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.
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