PRESENT - SOME FAMILY LINKS - VI

Several of the children of Edward Edmondson, of Trumley, Middleton (brother of Thomas, of Grassyard Hall) have been dealt with in the preceding chapters. Reference may now be made to Edward's daughter Margaret, who was baptised at Overton Church, on July 10, 1775. This Margaret Edmondson married John Paget, woollen or worsted merchant, of Lancaster and Forton, who, at the beginning of the last century, had become a partner in the firm of Thomas Edmondson and Co. worsted spinners, Mytholmroyd, near Halifax. A list of "Seats of the nobility and gentry in the county Palatine of Lancaster," published in 1825, shows that Thomas Paget then resided at Forton lodge - built nearly a hunderd years ago by William Brade, a Liverpool merchant, of the same stock, I believe, as the Forton yeoman, William Brade, whose sister Jennet married Timothy Welch, of Ellel (1714-1791). Thomas Paget died at Forton Lodge on December 18, 1843. He was born on November 12, 1764, so that he attained a ripe age. He was the son of Peter Paget by his wife Elizabeth Hankinson, who were married in 1761, the former, probably, belonging to a Scotforth and the latter to a Fylde family. Mrs. Peter Paget had a brother, Thomas Hankinson, who married Peter Paget's sister Mary, and of tis marriage there was issue the Rev. Robert Hankinson, rector of Walpole St. Andrew, near Wisbech, who died in 1862 at the great age of 92. Another brother of Mrs. Paget, John Hankinson, practised as an attorney at Lancaster, and died here about the beginning of last century. There was also a kinswoman, Ann Hankinson, who carried on business in this town as a milliner, and died in 1779. In February, 1776, John Hankinson was nominated by Lord Ducie as Deputy-Clerk of the Crown in the County Palatine.


Thomas Paget left a widow, one son, and three daughters. The son, also named Thomas, married Anne, the youngest daughter of Henry Smith, gentleman, Hole of Ellel, by his wife Ellen, daughter of George Yeats, to which families further reference will be made in the next article. Thomas Paget the younger went to reside at Ratcliffe Cottage, Forton, he being connected with John Welch, then of Cabus and afterwards of Burrow House, Scotforth, in carrying on an extensive business at Ratcliffe Wharf. The partners were cousins, their fathers having married two sisters. The business at Ratcliffe Wharf was previously carried on by John Welch's father, Thomas. Eight months after Thomas Paget's death, one of his sons met with his death under very sad circumstances. This son was likewise named Thomas, and it was intended that he should adopt the legal profession. He was articled to a Lancaster solicitor, John Herdman Sherson, and at the time of his death was only 17 years old, being then described as of Castle Hill. On Wednesday afternoon, July 20th, 1853, young Paget was drowned while bathing in the Lune between the Pothouses and the New Quay. A gallant attempt was made to save him by another bather, Robert Hall - son of the then Mayor, John Hall, solicitor, Saleyard-street - who still survives, residing at Slyne Lodge, Slyne. Thomas Paget (who died on November 21st, 1852) had another son, William Smith Paget, born in 1848. This son is Dr. Paget-Tomlinson, of The Biggins, near Kirkby Lonsdale. Thirty years ago he married the second daughter of John L. Price, of Standish, near Wigan. In 1889 he succeeded his relative, Miss E. Tomlinson, in The Biggins estate, and took the name by which he is now known. Dr. Paget-Tomlinson is J.P. and D.L. for Westmorland, and was High Sheriff of that county in 1897.


A sister of Mrs. Thomas (Margaret) Paget, Hannah Edmondson, who was baptised at Overton Church on March 26th 1780, married a Mr. Caton, who lived sometime at Bolton-le-Sands, and also at Fenton-Cawthorne House, Market-street, Lancaster. A story is told that while residing at the latter place he was so much displeased about a certain marriage engagement that he had the blinds of all his windows put down during the time the bridal party were going to and from the Old Church. Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Caton, then described as of Lancaster, was married at Cockerham Church in 1830 to Charles Bower, gentleman, of Bolton-le-Sands. They were living at Sunderand in the middle of last century. At Bolton-le-Sands they ranked among the landowners. Charles Bower built the house across the railway, opposite the station. Land belonging to the family was ultimately purchased on behalf of the Roman Catholics, for the erection of a new church, &c. A son (Thomas) of Mr. Caton, who removed to London, was a legatee of his cousins, William Bradshaw, Queen-square, Lancaster (Mayor in 1870), and Miss Betsy Jane Bradshaw. There was some relationship between the Bradshaws and the Welch and Paget families. William Bradshaw's father - Bartholomew Bradshaw, woollen draper or mercer, Market-street, Lancaster, who died at Burrow House, Scotforth (afterwards the residence of John Welch from Cabus), on January 6th, 1857 - was an executor under the will of Thomas Paget who died at Forton Lodge in 1843. And there was also a relationship with the Bradshaws of Burton. Bartholomew Bradshaw the elder was brother-in-law of John Cumpsty, mercer, of Lancaster and Lune Villa, Skerton, who died in 1815. 

Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh (part 3)

The hardship of their case consisted in nothing but this: each was now possessed of a formed and fixed character, and that now had to adapt itself to a new set of conditions, requiring compromise and “give and take.” What wonder the experience was neither pleasant nor merry! Is the common lot so different?...

The wife who had so hesitatingly flung in her lot with his proved the truest and staunchest of allies. She too had all to lose. Carlyle was her all in all. His defeat meant proof of her own folly in uniting her fortunes to his, and that was too bitter a pill to swallow. One must confess it was well the case was so, for the coming conflict was to be very bitter and very prolonged.

Ten years after marriage Carlyle had his foot firmly on the ladder, but not sooner, although he had then already written and published the very cream of his intellect, works of genius as original, as brilliant, massy essays of solid gold, and had already expounded almost to its last detail his own peculiar message and creed.

Twenty years later he stands at the head of British literature, unequalled, almost unchallenged, admitted into any and every society, the valued friend and guest of peers, the acknowledged master of many of the finest spirits of the time. “My ambition has been gratified,” wrote Mrs Carlyle to John Forster, “beyond my wildest dreams, and I am miserable." Miss Welsh little knew the greatness of the man she married when she married him. That she did love him with more than usual intensity is made evident by a hundred letters. Carlyle loved her very tenderly and very deeply. Her death broke his power at one blow, and the man lingered pitifully, a lonely, sorrowful old man, whose triumph, like Johnson's had come too late. What was amiss? “No talent for the market, thought I – none; the reverse rather.” So Carlyle sorrowfully noted in his journal at this time. The entry may explain why he has always been the god of the literary young man's idolatry. Carlyle tried so hard to swim with the times consistently with his conscience, and failed so lamentably. He would have liked so well to have pleased editors, but could not. So he defied them. With a wife to support he was prepared to stretch conscience as far as ever it could honourably be stretched. There can be little doubt of that. We do not need to accept Carlyle as a fanatic on the matter of the rights of contributors. He was ready enough to please, but he could, and would, write to no man's order. Too great and original himself to be an editor, far less could he trim his sails to suit editors, study the journalistic signs of the times, and satisfy “public requirements.” He tried and failed, and young men are consoled when they learn that Carlyle suffered as they suffer, was told “his style was at fault,” and his matter literally of no importance and unadulterated rubbish! Carlyle's style was not at fault. It was a very good style, but not nearly so brilliant and picturesque as it became later. Still less was there any lack of quality in the matter.

Carlyle failed because he could not persuade editors to accept the articles he wrote. The editors were good judges, so good that they probably interpreted the time correctly in fearing it could not appreciate Carlyle. Carlyle was original, but he was consumately great; so great that these editors could not recognise he was a greater man than themselves.

Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh (part 2)

Very evidently from the first there was friction and disagreement which required length of time to disappear. There need be little doubt that this important little matter of the wife's signature was easily the most objectionable feature from Carlyle's point of view, and on every ground is indefensible. Froude apparently drew his own conclusions, but however honestly and firmly believed by himself, these can scarcely be accepted. It would be grossly unfair to Carlyle to admit them. One is bound to say this strange action of Mrs Carlyle is better explained by the overweening “social mesalliance” theory, which she stoutly believed. Had Froude's deduction been the correct one, there would surely have been at least more or less public knowledge of it at the time, and apparently there was no such thing.

The point is of importance if only as proof that from the first Mrs Carlyle possessed little consideration for anyone's feelings, and literally none for those of the man she had married. Whatever excuses were available for her act, she had none for thus inviting the attention of her correspondents to the fact that she had passed with marriage under no husband domination, and had forfeited no whit of status. She, at least, was no Carlyle, marriage or no.

