Abel Smith's 1728 Letter about Hannah

Nottingham, June 29 [1728]

To Mr Beaumont at Chapelthorpe
To be left at ye White Hart in Wakefield

One Mr Burnaby a young Clergyman of Asfordby in Leicestershire is very desirous to make his Address to Sister Hannah Beaumont (1). She is not willing to give him any further encouragement without advice of her Friends and in particular your Selfe (2) to whom she has the greatest obligation. He has a general good character for a sober Honest Gentleman - as to his Estate I have enclosed a particular on the inside...

.....continues / separate note about the Burnaby family's lands and finances and the proposed settlement......

..... I am now speaking of ye Worst that may happen for ye Gentleman is but about 26 years old and seemes of a Healthy Constitution in that such a Settlement may Never Be made use of but it [is] good to be Provided against [the] Worst.

....more about the settlement and joynture........

..... it will be as sure for her Life as freehold. Sister desireth that you will please Advise her on this affair.
I am you most obliged Kinsman & Humble Servant
Abill Smith (3)

My spouse (4) joins with me her humble service to yourself and all our friends at Chapelthorpe.
.............
(original - not seen - Bretton Archives BEA/C3/B48/60)
(this note made from partial transcript by T.Beaumont - this archive Box 12/003)
.............
(1) the youngest of Jane Smith's sisters, who presumably lived with the Smiths. She was described as spinster, of St.Peter's Parish [Nottingham,] when she married Andrew Burnaby. The marriage took place at Colwick in November 1728.
(2) Hannah's uncle, Thomas Beaumont 1765-1731, who then lived at Chapelthorpe.
(3) Abel Smith, banker, of Nottingham (d.1757)
(4) Jane, eldest daughter of George Beaumont of Chapelthorpe (d.1712)

The Baltic Merchants (2)

George Beaumont 1633-1669 ("the Dantzig Merchant" of family memory) seems to have made a lot of money in his short life. The second son of George Beaumont (an individual who certainly knew how to spot a bargain), he was apprenticed to William Ramsden in York and was trading in his own right even before he was admitted to membership of the Eastland Company on 17 March 1661/2.

By that time his elder brother at Darton, John, had died but George did not return home to the life of a country gentleman even after 1664 when his father died.

Despite the tradition that I have from my uncle and father I can't recall seeing any direct evidence that George lived at Gdansk. However it is not unlikely for some documents that found their way from Darton to Bretton Hall, and are now at (?West Yorkshire Archives), suggest that he learned German in his teens and that in his early twenties he was indeed trading with Gdansk - from Stockton-on-Tees (Bretton Archives BEA/C3 / B48/131 & 123). In 1663 he bought an eighth share in a ship called 'Frederick William of Koenigsberg' which was re-named 'Charyly of Dantzig' (BEA/C3 / B48/64).

A Swedish blockade of Gdansk in 1627.

The information about the Bretton documents comes only from a catalogue. It suggests that George continued to have dealings with the Baltic and a connexion with Koenigsburg (now Kaliningrad) in the 1660s and that he had a contract with a certain Christopher Melchior which led to a dispute (BEA/C3/B48/124-140). I would suppose that in the 1660s George actually lived either in York or Hull, shown here in about 1640:-

George's career was very short, just a few years. Although the will reveals him to be a man of wealth (it deals out cash legacies of nearly £4,000 before the residue which was left to his brother) it also makes clear that the money is working, not just "sitting there."

The larger legacies were only expected to be paid "as money comes in" - and the £1,000 to his sister Sarah Wordsworth (mother of Josias mentioned in "The Baltic Merchants (1)") was to be abated in case of "losses at Sea or by bad debts or Shipps parts or falls of goods by badd marketts."

At the beginning of his will George says he is "of the City of York Merchant" but he signed it, on 24 July 1668, at Hull. He named his younger brother William as his executor, and John Gould junior merchant of London, and Thomas Lockwood merchant of Hull as supervisors.  I have no information as to where or exactly when he died or where he was buried. I don't think he is remembered on any of the monuments at Darton (*). I had wondered if he made the will in anticipation of a voyage and that he was perhaps on a ship lost at sea, but there are funeral accounts dated October 1669 for a George Beaumont amongst the Bretton collection (BEA/C3/B48/137). The will was proved in late 1669.

(* I mean grave slabs. He was mentioned on a benefactors' board under the Tower, about the school. He was mainly remembered in Darton for having endowed a school there)

George seems to have had a soft spot for Hannah Lockwood as he gave her no less than five hundred pounds so long as she was still unmarried and "free from all engagements whatsoever unto any man upon the attempt of marriage." Hannah is identified twice, once as Thomas Lockwood's eldest daughter, and once as "Cosin."

My favourite clause is where he leaves money to the poor of York, but only to be paid from money that William Ramsden "unjustly keeps back of mine in his hands and out of no other effects." It was not until 1676 that the Mayor & Corporation acknowledged receipt of the money! (BEA/C3/B48/78).

The reference for the will: Borthwick Institute. Prob.Reg.50 Folios 181 - 181v - 182 - 182v.

The Baltic Merchants (1)

Within our family the "merchant of Danzig" (George Beaumont 1633-c1669) is a familiar character; less well-known is one of his nephews who was certainly at Gdansk (Jonathan Beaumont 1686-1716).

Even less was known to us about the career of another of our Beaumonts, until I decided to download the Will of "William Beaumont of Narva, Merchant" from the National Archives (PROB 11/523/128) a couple of weeks ago.

William was christened at Darton in 1666 and was respectively nephew and elder brother of the merchants George and Jonathan. At the age of about sixteen he was apprenticed for eight years to Andrew Perrott of York, following directly in the footsteps of his first cousin Josias Wordsworth (Eastland Co Apprenticeship Register).

That's all I knew until I got the Will.

Presumably it was Mr Perrott who sent William to Narva - on the very border of Peter the Great's Russia.

When he made his Will there in 1702 I don't think he can have been newly arrived there as he makes various references to the English community there and gives legacies to several godchildren.

Unfortunately for William Beaumont his time there was characterised by plague and war. Not much more than two years later Russian forces took control of the city - a much later painting shows Peter "pacifying" his forces there in 1704, with the old Town Hall (which is still standing) and Stock Exchange (which is not) buildings in the background.

I don't know if William got out of Narva or came to terms with the Russians. I don't know where he died. I don't know if he was a victim of the "sickness in Sweden," as Josias Wordsworth called it in 1710 when giving evidence in London (Journal of the Board of Trade & Plantations).

He must have been dead by 1711 when his business partner Joseph Fawthrop (another former apprentice of Andrew Perrott) registered the will in Luebeck and London.

By the Will, William left £50 to the poor of Darton "the place of my nativity" and other legacies for example to the English church at Narva and to its Minister, Charles Thirlby. Some of the legacies are in sterling and some in local currency. As a "stranger at Narva" he expected his estate to have to pay a substantial amount of tax to Sweden. His executors were his brother George of Chapelthorpe (he died in 1712), Josias Wordsworth in London, and Joseph Fawthrop. The residuary estate was to be divided equally between his brothers and sisters.