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.”