But if Jane Welsh had been reluctant to engage in the matrimonial adventure, she was ready and eager to do her part in the struggle. Home was made attractive for Carlyle. Circumstances soon revealed to the newly-made wife - not to her liking either – what life with a literary man was to mean. Her husband required solitude, as do all highly-strung individuals who have never passed under the stern discipline of necessity. In his mother's house solitude was not an easy thing to obtain, but everyone had been eager to assist him to attain it. His wife recognised a certain necessity, but had not bargained for Carlyle withdrawing himself from her society for the entire day, or well into the evening. She, too, for the first time, was passing under discipline – she who had been encouraged in every childish whim. Both husband and and wife had been in abnormal situations all their lives, subject to no wholesome, imperative control, acknowledging none as master or employer, or even as guardian.


(To be continued)

On Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh

Considering its sub-title “An Experiment in Biographical Explication,” Mr R S Craig's “The Making of Carlyle” (Eveleigh Nash, 10s 6d net) demanded a preface. However, the main title is clear enough. Mr Craig has brought much research and intelligence to bear on the Scottish upbringing, early friendships, courtship, and marriage of Carlyle. In a word, this book is a study of Carlyle's environment in his formative years, and it is of fascinating interest. I quote this week some detached passages on Carlyle's first years of married life, in which Mr Craig's independent views are exhibited.

The honeymoon began with an instantaneous flight to their own house in Comely Bank, Edinburgh. They were married probably quite early in the morning, to admit of the long day journey by coach thither. Wedding-feast there was none, since no attempt was ever made by either party to “put a face” on things. Appearances deceived, and the Carlyles avoided whatever might deceive! In Scots law marriage is a contract. Carlyle believed the ceremony could represent nothing else, and it did represent nothing else. Yet his marriage was a true marriage from the highest as from the lowest point of view, as lofty, as spiritual, and eternal as ever human marriage was, in whatever form or by whatever ceremony celebrated...

From a passage in the “Reminiscences of Jane Welsh Carlyle,” it would appear that for some years after her marriage Mrs Carlyle persisted in signing herself by her maiden name. The passage in question may be found on page 128 of Froude's edition, and is as follows: “From her my Jeannie was called 'Jane Baillie Welsh' at the time of our marriage, but after a good few years, 'when she took to singing 'Jane Welsh Carlyle,' in which I never hindered her, she dropped the 'Baillie,' I suppose as too long.”


(To be continued)

Part 5 of 5

Friday, October 14, 1904.

PAST AND PRESENT

SOME FAMILY LINKS. – V.

There have been Edmondsons in Lancaster and  the neighbouring townships certainly since the reign of Edward the Fourth, and probably much earlier. Among the members of the Lancaster Corporation in 1489 was one Thomas Edmondson. A dozen years or so later there was an Edmondson possessed of a tenement and ten acres of land at Cartmel, who at the same time held the office of  “carter upon Kent Sandes”  (Kents Bank), as tenant right of the Prior of Cartmel. The tenement and lands were at that time known as “Carterhouse,” and some writers on the subject have assumed that it was so called on account of many members of a family named Carter having acted as official guides over  the sands. In the latter part of the fifteenth and during the first forty years of the six-teenth century, however, none of the guides bore the patronymic of Carter, and in a legal document dated 27 Henry VIII. (1535-36) the aforementioned premises  are referred to as the  “Kartehouse, otherwise called carter house.”  The premises were let by the aforementioned Edmondson to Roger Kellet, who “ died thereof possessed; ”  Roger’s  eldest son,  Thomas,  “entered into the said premises according to the custom of the county of Lancaster called tenant right:” and after Thomas Kellet’s death the said premises came to his son Thomas ,who in 1634 gave up all his title and tenant right therein  to  four of his kinsmen named Kellet, and they in turn granted all their right in the premises to Edward Barbour, servant of Richard Anson, “grome porter”  to  the  King.  Richard  Anson was a “stranger in the county.”  His right to enjoy the premises and the office of “carter” was disputed by Richard Preston, Prior of the monastery of Cartmel, but with what result does not appear.
     On the lower side of Morecambe Bay there were Edmondsons well established in the time of Queen Elizabeth – at Heysham, Middleton, Overton, and Heaton; and also in Lunesdale – at Caton, Melling, Wray, Tatham, Tunstall, Leek,  and elsewhere.  In the Middleton district an early home of the Edmondsons appears to have been at Trumley (or Trumley House), situated about a mile from Overton church, in the direction of Sunderland.  The Edmondsons of Trumley were ancestors of those who have been mentioned in preceding chapters.  Edward Edmondson of Trumley, bother of Thomas of Grassyard Hall, was the father-in-law of Thomas Welch, of Cabus, and of Thomas Paget the elder, of Lancaster and Forton. Both Mrs. Welch and Mrs. Paget were born at Trumley, and christened at Overton church.  It has been already men-tioned that one Thomas Edmondson, of Overton, son of Richard Edmondson, was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, on June 27th. 1663, at which time he was seven-teen years old.  He went up to the University from Sedbergh Grammar School.  His father was a yeoman.  Thomas Edmondson’s admission is noted in the “Sedbergh Grammar School Register,” published about nine years ago, but his father’s status is not mentioned (though duly given in the college list) – a defect which characterises many other entries in the Sedbergh Register as printed.  Eighteenth century Edmondsons not named (and of whom I know nothing beyond what has been gleaned from the Overton register by the much-valued courtesy of the Vicar,  Rev. T. W. Greensall, M.A.) were Adam Edmondson, mariner, of Sunderland, and Thomas Edmondson of the same place.  Adam had a son, William, baptised at Overton church on July 8th, 1746 and another son, Edmund (who died in 1749), on July 10th, 1748. Jane, daughter of Thomas and Ann Edmondson, of Sunderland, was baptised at the same church on May 22nd, 1792; and they had another daughter, Ellen, baptised there on October 17th, 1793. One Margaret Edmondson was married at Overton church on February 10th, 1729, to Richard Gardner – possibly a brother of Thomas Gardner, whose wife Ellen died on July 1st, 1767, aged 67, and was buried in Overton churchyard, where also was interred their son Thomas, who died on December 22nd, 1769, aged 29. And in passing, it may be noted that, notwithstanding the several centuries’ existence of Overton church, there is not a gravestone in the burial ground bearing date earlier than the eighteenth century – the oldest now to be seen being one to the memory of “Thomas, son of Thomas and Theodora Corwen, who departed this life the 30th day of March, 1731, and in the ninth year of his age.” Another noteworthy fact is the existence within this ancient little church of only one mural tablet, recording that “Near this place lies the body of Abr. Gravener, excise tide surveyor at Lancaster, who departed this life 20th June, 1785, aged 53 years.”
     Time was when a good deal of the land in Middleton, Overton, and Sunderland belonged to members of the Edmondson and Satter-thwaite families.  The  most  spacious  vaults in Overton churchyard belong to those families, which were allied by marriage seventy-eight years ago.  Thomas Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall, (son of John and Margaret Edmondson of Middleton), who was baptised at Overton Church on April 11, 1756, had a daughter who married John Hughes, of Chester, probably a member of the firm of John Hughes and son, merchants, who were described a hundred years ago as of Crane-Street, Chester.  Of this marriage there was issue a daughter,  Mary Ann Hughes,  who was  married at St. Paul’s church, Caton, (Brookhouse), on February 16, 1826, to James Cornelius Satterthwaite, of Lancaster.  The bridegroom was probably married from the residence of his widowed mother, Mrs. John Satterthwaite (Mary, daughter of Steadman Rawlins),  Castle Park,  Lancaster,  and the bride from the residence of grandfather, Thomas Edmondson, then of Grassyard Hall, where he had settled in succession to the Rawlinsons over twenty years previously.  The bridegroom’s father , John Satterthwaite, merchant,  died at his residence in Lancaster on December 26th 1807; his wife survived, and died on February 5th 1837. They had two sons besides James Cornelius, and also two daughters, one of the latter marrying John Bolden, of Hyning, whose son (one of seven) William Bolden Bolden, of Hyning, will be remembered by the older generations of Lancastrians. James Cornelius Satterthwaite was well known in the mercantile and public life of the district. Among his duties were those of a J.P. and Quay Commissioner.  He had several children, including Edward of Castle Park (deceased);  Thomas Edmondson Stedman (deceased);  Joseph Henry. Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal engineers;  Benjamin A., Colonel commanding 47th Regimental District, Preston ;  and Charles James,  M.A., Vicar of Disley, Cheshire, and Hon. Canon of Chester Cathedral, whose wife is sister of Major Edmund Geoffrey Stanley Hornby, Dalton Hall. Four of these sons married, so that there are a number of grandchildren – also great-grandchildren – of James C. Satterthwaite.  Taking present local representatives, mention may be made of the children of his son Thomas E. S. Satterthwaite (by his marriage with Rachel, daughter of Richard Hinde, J.P., Mayor of Lancaster in 1856), namely, Thomas, of Castle Park; Benjamin; Josephine, wife of John Tunstall Sanderson, son of John Sanderson, bank manager; Violet, wife of Ernest Wingate-Saul, son of Dr. Wingate-Saul ; and Marguerite, wife of E. E. Eccles, son of the late Major-General Eccles.

