This month I am continuing to look at the networking between families who kept the Roman Catholic faith. Some of these networks were very complicated and crossed the country from one end to the other. The networks were on two levels, the landed gentry and their servants. A few years ago I was asked to do a house history by a property owner in Middleham and was astonished to find that one owner of the cottage in Middleham in the North Riding of Yorkshire had once lived in Essex. Further astonishment when I discovered that he was a butler in a grand house. The butler was James Clarkson born 1796 died 1879. He was baptised at Middleham on the 19th of July 1796 son of Thomas and Frances Clarkson at the Parish Church of St Mary and St Alkelda, so no immediate link to the Roman Catholic faith at this stage. How did he own a cottage in Middleham ? The cottage had been bequeathed by his parents to his brother Matthew Clarkson. In 1846 James loaned his brother Matthew some money with the cottage as security, Matthew must not have repaid the loan as the cottage was then owned by James, but when he made his will in 1878 he bequeathed the Middleham cottage and the unpaid loan back to his brother. He also owned property in Essex. But how did James get to Essex ? James first went to Catterick, and then to Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, on today's roads a journey of 240 miles with an estimated time of 4 hours and 16 minutes according to AA Route Finder. It would have taken days in the age of stage coaches. In 1841 James Clarkson of Middleham was working as a butler for a family called Wright who owned Kelvedon Hall at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex. Kelvedon is a name I associate with a variety of peas called Kelvedon Wonder which my father used to grow. But this is more about surnames of families, not peas. In 1841 Kelvedon Hall had three members of the Wright family resident, James Clarkson the butler from Middleham and another James Clarkson as footman . This was the nephew of the elder James, son of his brother William Clarkson. William was born in 1792 at Middleham, baptised at the Parish Church, and then married a Dorothy Dunn of Catterick and had six children. The first five were baptised at Catterick Parish Church, but the youngest was baptised at the Roman Catholic chapel at Brough Hall with James Clarkson and his sister Mary Clarkson as sponsors. So by 1836 the Clarkson family who lived near Catterick were Roman Catholic, whether they had been before, or whether they converted we cannot be sure, but this was to influence the occupation of all their children. Of William and Dorothy Clarkson's six children four were servants for most of their lives, with links to Roman Catholic families. Their eldest son James was first in the household of the Wright family of Kelvedon in 1841, by 1851 he was a servant to the Monington household at Sarnesfield Court, Herefordshire and in 1861 a servant in the household of the Scrope family of Danby on Ure, just across the river from Middleham where his father had been born, and another Roman Catholic family. His brother Francis worked at Kelvedon Hall for the Wrights in 1851, then moved on to Devon and was butler to Lord Clifford of Ugbrooke House and then went to Worcestershire where he was a groom with a wife from Essex and his eldest child born at Kelvedon. A third brother Thomas went as a servant to the Meynell family at North Kilvington near Thirsk, another Roman Catholic family, and then went to Kelvedon Hall to be footman for the Wrights. A fourth brother John Matthew also went into service, in 1851 he was in Sleningford near Ripon a servant in the Staveley household, and then in Bath living in the Royal Crescent. But back to Kelvedon Hall. In 1851 the census recorded John Francis Wright as head of the household with William Edward Hyan as a visitor and then all the servants: James Clarkson butler born Middleham, Francis Clarkson footman born Catterick, then George Wallis the coachman, Susanna Clarkson the housekeeper born Romaldkirk, Alice Bouldron the laundry maid also from Romaldkirk, Margaret Goodyear the housemaid was from Brandsby, Mary Potts the dairymaid was from Stamfordham in Northumberland and Margaret Williamson the kitchen maid was from Hexham in Northumberland. Susanna the housekeeper was the wife of James Clarkson the butler and her family were in service and networked through several landed families across the country who also happened to be Roman Catholics. So it is the Bouldron family of Lartington in the parish of Romaldkirk we now turn to. How did Susanna, then Alice and later Mary and then an Elizabeth Bouldron all move from Lartington to Kelvedon in Essex ? The Bouldron family have not been easy to research as their surname could have variations of spelling. Lartington and Romaldkirk can both be mangled into unrecognisable names, Tartington being the best ! But they were definitely a Roman Catholic family who used the Roman Catholic chapel at Lartington Hall in Teesdale. This is the entry in the Baptism register at Lartington Catholic chapel for Susan Bouldron, she later became Susanna. Her parents were William and Elizabeth Bouldron of Lartington. William had married twice, his first wife was Ann Barnes and had a daughter Elizabeth in 1806, Ann died and William married again to Elizabeth Jatten and had five more children. Three of the girls ended up in Essex. But first Susan. In 1841 Susan Bouldron was a servant at Croxdale Hall just south of Durham City, the home of the Salvin family. Another staunchly Catholic family. One year later in 1842 she married James Clarkson in Essex. How did she get there ? Meanwhile back in Lartington in 1841 - Lodging in Lartington with Susanna's mother Elizabeth and sister Alice was the gardener for Lartington Hall, one George Marr from Scotland. In 1845 George Marr was also in Essex and so was another of the Bouldron girls, Mary, and they married there but soon moved on to other grand houses. George Marr went to be gardener at Hedgefield House in the parish of Ryton in County Durham. He and Mary had their first child there in 1847. This was the home of the Dunn family, A Roman Catholic family with money in coal mines . Hedgefield House was described as a handsome villa with four acres of gardens. Then George Marr and wife Mary went to be gardener at Minsteracres in the parish of Espershields just south of Hexham