     Over the Edmondson vault in Overton Churchyard are the following inscriptions :-
     In memory of Anne Hughes, daughter of Thomas Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall, who departed this life January 12th, 1819, aged 33 years.  Also Mary Jane, daughter of John and Margaret Elizabeth Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall, who died March 6th, 1842, aged 11 years, and Gertrude Emily, her sister, who died March 13th, 1842, aged 3 years.  “Suffer little children to come unto me;” Luke xviii., 16.
     Sacred to the memory of Mary, wife of Thomas Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall, who departed this life the 6th March, 1834, aged 78 years. Also of Thomas Edmondson, of Grass-yard Hall, husband of the above, who departed this life the 11th day of February, 1835, aged 78 years.  Here also the body of Jane Edmondson, daughter of Thomas and Mary Edmondson, born March 23rd, 1791, died at Lancaster, February 2nd, 1865.  Blanche Caroline, fifth daughter of John and M. E. Edmondson, wife of Major-General W. Denis de Vitre, R.H.A., born 10th November, 1836, died at Pau, France, 15th March, 1898, and was there buried.
    Beneath this stone is laid the mortal body of Margaret Elizabeth Edmondson, daughter of John Dodson, of Lancaster, and wife of John Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall, in this county. Born January 23rd,1805; died November 1st, 1859.  “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her;” Prov. xxxi., 28. Here also lies the body of her husband, John Edmondson, of Grassyard Hall. He was born July 9th, 1799, and died August 5th, 1868. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” Ps. Xxvii., 1. Also of Thomas Grassyard Edmondson, only son of John and Margaret Elizabeth Edmondson.  Born 5th September, 1835; died at Altnacealgach, Scotland, 7th June, 1900. "He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more;" Job vii, 10.

     John Edmondson, who succeeded to Grassyard Hall on the death of his father (Thomas) in 1835, married the daughter of an opulent Lancaster merchant and county magistrate, John Dodson, who resided for many years in St. Leonardsgate, and died at Poulton-le-Sands in 1842. Mrs John (Margaret Elizabeth) Edmondson  was the sister of the Rev John Dodson, who early in his clerical life, was incumbent of Overton, and married a cousin, whose family lived  for some time at the neighbouring Middleton Tower. Two of his infant children were buried at Overton. He was afterwards vicar of Cockerham, which living he resigned, retiring to Littledale, and spending the remainder of his life there. Major-General William Denis de Vitre, of the H.E.I. Company's Artillery, mentioned on the memorial stone at Overton as husband of John Edmondson's fifth daughter, will be, I assume, a nephew of the late Dr. Edward Denis de Vitre, J.P., who was mayor of Lancaster in 1843 and 1855, and died at The Elms, Bare, on October 4th, 1878.

     There are two Satterthwaite vaults in Overton Churchyard. One is inscribed as hereunder:-
          In memory of James Cornelius Satterthwaite, of Brazil and Lancaster, J.P. and D.L. for Lancashire. son of John Satterthwaite, of Lancaster and Rigmaden, Westmorland; born September 2nd, 1798, died November 16th, 1857. Also Mary Ann, his wife, daughter of John Hughes, of Chester; born January 28th, 1806, died December 5th, 1866. Also Mary Ann, their daughter; born June 7th, 1836, died July 8th, 1847. Also of John, their son; born November 29th, 1826, died January 11th, 1856. Also Frances Jane, their daughter, born August 30th, 1842, died May 19th, 1864. Also Edward Hughes, their son, J.P. and D.L. for Lancashire; born 25th January1828, died May 9th, 1883.

     On the other vault is this inscription:-
          In loving memory of Thomas Edmondson Stedman Satterthwaite, son of James Cornelius Satterthwaite, of Lancaster and Brazil; born May 18th, 1832, died January 21st, 1891.

     John Satterthwaite, the father of James Cornelius Satterthwaite, was a first-cousin of John Stout, J.P. merchant, who died at his residence in Queen-square, Lancaster, on April 11th, 1846, aged 82, and whose father, Alderman John Stout, was twice mayor of this borough. John Stout was an executor under his cousin's will, and 63 years ago he published "A Vindication" in relation to his executorship. The printer of the "Vindication," a native of Skerton, was then in his 28th year, and he is still living and in good health. He was an admirable typographer, and even now, in his 90s, he writes with quite artistic finish. Not long ago my venerable friend - Mr. Leonard Whaley Willan - sent me from his Californian home a copy of the "Vindication" with regard to which he says: "Mr. Stout was then [1841] near 80 and almost blind, and his 'Vindication' - a most a strange and interesting narrative - was printed not for sale, but only for presentation to his friends. The copies were all bound in morocco, gilt edges, and I think we printed 150, but have forgot the exact number. The manuscript was by young [Robert Cartmel] Rawlinson, who had great ability, and who was in Mr. Stout's employ as secretary and business factotum, culling newspapers and magazines and reading them to him, &c. Mr. Stout was at that time entirely dependent on Rawlinson in literary and business matters. For the 'Vindication' I got the best printing paper I could get in the London market, and it has kept its colour wonderfully."

PART 4 OF 5

PAST AND PRESENT
-
SOME FAMILY LINKS. –IV

   In the third chapter, referring to Thomas Welch, of Cabus, and his captaincy of the 5th (Lancaster) Battalion Company of the Lons-dale Local Militia at the training in 1811, I mentioned that “the colonelcy was held by William housman, a first-cousin of whom was ancestress of the late Mrs. W. G. Welch.”  This is how the ancestral connection occurs: William housman,  J.P.,  a West India merchant,  of Lune Bank,  Skerton,  for a number of years Lieutenant-Colonel of the Loyal Lancaster Volunteers, afterwards the Local Militia, was nephew of John Housman, J.P., merchant, who was elected Mayor of Lancaster in 1787 and died in 1793.  A daughter of John Housman married one Heaton;   of this marriage there was issue a son,  John Heaton,  who married a Miss Aldren;  a daughter of the latter married Dr. James Johnson, of Lancaster, afterwards of Hampson,  Ellel,  and a daughter of Dr. John-son married Mr. William Gibbins Welch, of Lancaster,  now of Hampson.   The afore-named William Housman (one of the brothers of the founder and first incumbent of St. Anne’s Church, Moor-lane) had a daughter, Frances Margaret, who married Joseph Whalley, barrister-at-law (son of Lawson Whalley, M.D., J.P.), and Colonel Joseph Lawson Whalley, J.P., Richmond House, is their son.

   There was a still earlier connection between the Welch and Johnson families.  In addition to several sons – among them Thomas, of Cabus,  and John,  the grandfather of Mr. W. G. Welch and Mr. A. B. S. Welch – John Welch, of Hang Yeat, had a number of daughters,  and one of these,  Mary,  married Dr. Christopher Johnson, of Lancaster, who was elected Mayor in 1832.  Of the marriage of Dr. Johnson and Mary Welch there was issue four sons and two daughters.  The sons were James M.D.; Christopher, surgeon; Thomas,  solicitor;  and Benjamin,  farmer,  Scotforth. One of the daughters, Elizabeth, lived with her brothers Christopher and Thomas, at Castle Park.  The other daughter, Jeannette Johnson, was married on December 27th,  1854,  to Edward Parke Lamport,  a native of this town (son of the Rev.William Lamport , for many years pastor of the Unitarian Chapel,  St. Nicholas-street),  and Dr. Henry Christopher Lamport, of Meadow-side,  is their son.   The Hampson estate at Ellel came into the possession of Dr. James Johnson through his mother – John Welch’s daughter Mary – and passed to Mr. W. G. Welch (a great-grandson of John), who now resides there, through his marriage with the doctor’s daughter. Of John Welch’s other daughters, mention has already been made of Jenny, born in 1781, who married Edward Blackburne, of Holleth; they had a son – Timothy Blackburne, of Forton  - and three daughters; a descendant, Miss Blackburne, is, or recently was, living in Lancaster. Another daughter, Betty, born in 1784, who married Christopher Smith, draper, New-street, pre-deceased her husband, and he married again. Her sister Hannah, born in 1787, was the wife of Thomas Thompson, who carried on busi-ness as an ironmonger and grocer at the bot-tom of Market-street. In addition to Timothy, John, and Thomas, of whom an account has al-ready been given, John Welch had a younger son, Richard, who married Margaret, daughter of Hacking? Lawrence, and sister of his bro-ther Timothy’s first wife. Richard Welch lived sometime in Dalton-square, near what is now the Corporation’s electric tramway station.  For awhile he was in partnership with his brothers.    He was a sugar planter in Bar-badoes – imported rum and sugar, and often went out to his plantations.    He had three sons and two daughters.

   In a previous chapter mention was made of the children of William welch ( son of Thomas of Cabus), who was associated with his brother Henry in business in Cheapside and North-road; and the marriage of the eldest son, Thomas,    with  Sarah  Harrison,    daughter  of John Harrison,  of Cockerham,  was recorded.  Thomas Welch, who died at Brookhouse, Caton, May 17th, 1884, aged 29, was survived by his wife and two daughters, now residing at Southport.  Mrs. T. Welch belongs to an old and interesting local family. Her father was a son of James Harrison, whose wife, Ann (to whom he was married on December 22nd, 1812), was a daughter of T. Hodgson of Winmarleigh.  Of the same family, probably, was William Harrison, of Ellel; he was a brother-in-law of William Brade, a Forton yeoman, who died in 1763, while another brother-in-law of William Brade,  and co-executor under his will,  was the Tmothy Welch, of Galgate or Ellel, who was born in 1714 and died in 1791.  Two of Mrs. Thomas Welch’s paternal uncles, James and Thomas Harrison, became extensive mer-chants and ship-owners at Liverpool. James, described as of Wallasey (Cheshire), Hare-Appletree (Quernmore), and Dornden, Tun-bridge Wells (Kent), died in 1891; Thomas is also dead, but another brother, Edward, survives.  By his marriage with a daughter of Joseph Heath,  of Tunstall,  Staffordshire,  James Harrison, the ship-owner had two sons and three daughters, the sons being Frederic James and heath Harrison, who also engaged in the ship-owners’ business. It will be remembered that on the coming-of-age of the eldest of Mr. F. J. Harrison’s four daughters, September 18th ,  1903, the tenantry, &c., on his Ellel and Maer Hill estates were enter-tained at Mr. Harrison’s seat in Staffordshire.  As regards the local estate of the Harrison family, it may be noted that Hare-Appletree (not “Haresnape,” as stated by a writer some years ago in an effort to decipher one of the old brasses in Lancaster Parish Church) was during a great part of the seventeenth century held by members of the Rippon family.  Major Thomas Rippon was Mayor of Lancaster in 1652-3-4, and Alderman Thomas Medcalf, the Mayor in 1695 and 1704, was the son-in-law of William Rippon of Hare-Appletree. Mr. John Harrison,  brother of the widowed Mrs. T. Welch, is a partner in the well-known firm of Liverpool merchants, Messrs. Wright, Crossley, and Co.  There used to be associated with the same firm an Edmondson, a sister of whom, Mrs. Dutton, who died not long ago, left a substantial benefaction to one of the Lancaster charitable institutions.

   Both the Welch and the Yeats families – in which latter family John Welch (1753-1802) of Hang Yeat, Ellel, found a wife – were re-presented in the Ellel disctrict in the seven-teenth century, at which time there were also Welches in Lancaster,  while the name of Yeats was worthily borne by some of the resi-dents in this town and also in the parish of Heysham ( some of them at Middleton Brows) and in Lunesdale.   There was a Margaret Yeats who died at “Salt Coat Brows,” Glasson, in 1661, and a Grace Yeats, who died at the same place in 1676; and there was a William Welch who died at “Salt Coat Houses” in 1680.  In the last-mentioned year there were two members of the Lancaster Corporation bearing the name of John Yeats – father and son; and one Henry Welch was a member of the same body some thirty years later.     On the doorhead stone of the house No. 21, west side of Damside-street (where it leads into the bottom part of Bridge-lane) there is inscribed “16 Y 87,”  with “I.E.” beneath;  and over the doorway of a house in Bridge-lane,              “16 Y 94,” also with “I.E.,” beneath. These initials no doubt refer to John Yeats and his wife.  About 230 years ago there was a John Yeats who acted as schoolmaster for the Society of Friends in Lancaster. His daughter Elizabeth, who died in 1727, was married at Lancaster in the early part of 1724 to George Robinson, of Yealand Conyers.

   In the first of these chapters on “Some Family  Links”  it was stated that John Welch’s wife, Betty Yeats (afterwards called Elizabeth) was the daughter of Henry and Mary Yeats, of Skelsmergh Hall, near Kendal. That statement is open to correction. Further research serves to show that Betty Yeats, whose marriage took place by licence at Kendal Church on January 26th, 1777, would be the daughter of John Yeats of Ellel,   and his wife Margaret, who, I find, were buried in Cockerham Churchyard.  John Yeats survived his wife nearly nineteen years. She died on November 27th, 1761, in her thirty-fifth year, and he died on June 28?th, 1780 in his fiftieth year.  On their tombstones are the lines:-
    Within this place we sleep in hope to have
    A joyful resurrection from the grave.
In the same churchyard, the same lines appear on  the  gravestone  of  Timothy Welch of Ellel (1714-1791) and his wife Jennet Brade,  the parents of the John Welch who married John Yeats’ daughter.  When their daughter Betty was born, John Yeats and his wife were living at Ashton Hall.   That was in 1758.   And it may be assumed that John Yeats was brother of George Yeats, who in 1757 took Ashton Hall on a five years’ lease, and after-wards removed to the hole of Ellel, where he built a farmhouse of his own in 1775.  When Betty Yeats was married she was only nine-teen years old, so that parental consent was necessary; and that her mother was then dead may be inferred from the fact that in the wedding register the bride, described as “a minor,” is stated to have been married “with the consent of her father.”   The witnesses were Henry Yeats and James Carrodus, the former of whom would be the bride’s brother. In the register the bride is described as “of Skelsmergh,”  and her brother was probably living there at the time, as he is said to have “married  the daughter  of the  Skelsmergh Hall people.” Skelsmergh Hall (like Wither-slack Hall) was four about four hundred years one of the homes of the knightly Leybournes; but as the head of the family espoused the Jacobite cause in 1715, the estate was forfeited to the Crown, and the property was ultimately acquired by the Wilsons of Dallam Tower. Only a fragment of the old hall now exists, the other material having been employed  “to adapt the structure to the requirements of a farm house.”

  George Yeats, sometime of Ashton Hall and later of the Hole of Ellel – uncle of John Welch’s wife and Henry Yeats – had a daughter Ellen, who married Henry Smith, gentleman.  The last-named,  I think,  would be identical with Henry Smith who was the son of William Smith, a yeoman, of Forton; and I find Henry also described as a nephew of “Andrew Brown, late of Cockerham, after-wards of Scotforth, yeoman,” who died either late in 1787 or early in 1788. Henry Smith went to live at the Hole of Ellel in 1797, and died there on June 9th,  1831,  aged 67.  His wife survived him, and died on August 24th, 1840, aged 76. They were interred at Cocker-ham Church. Their eldest son William succeeded to the property at Ellel, where he died on June 1st,  1866,   aged 76;  and his sister Mary died on November 13th,  1872,  aged 78. The Ellel property is now in the ownership of William Smith’s son, Mr. Henry Gardiner Smith, of Moor House, Ellel, who has also inherited property in the Forton district, where his ancestors held land in the seventeenth century.  In the  early part of  1824  George Smith, gentleman, was living at the Hole of Ellel, and he was an executor under the will of Robert Smith, yeoman, of Ashton-With-Stodday, then recently deceased. Henry Yeats,  who died at Ellel in 1835,  and to whom I shall have occasion to make further reference in another chapter, was a dis-tinguished agriculturalist, and two of the numerous cups he won at shows in the district and in Westmorland are preserved by one of his great-grandsons, Mr. William Dodd, J.P., of Green Close, Silverdale. W.H.

Part 3 of 5

Friday, September 23, 1904.