in Northumberland, the home of the Silvertop family. Here Mary died, and at one time Mary's sister Alice went to look after George and their children. By now Alice was Alice Clarkson. She was born in Lartington in 1826 but she also went to Kelvedon and married in Essex to Thomas Clarkson footman of Kelvedon Hall, born Catterick. They married in 1861. Confused ? You are going to be. So after looking at all these servants who circulated around the houses of the landed gentry, what linked the landed families to each other ? One was that they were all Roman Catholic, the other was that they intermarried. I will start with Lartington, a lovely village in the parish of Romaldkirk on the Yorkshire side of the River Tees, which is the boundary between County Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire. Lartington Hall now markets itself as a wedding venue, but is a lovely country house which belonged to families who had three surnames, Maire, Silvertop and Witham. All Roman Catholics there was a Catholic chapel in the Hall which was in the wing at the far left in this picture. The Lartington estate descended from Margaret Appleby who had married Thomas Maire, but died in child birth, to her son Thomas Maire, who then left it to his son Thomas, who died without children so left it to his brother John, who also died without children so the Lartington estate went to the second son of his sister Anastasia who had married Henry Lawson of Brough Hall near Catterick. The son Henry changed his name to Maire. This Henry born Lawson , changed his name to Maire, died withou children so the Lartington estate went sideways again to Henry Silvertop who had changed his name to Witham to inherit from his wife's uncle. At the bottom of this tree is Henry who was born Silvertop, became Witham, and whose mother was a Lawson from Brough Hall near Catterick. Cliffe is on the banks of the River Tees near Piercebridge. Key to the movement of our servants were the family of Lawson of Brough Hall near Catterick and the families who were at Lartington and their relations. This is Brough Hall. So here at the top is the marriage of Henry Lawson of Brough Hall and Anastasia Maire of Lartington Hall and how their children and grandchildren married into the families of Wright of Kelvedon in Essex and Silvertop of Minsteracres in Northumberland. Complicated isn't it ? But fun ! This is Kelvedon Hall in Essex which had belonged to the Wright family for about five hundred years, with at least ten John Wrights in direct succession. This is where several members of the Bouldron family of Lartington and the Clarkson family of Middleham and Catterick worked. The Wrights were Roman Catholic and the long line of Wrights ran out in 1920 and the estate then went to Sir Henry Lawson. The last of the Wrights to inherit Kelvedon was born in Richmond, Yorkshire. The 1851 census has Edward Carrington Wright as a baby living on Frenchgate with his parents Edward and Barbara nee Bowden. In 1861 he was at a Roman Catholic College in Derbyshire called Spinkhill College, in 1871 he was at Kelvedon. He had married Mary Petre in 1873 but then appeared to have moved around the watering holes of the rich and famous, Tonbridge, Hastings, Brighton, and had three children by a Mary Knowles whom he eventually married in Worthing.The Clarksons and Bouldrons were still servants at Kelvedon Hall in 1861 but had gone by 1871. James and Susanna Clarkson moved to a nearby house in Kelvedon Hatch. James occasionally acted as an agent to recruit servants, and was certainly a member of the Roman Catholic congregation there. An incident widely reported in all newspapers in October 1858 recorded his indignation at a meeting of the Essex Agricultural Association when a toast was made to "The Bishops and Clergy of the diocese" which led to verbal attacks on the Roman Catholic church and James walked out of the meeting. In 1851 the housemaid at Kelvedon Hall was Margaret Goodyear from Brandsby. This tree shows the connection between the Cholmeley family of Brandsby and the Wrights of Kelvedon. George Marr, the gardener from Scotland, worked at Lartington in 1841, then he went to Kelvedon where he married Mary Bouldron, and then they moved back north to Hedgefield House in the parish of Ryton, County Durham. Hedgefield House is now a hotel, but had belonged to the Dunn family. This is the connection between the families. Henry Silvertop's mother had been a Lawson (do try and keep up!) George Marr the gardener then went to work at Minsteracres. This is Minsteracres , very grand, another large country house with a Roman Catholic chapel, the home of the Silvertop family. It is now a retreat centre. Before she married James Clarkson, Susanna Bouldron had been a servant at Croxdale Hall, County Durham. Croxdale Hall was the home of the Salvin family, they also had a Roman Catholic chapel in the far left wing of the hall. The tree above shows Winifred Witham married Gerard Salvin, another connection. The four Clarkson brothers from Catterick who moved around large country houses as servants also networked within these family trees. Here is a snip of the Wright tree. In 1851 James Clarkson of Catterick was working in the household of the Monington family of Sarnesfield Court in Herefordshire. Also in 1851 his brotherThomas Clarkson was working in the Meynell household in North Kilvington Hall near Thirsk in Yorkshire. All members of the extended Wright family. In conclusion it appears that the relationships between the servants and masters and mistresses of these families was agreeable on all sides. Servants remained with the same family a long time or moved within the extended branches of the same families. Movement between households would have allowed for promotion and a broad experience. James Clarkson, who started all this (!) did very well indeed out of his relationship with the Lawsons and Wrights. When he died in 1879 his effects were valued at just under £2,000. He had the property in Middleham and a house and four cottages at Kelvedon Common. He left generous bequests to relatives and fellow servants, and items of gold and silver, watches, snuff boxes, a silver cup etc. After a lifetime of butlering he had done very well indeed.
Next month I will conclude Networks of Faith and return to Brandsby.
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January 2024
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