PAST AND PRESENT

SOME FAMILY LINKS. – III

      When William Alexander, at that time a lay preacher, started the first Sunday school in Lancaster – a work which was recently very appropriately recognized by a memorial window being placed in high-street Chapel at the cost of Mr. Thomas Gill, chairman of the Lay Preachers’  Association connected with the Lancashire Congregational Union (of which Union the Rev. W. Alexander was “father”) – Thomas Edmondson, who afterwards settled at Grassyard Hall, was taking an interest in similar work elsewhere. At the time referred to he was a member of the firm of Thomas Edmondson and Company, worsted spinners, Lancaster, and also of a firm under the same title and in the same trade at Mytholmroyd, between Halifax and Hebden Bridge. One of his partners in the Yorkshire concern was Thomas Paget, senr., in later years well known as of Forton Lodge. In the preceding chapter it should have been stated, not that Thomas Paget’s wife was Thomas Edmondson’s sister, but his niece – Margaret, daughter of Thomas’ brother Edward of Middleton, and sister of Mary, the wife of Thomas Welch of Cabus; she was also sister of Elizabeth, who was accidentally blinded and died at Forton Lodge in 1817, as previously mentioned. Some time ago I learnt from the late Mr. Robert Suthers, of Hawksclough, who had investigated the birth and growth of Non-conformity at Mytholmroyd that Thomas Edmondson was a generous promoter of Sunday school work in that locality, where he resided, and that among others who helped was Jonathan Morley,   grandfather of the Right Hon. John Morley. With them in the work was a notable Baptist theologian, John Fawcett, D.D., who was regarded as “the first man of his denomination in that part of the country.” Recently a memorial tablet to Dr. Fawcett (author of the hymn beginning with the line “Blest is the tie that binds”)  was unveiled in Wainsgate Baptist Chapel, near Hebden Bridge, where he was pastor for over fifty years.

The Jenny Edmondson and “Johnny,” her brother, mentioned as being at Mytholmroyd, were two of the nine children of Thomas Edmondson’s brother Edward, all of whom were christened at Overton Church. The nine, baptized on the dates given hereunder after their names, were as follows:-  Margaret, July 10, 1775, married Thomas Paget. John, January 5, 1778: married Margaret Taylor, at Overton, October 20, 1810. Hannah, March 26, 1780; married – Caton. Jenny, March 31, 1782. Mary, June 24, 1784; married   Thomas Welch, at Overton, September 24, 1811. Henry, January 5, 1788. Betty (afterwards known as Elizabeth), October 2, 1792. Isabel, March 9, 1794; married Edward Atkinson. Lydia, August 1, 1796; died in infancy. “Jenny” appears to have been identical with “Jane,” who married one Davis, of Cockerham. Earlier Edmondsons than those hitherto mentioned were Richard Edmondson, of Overton, and his son Thomas.The son went up from Sedbergh Grammar School to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1663, at the age of seventeen.

Thomas Welch, of Cabus (third son of John Welch,  Hang Yeat,  Ellel, and uncle of the late William Welch,  stockbroker, Lancaster) to whose brothers Timothy and John reference has already been made, had eight sons and one daughter by his marriage with the aforementioned Mary, daughter of Edward Edmondson. Trumley Farm, Middleton. He had property at Pilling, a small estate at Halton, and an extensive lime and timber business at Radcliffe Wharf, on the canal, near Forton Bank; he also had the Forton tithe, and was one of the original shareholders in the Lancaster Banking Company, Limited, the 78th anniversary of whose opening business day – on premises in Penny-street, occupied in later years by Messrs. Knipe and Jones, ironmongers – falls on 23rd October. Thomas Welch was a member of the 5th (Lancaster) Battalion Company of the Lonsdale Local Militia, and was Captain of the company at the training in 1811, when Charles Seward was his lieutenant and Elijah Barde? his ensign. Lieutenant Seward took over the captaincy of the company in June, 1813. The colonelcy was held by William Housman, a first cousin of whom was ancestress of the late Mrs. W. G. Welch. A neighbour of Thomas Welch, at Cabus, was a representative of an old yeoman family named Smalley, with two sons, Thomas and Richard, whose ancestors had probably come over the fells from North-east Lancashire, where numbers bearing their name were of substantial position. The sons were of good natural abilities, as was proved by their careers in Lancaster. Thomas, the elder son, was appointed to a coal agency here, on behalf of a son-in-law of Thomas Welch; and the younger son, who was some-time in the service of Thomas Welch, at Cabus, will be remembered by many Lancaster people when I mention that he was Richard Smalley, of Lune Villa, who died a very wealthy man on November 17, 1901, aged 71. A son (Edward) of Thomas Smalley is carrying on business in North-road, Lancaster, as successor to one of Thomas Welch’s grandsons. Thomas Welch died at Cabus on April 6, 1832, in his 52nd year; his wife died on May 31, 1829, aged 45. They were buried at Cockerham Church.

We come now to descendants of Thomas Welch, of Cabus, and his wife, Mary Edmondson. Their eldest son, John, succeeded to the farming business at Cabus, and was afterwards at Barrow House, Scotforth.    He died at Bay Cottage, Forton, on June 23rd, 1879, aged 66. His brother, Edward Welch, married Alice Salthouse, of Churchtown; they went out to California in 1870, to take over the estate of Mrs. Welch’s brother, John Saltouse, a pioneer emigrant; their son, John Welch, is now county treasurer at Hollister, Benito County, California, and owns the estate left by his uncle. Timothy – the third Timothy in the course of three or four generations – was the name given to another son, and like his namesake of the Scriptures he was distinguished by his piety. Timothy Welch entered holy orders; he held curacies at Eggington and Repton, Burton-on-Trent, and acted as private chaplain to Sir Tonman Mosley, Rolleston Hall, Staffordshire, and as travelling tutor to his son, now fourth baronet (Sir Oswald Mosley). On November 29th, 1861, the Rev. Timothy Welch was appointed first Vicar of  Anslow Church,  Burton-on-Trent.  Anslow Church (the patronage of which belongs to the Anslow family) was opened under the Bishop’s licence on September 7th, 1851; it was consecrated on May 31st, 1860, and a district was assigned to it on October 11th, 1861. The Rev. Timothy Welch acted as curate-in-charge from January 1st, 1857, until his appointment as vicar. He finished his work there, and on the monument over his grave in the churchyard these words are inscribed:  “In affectionate remembrance of the Rev. Timothy Welch, who was for fourteen years incumbent of this parish, and died at Rolleston Park, January 28th, 1871.
‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.’ – Revelation, xiv., 13.”

Fifty-three years ago the Rev. Timothy Welch officiated at the marriage of one of his brothers, Henry. The ceremony took place at Ulverston Parish Church on September 14th, 1851. The bride was Mary, daughter of Thomas Blackburne, sailmaker, Ulverston (then deceased), by his wife Jane, who was the daughter of William Barben by his wife Mary Shaw. Thomas Blackburne was the son of John Blackburne, Custom House (formerly a saddler in New-street), Lancaster, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Turner, Grange, whose wife was a Denny; and John Blackburne was the son of John, a farmer, of Wardhouses, Ellel. Of the same family presumably would be Richard Blackburne, who eighty years ago was comptroller at the Custom House, St. George’s Quay. Mrs. Henry Welch was a niece of Mrs. John Tunstall, whose daughter married Mr. J. Sanderson, of the Lancaster bank. About four months before his marriage, Henry Welch succeeded to the wholesale grocery business at 7, Cheapside, which had been carried on for some time by Mrs. Tunstall after the death of her husband, and where he was manager at the time of the transfer; he also acquired a tallow chandlery business in North-road. In his time no man was better known in the public life of Lancaster. For many years he was a member of the Town Council, an alderman, and Mayor in 1876. Among other positions he filled were those of deputy-chairman of the directors of Lancaster Wagon Company, chairman (the first) of Lancaster Coffee Tavern Company, Port Commissioner, and Charity Trustee. He bought the Shefferlands estate, and died at his residence there, on August 25th, 1891, aged 74. His wife died on March 26th in the same year. They were interred at Silverdale. Of their five children - four sons and one daughter – none survives, the last of them to pass away being Dr. Henry Welch, first medical office of health for the borough of Blackpool.

Other sons of Thomas and Mary Welch, of Cabus, were, Thomas, a chemist at Newcastle-on-Tyne (he served his apprenticeship with Jardynes, Liverpool), who died on March 1st, 1889, aged 67; George, a draper in London, who died on April 20th, 1852, aged 29; James, who died on July 10th, 1826, an infant; and William. The last-named, who had previously been in the drapery trade, joined his brother Henry, and  they had their hands pretty full with the Cheapside and North-road businesses, the tallow chandlery of the Balderstones at the junction of North-road and Nile-street having then been transferred to Henry. William Welch married Hannah Elizabeth Huggins, of Thetford, Norfolk; he died on June 3rd, 1877, aged 52, and she died on June 14th , 1883, aged 54. They had issue three sons and two daughters, namely Thomas Welch, who married Sarah, daughter of John Harrison, of Cockerham, and died at Tarnbeck, Brrokhouse, Caton, on May 17th, 1884, aged 29, survived by his wife and two daughters; William, who (with a good example before him in the case of his grandsire Thomas) is a captain in the 5th Lancashire (Lancaster) Artillery Volunteers, and from whom the business in North-road passed to Edward Smalley; and Samuel, Mary, and Elizabeth – the surviving four now residing at Harrogate.

Elizabeth, the only daughter of Thomas and Mary Welch, married John Rawcliffe, wholesale coal agent for the Earl of Balcarres. After managing the Lancaster agency for awhile, John Rawcliffe removed to Preston, where he became a member of the Town Council, an alderman, and Mayor in 1869. He initiated the great scheme for the improvement of the Ribble navigation. Eventually he became shipping agent at Liverpool for what is now the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, into whose hands the Balcarres business passed. He died on July 29th, 1874, aged 61. His eldest son, Henry, who succeeded to and still carried on the shipping agency, resides at West Kirby, in the Wirral peninsula; he is an alderman of Birkenhead, and has been Mayor of that borough.


Some further items relating to various families already mentioned, and also to one or two others, remain to be dealt with in another chapter. W.H.

[With regard to the brothers Robert and Joshua Lawson, who were prominent merchants at Lancaster and Sunderland in the early part of the eighteenth century, and to whom reference was made in the previous chapter, I understand that Colonel J. Lawson Whalley and Mr. J. Rawlinson Ford trace their descent on the distaff side from the first-named.]

Part 2 of 5

PAST AND PRESENT
SOME FAMILY LINKS 2

In the preceding chapter reference was made to the early connection between the Welch and Brade (or Braid) families. Timothy Welch (1714-1791), who was born at Galgate and inherited an Ellel estate,  having married Janet Brade,  whose brother William, a yeoman, of Forton, died in 1763;   and mention was also made of the “eleven of the family of Braid”, in the parish of Cockerham, who died of the  “plague”  in the month of July, 1650.   It is worthy to note that an earlier member of this family, Clemence Braid, of Cockerham, was married at Cockerham Church on July  24th, 1613, to William Preston of Ellel and Hilholm House, in Cockerham parish, of whom it is stated that “upon the breaking out of the Civil Wars he espoused the cause of Charles I., thereby greatly encumbered his estate, his name being included in the list of Royalists whose estates were declared to be forfeited to Parliament by an Act passed 19th November, 1652.” Of the marriage of William Preston and Clemence Braid there was issue a son, William, who had a son Richard (by whom the Hilholm estate was sold), and Richard had a son, John, born in October 1690, who sold his Ellel estate and removed to Preston-patrick, in Westmorland. The last-named (John Preston) was father of William Preston, D.D., who died in Dublin, 19th April, 1789, aged 60, and of whom it is recorded on a memorial tablet at Heversham Church that he was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Rector of Okeham in Surrey, Chargé Des Affaires for several years at the Courts of Vienna and Naples,private secretary to the Duke of Rutland when Lord Lieutent-ant of Ireland, Bishop of Kilalla, & afterwards translated to the Bishopric of Ferns. Some extensive improvements were carried out in connection with Heversham Grammar School at the cost of Bishops Richard Watson (Llandaff) and William Preston (not Pear-son,” as stated in Potts’ “Liber Canta-brigiensis”), who had been exhibitioners from that school. Bishop Preston had a nephew, John Preston, of Leasgill, a daughter of whom (Jenny, who died on August 18th, 1819, aged 25), was the wife of John Nunns of Lancaster.

During the latter years of the eighteenth century and on into the nineteenth, several members of the Welch family were actively engaged in business hereabouts, either individually or in partnership. For a number of years the Timothy who died in 1791, and whose eldest grandson succeeded Richard Herdman of Scotforth as High Constable of South Lonsdale, traded in Lancaster as Timothy Welch and Son, merchants. A century ago, three of timothy’s grandsons, Timothy, John and Thomas Welch were partners as spirit merchants, in Queen-street, in addition to carrying on other businesses separately. Their father, John of Hang Yeat, Ellel, had been in partnership with Edmund Rigby, Joseph Robinson and Richard Herdman, as freestone, lime, and coal merchants, and his widow carried on business with one or two of the sons– as shown in the record of the opening of the canal from Lancaster to Kendal, June 18th 1819, when “Widow Welch and Son” were represented in the display of passenger packets and boats laden with timber and coal. One of the widow’s sons, John, was a public accountant and share broker, and had an important interest in the timber trade both at Lancaster and Liverpool. “Welch and Eskrigg”, of Parliament Street and Green Area, were timber merchants and shipowners eighty years ago ; and “Welch and Sons” were extensive carriers on the canal after the death of “Widow Welch” in 1820.
     Some account of Timothy and John, eldest and second sons of John Welch,  of Hang Yeat by his wife Elizabeth Yeats of Skelsmergh Hall, was given in the previous chapter. We now come to the third son, Thomas, gentleman farmer and merchant, who died at Cabus on April 6th, 1832, in his 52nd year. Thomas Welch was married at Overton church to Mary Edmondson on September 24th, 1811.  The Rev. Robert Bealy, curate, performed the ceremony, and it was witnessed by the bridegroom’s brother Timothy and Alice Thompson - probably a kinswoman of the Thomas Thompson, grocer and ironmonger, Lancaster, who married Thomas Welch’s sister, Hannah. Thomas Welch’s wife belonged to a very old and well-circumstanced local family.  Born in 1784, and baptized at Overton church on June 20th in that year, she was a younger daughter of Edward Edmondson and his wife Isabel Procter, of Middleton.   Edward was the son of John and Margaret Edmondson of Middle-ton, and had two brothers, John and Thomas, of whom presently. The father of these three sons may have been identical with the John Edmondson who was constable of the town-ship of Middleton in 1738. In those days it was the duty of every man in a township to serve his turn in the office of constable, and  to serve (certain lawful fees excepted) for nothing. The constable was elected by his neighbours in places where the old local courts survived, and elsewhere he was appointed by the justices, but the man chosen might provide a substitute.  John Edmond-son’s eldest son John, a yeoman, settled at Claughton Hall, but had not been there long when he met with a tragic fate. On October 24th, 1783, he was attempting to save some of his cattle that had got into the Lune, when he was swept out of his depth and drowned. He was only thirty-one years of age.   The body of the unfortunate young farmer was laid by the side of a seventeen-years-old sister (Jane) and his mother in Overton churchyard. The then curate of Overton, Rev. Henry Brown, (one of whose successors, Rev. Thomas Messenger, was accidentally drowned in the Lune near St. George’s-quay, on February 14th, 1809), wrote a memorial poem, in which these lines occur:-
   Oh! fair example of untainted youth,
   Impartial reason and unshaken truth,
   Of upright morals and of heart sincere,
   Mind uncorrupted and a conscience clear,
   By nature, honest, punctual, and just,
   True to thy word and steady to thy trust,
   Of sober conduct, in reflection keen,
   Plain in thy manners, manly in thy mien,
   Foe to base flattery and averse to lies,
   In action cool, deliberate, and wise,
   Only too rash to hazard life alone
   ‘Mongst waters flowing o’er the banks of Lune
   Whose rapid current did thy strength outbrave
   And quickly sank thee in a watery grave.
 
   Here sleep’st thou quiet in the silent tomb,
   To rise to blessings in the life to come;
   Marcy to thee, but grievous to thy friend,
   Who mourns thy fortune and laments thy end;
   Who shar’d thy friendship and thy converse lov’d,
   Admired thy virtue and thy truth approv’d,
   Yet take those tears, mortality’s relief,
   And till I share thy joys, forgive my grief;
   These little rites, a verse, a prayer, receive,
   ‘Tis all at present a friend can give.

   Readers attend! Do not his fate despise,
   Excuse his failings, but his merits prize;
   Let envy die and anger cease to rail,
   Malice relent and charity prevail,
   Ye good! persist expecting to partake
   Of endless comforts in a future state;
   Ye bad! repent, from wicked deeds refrain,
   To shun dire torments and eternal pain;
   Friends! cease to weep, do not his death deplore ,
   Who’s safely landed on a heavenly shore;
   Brothers! be still, since he to rest is gone,
   Strive you to live, pray not to die, like John!

Another son of John Edmondson (father of the young yeoman who was drowned) was Thomas Edmondson, who came to be the owner and occupier of Grassyard Hall and lord of the manor of Caton.    And at this point it may be suggested that these Middle-ton-born Edmondsons were possibly of the same stock as the John Edmondson, gentle-man, of Lancaster, who died in 1710, and whose daughter Esther was the wife of John Fell, gentleman, of Lancaster and Dalton Gate, Ulverston, from whom the estimable ex-Chairman of Lancaster Quarter Sessions, Mr. John Fell, of Flan How, Ulverston, is lineally descended. The John Fell who married Esther Edmondson, was born in 1678, and died in 1724. He was Town Clerk of Lancas-ter, an office in which he was preceded by Jonathan Cawson and succeeded by John Bryer.   He was the son of John Fell, of Dalton Gate (by his wife Jennet Leathom, of Ulverston), who held landed property at Ulverston, Osmotherley, and elsewhere in the Oversands district. John Edmondson, father –in-law of John Fell, the Town Clerk, was cousin to Robert and Joshua Lawson, exten-sive merchants at Lancaster and Sunderland, and Joshua Lawson was ancestor of Colonel J. Lawson Whalley, Lancaster, and Mr. J. R. Ford, Yealand Conyers. John Fell, the Town Clerk, was also brother-in-law of John Caw-thorne, gentleman, Lancaster (son of William Cawthorne, of Wyresdale), whose daughter Elizabeth married James Fenton, barrister-at-law, Recorder of Lancaster – a position in which he was succeeded by his son, John Fenton-Cawthorne, for many years M.P. for this borough.

Thomas Edmondson, brother of John and Edward, and uncle of the Mary Edmondson (daughter of Edward) who married the afore-mentioned Thomas Welch, of Cabus – was engaged in manufacture as a worsted spinner for a long time before he settled at Grassyard Hall.   Into the teens of years he was a mem-ber of the Lancaster firm of worsted spinners known as Thomas Edmondson and Company, his partners therein being John Satterthwaite (Castle Park) and Robert Addison. This partnership was dissolved on November 7th, 1795. John Satterthwaite, who died on December 26th, 1807, was grandfather of, among others, Colonel B. A. Satterthwaite, Colonel J. H. Satterthwaite, and Canon C. J. Satterthwaite (Disley) whose mother was a granddaughter of Thomas Edmondson. This other partner, Robert Addison, was Mayor of Lancaster in 1794 and 1803. He was one of the lords of the manor of Cockerham and died at The Laund, in that parish, on June 23rd, 1819, aged 73. His second daughter was the wife of James Clarke, for many years Recorder of Liverpool and Attorney-General of the Isle of Man. Perhaps more important than Thomas Edmondson’s Lancaster partnership was his business at Mytholmroyd, near Halifax the worsted spinning concerns of “Thomas Edmondson and Co.” being one of the largest in the district. Some time after acquir-ing the property at Caton from Abram Tysack Rawlinson (son of Henry Rawlinson, merch-ant, Lancaster, MP for Liverpool 1780-1784), Thomas Edmondson went to reside at Grass-yard Hall, and eventually he gave up the business at Mytholmroyd to his nephews, John Edmondson and Thomas Paget, who had previously worked in a mill at Dolphinholme. This John Edmondson was the son of Thom-as’ brother Edward, and was married at Over-ton Church on October 20th 1810, to Margaret Taylor. The other nephew was the son of Thomas Edmondson’s sister by her marriage with Thomas Paget, woollen merchant, of Lancaster and Forton Lodge, who had also some interest in the Yorkshire business. Before Thomas Edmondson removed from Mytholmroyd he was brought into agreeable association with the grandfather of the Right Hon. John Morley, M.P., a matter to which reference will be made in my next chapter.

  Edward Edmondson, the father-in-law of Thomas Welch, died in April, 1803, aged 52, and his widow, Isabella, in October, 1825, aged 75. Their daughter Elizabeth – a great favourite with her uncle, the squire of Grassyard Hall – died at Forton Lodge, on Jul 2nd, 1817, aged 25.  The later years of her life were filled with a pathos which often formed a pitying theme among those who remember-ed her as one of the prettiest and most blith-some girls for miles around. For she was accidentally deprived of the precious gift of eyesight. The story, as I heard it told by a venerable Lancastrian, who remembered having as a little boy occasionally seen the sightless young lady, is to the effect that one sunny afternoon in her girlhood, Elizabeth Edmondson was  “dancing down a lane” in the country near Lancaster when she struck against an overhanging branch, a thorn in which pierced one f her eyes, with the result that she became totally blind. On her gravestone in Overton Churchyard this weather-worn inscription may be read:-
  Lamented by her friends, tho’ call’d away
  By Him whose voice we all must once obey,
  In early youth she was depriv’d of sight,
  But now we trust enjoys eternal light
  With her redeemer in the realms above,
  Where all is peace, serenity, and love.
W.H.

This is the first in a series of articles from the Lancaster newspaper from about 1903-04.

PAST AND PRESENT
SOME FAMILY LINKS – 1

In writing of the late Rev. Robert Lamb, I mentioned that at the Lancaster Quarter Sessions on April 27th 1813, his father, Thomas Lamb, of Hay Carr, Ellel, was sworn in as the High Constable of the Hundred of Lonsdale South of the Sands, in succession to Timothy Welch, who died in this town on February 6th of the same year, aged thirty-five.  While making inquiries in the Lamb country, I came across various interesting items relating to the Welch family and some of their connections, and these may now be dealt with by themselves. As regards the office of High Constable, Timothy Welch’s immediate predecessor appears to have been Richard Herdman, of Scotforth, who died on May 24th, 1805 aged forty-five. For some time Richard Herdman, then described as a yeoman, was in partnership with Edmund Rigby, of Ellel Grange, afterwards of Lancaster; Joseph Robinson, stonemason, Galgate (afterwards a coal and slate merchant at Kirkby-in-Kendal, where he died in 1806); and John Welch, yeoman of Galgate, father of the aforenamed Timothy. This firm carried on business in Lancaster and places adjacent as freestone, lime and coal merchants, under the style of Robinson, Welch, and Co. The partnership was dissolved by mutual consent on October 23rd, 1801. Edmund Rigby sold his Ellel estate in 1814 to Richard Worswick, banker, Lancaster, and died thirteen years later at his Castle Park residence. Timothy Welch resided in Queen Street, and in May 1813 – three months after his death – the tenancy of the house was taken by his brother-in-law, Christopher Johnson, surgeon.

     Timothy the High Constable (born in November 1777) was the great-grandson of Richard Welch who died at Galgate in 1727. Before that time there were Welches in the district between Wyre and Lune, but there is a tradition – whether well-founded or not I cannot say – that the aforementioned Richard came hither with the 4th Duke of Hamilton (slain in a duel with Lord Mohun, November 15th 1712) when he married the heiress of the 5th Lord Gerard, of Gerard’s Bromley, and thereby came into possession of the Ashton Hall estate. With this tradition there is coupled a still more interesting one namely, that Richard Welch was a descendant, on the spindle side, of the great Scottish divine, John Knox – the descent being, it is said, through the marriage of the famous Reformer’s youngest daughter Elizabeth with the Rev. John Welsh (or Welch), son of the laird of Colliston, in the parish of Dunscore, Dumfries-shire, and Presbyterian minister in the parish of Ayr. John Knox had two sons, but neither of them left issue. He had also three daughters, and it is from the one who married the Rev. John Welsh that descendants are still traceable. Jane Baillie Welch, the wife of Thomas Carlyle, claimed lineal descent from John Welsh, the minister of Ayr. John Knox had a brother, William, who migrated into Lancashire and settled in Preston as a merchant. William was probably the elder brother. In September 1552, at Preston, he received a patent from the English Privy Council granting him liberty for a limited period to trade in any part of England in a vessel of 100 tons burthen. He had two or three sons. In the time of Richard Welch at Galgate, there was one Henry Welch, who was in business at Lancaster and a “chamberlain” of the borough. Whether there was any kinship between them does not appear. In 1712, Henry Welch married the wealthy heiress of John Foxcroft of Littledale, and “gave over his trade,” in which he had done well. This Henry appears to have removed to Deepclough, Littledale, where several children were born to him, including the son who acquired the Leck Hall estate, where descendants are still found. There was a Joseph Welch who died at Lancaster in the latter part of 1767, survived by his wife, but all I know of him is that he was in business as “apothecary and grocer”. The wife of Edmund Butler of The Ridding, in the West Riding, was nee Jane Welch (described as the daughter of Thomas Welch of Chesunt, Herts), and their youngest daughter married the Rev. Joseph Rowley, of Lancaster, for 54 years the chaplain at the castle.

  Richard Welch of Galgate had a son Thomas, yeoman,  of Hang-yeat, Ellel, and the latter had a son Timothy, born in 1714, who inherited the Ellel estate. This Timothy Welch married Jennet Brade (or Braid), born in 1710. She was the sister of William Brade, yeoman, Forton, another brother-in-law of whom was William Harrison, of Ellel, who had a son George. William Brade, who died about the end of June, 1763, was probably ancestor of the Liverpool merchant, William Brade, who built Forton Lodge about a hundred years ago, and to whose daughter Isabella the property was left under his will, dated February, 1818. The Brades were among the oldest of local families. Their name appears under very pathetic circumstances in the Cockerham parish register, July, 1650, thus: “The names of those that dyed of the infection in Cockerham: 21 dyed in July, of whom 11 were of the family Braid: 34 in August, among whom was the reverend Thomas Smith, Vicar; 5 in September, and 4 in October, the last of whom died on the 8th, and here the plague ceased.” Jennet, the wife of Timothy Welch, died on October 19th, 1779, aged 69; Timothy on April 1st 1791, aged 77. Their daughter Jennet died on September 29th 1773, aged 23. They rest in Cockerham churchyard. Under the gravestone record of the daughter’s death are these lines:-
     A pale consumption gave the fatal blow,
     The stroak was certain, but the effect was slow;
     With wasting pain death found me long opprest,
     Pity’d my sighs, and kindly brought me rest.
     And below the record of the mother’s death:
          Within this place we sleep in hope to have
          A joyful resurrection from the grave.
  Timothy Welch was engaged in the flax trade, and a member of what was called the Russia Company. He was very well off, and left houses and lands in Galgate and Ellel, and his servants Ann Morley and Elizabeth Webster were not forgotten in his will.  He was survived by a son and a daughter, John and Elizabeth.

     By his marriage with Elizabeth (or Betty) Yeats, John Welch, of Hang-yeat, had five sons and six daughters. Three of the children, Ann, Margaret and Henry, died minors, in the years 1792, 1800 and 1809 respectively. The others were:- Timothy, the High Constable already mentioned, who was twice married, first to Catherine Lawrence, daughter of Hacking Lawrence, and, secondly, to a Miss Borwick. John, born in 1778; timber merchant, Lancaster and Liverpool; died April 25th 1843, aged 63; married Dorcas Walmsley of Lancaster who died December 5th 1849, aged 67. Thomas, merchant and farmer, died at Cabus, April 6th 1832, in his 52nd year, married Mary Edmondson, of Middleton, near Overton, who died May 31st 1829, aged 45. Richard, born 1786, sugar planter, married Margaret Lawrence, sister of his brother Timothy’s first wife. Jenny, born 1781, married Edward Blackburne, of Holleth. Betty, born 1784, married Christopher Smith, draper, Lancaster. Hannah, born, 1787, married Thomas Thompson, grocer and ironmonger, Lancaster. Mary married Christopher Johnson, surgeon, Lancaster.
     Timothy Welch (1777-1813), the eldest son of John, had three daughters, Agnes, Margaret and Jennet.  Agnes married a Mr Townson, of Priest Hutton, and a son of theirs, John Townson, is living there. One of the other daughters married a Rev Mr Wareing, sometime vicar of Otterbourne, in the diocese of Winchester. The second son, John (1778-1843), timber merchant and stock and sharebroker, was married in October, 1802, to Dorcas, younger daughter of Henry Walmsley and his wife Elizabeth, of Lancaster. Henry Walmsley, the son of John Walmsley and his wife Dorcas, was for many years a leading bookseller and stationer in the town with a shop in New Street; hew was also stamp distributor and had an office or resi-dence in Dalton Square. On June 8th, 1779, he married Elizabeth Walker, of Garstang. He was one of the original trustees of the High-Street Chapel, an office which he held until his death, May 26th 1821, aged 70. His wife died on May 20th 1813, aged 60. In addition to the daughter who married John Welch, Henry Walmsley had a son, William Walker Walmsley, and a daughter, Mary, who died on May 22nd 1857, aged 77. John Welch also had a close connection with High-street Chapel, and was elected a trustee at the same time as Mr E B Dawson’s father, in 1814.

                                                                 Of the marriage of John Welch and Dorcas Walmsley there was issue, John, barrister-at-law (of the Inner Temple), Q C and special pleader, King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London; Henry, timber merchant, Quebec; William, stock and sharebroker, Liverpool; Catherine (Dalton square), Lucy and Mary, the last-named of whom married twice – first, Mr. Lacon, a Liverpool solicitor, and secondly, the Rev. John Farnham Guenett, Congregational minister, sometime of Liverpool and later of Devon. In 1836 Captain Woodhouse, of Overton was skipper of a ship named “John Welch”;  and John Welch was the owner  of the vessel, the “Charlotte”, on board which John Birkett, of Mason’s Yard, was an apprentice when she went out to Quebec in 1841, taking as passengers two families, Sandham’s of Middleton, and Capstick’s of Burton. John Welch’s office was next door to the old Shovel Inn, Penny Street, afterwards Mr Tower’s shop.
   John Welch’s son Henry went out to Canada, and established a timber business at Quebec, where he and his wife Lucretia M Cowan, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their wedding on May 23rd 1888. Many Lancastrians will have an appreciative remembrance of Henry’s brother William, one of the most reputable men who ever carried on business in this town as stock broker, &c., a business still worthily represented by his son Mr A B S Welch, brother of Mr William Gibbins Welch, of Hampson, Ellel. Mr William Welch, who was elected a trustee of High-street Chapel in 1830, married a daughter of the Rev. Samuel Bell, DD.,  who was pastor at High-street from 1823 to 1843, and died at Stockwell, London, in 1861. Thirty-two years have passed since the death of Mr. W. Welch, whose widow still survives, at Springville.  His second daughter, Ellen Mary Walmsley Welch, married - at High-street Chapel, April 5th, 1876 - Mr Samuel Arundel Bell (youngest son of Dr. Samuel Bell), who died at Liverpool, December 31st 1902, aged 55, leaving a widow, four sons and three daughters. Dr Bell’s widow died in Queen-street, Lancaster, April 3 1892.

     John Welch of Hang Yeat, the son of Timothy and Jennet, was born in 1753, and, like his father was a flax merchant. He was also High Constable of Lonsdale Hundred, South of the Sands, and managed the Ashton Hall farm for the Duke of Hamilton. A story still lingers that John once concealed a manservant of the Duke’s in a cart of turnips to escape the press gang, while the Duke entertained the officers. John Welch went to Kendal Parish Church to be married (by licence), on January 26th, 1777, the bride being Elizabeth (“Betty” in the register), a minor, daughter of Henry and Mary Yeats, of Skelsmergh Hall – of the same stock, probable, as the Yeats family of Beetham, one of whom was the mother of a celebrated barrister, John Bell, KC, senior wrangler at Cambridge in 1786. John Welch’s brother-in-law, Henry Yeats the younger, removed from Skelsmergh Hall to Ellel, where he died in 1835. He was a kinsman of George Yeats, who before building a farmhouse for himself at Hole of Ellel in 1775, resided at Ashton Hall for a few years, and whose daughter Ellen, the wife of Henry Smith, was grandmother of the present owner of the farm at Hole of Ellel.   Further references to the Yeats and Smith families will be made in another chapter.  John Welch (to quote from his tombstone in Cockerham churchyard) “left this transitory world” on the 24th September 1802, aged 49. His wife survived him and died on March 10th 1820, aged 62. John had a sister Elizabeth, who married Lawrence, son of William Lawrence, progenitor of some of the Lawrences who have figured so largely in the public and commercial life of Liverpool. William Lawrence devised to his son Lawrence Lawrence his estate at Ellel called The Cragg;  to another son, John, he left “Walker’s” in Thurnham; and to a third son William “Garners” in Thurnham. Lawrence Lawrence, who pre-deceased his wife, had three sons and one daughter – Timothy, William, Lawrence and Betty. A gravestone in Cockerham church-yard records the death of “Lawrence Lawrence, of Kellet, formerly of Thurnham, who died August 8th, 1839, in the 71st year of his age.”