R.H. Beaumont of Whitley FSA 1749-1810

I said something about the portrait of this eccentric and interesting man and it is now time to say something about him and his life.

RHB was the eldest son of Richard Beaumont and Elizabeth (nee Holt). He was christened at Kirkheaton in March 1749. I don't know where he went to school but he was at Oxford (Brasenose) in the late 1760s.

Old print of Brasenose, given to me by Margaret Shepherd

His father is said to have been a Jacobite, and to have invited Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 to stay at Whitley. I don't know if there is any truth in that, and I am fairly sure such a visit never happened. However a plaid-covered bed was seen in the house many years later!

RHB's father died in 1764, in his forties. His mother would live for many years. She had an estate at Little Mitton in Lancashire, and was the heiress of the Holt family, of that place. But she spent some time in London, where it has been said that the family had a house in Brownlow Street. Hard evidence for this house is lacking. There were two streets of that name, and this would be the one in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn.

Certainly, members of this old Yorkshire family were spending a good deal of time in London. All was not sweetness and light. RHB's youngest brother John had a son born there - before marriage, whilst the second brother Charles died (he was training to be a barrister), stating in his will that he wished to be buried anywhere but Yorkshire!  RHB's wilful sister Elizabeth married the Anglo-Irish officer George Bernard as soon as she was 21. The old lady commissioned George Romney to paint a picture that would show them all as more united than they really were. I wrote a piece recently about that episode.

RHB was in charge of the Whitley estate by now, and Capability Brown visited in 1778. Some proposals were drawn up. Landscaping work was done and trees planted.

(I borrowed the above picture of Whitley from the "country house reader" blog, which had it from the Huddersfield Examiner by courtesy of Stephen Beaumont. I hope they don't mind. The artist is said to be J.T. Taite circa 1858.  J.T. Tuite (husband of one of RHB's nieces) was a painter, and I think, earlier than 1858. I'd be very happy to discuss this with someone who knows about the picture).

The death of RHB's third brother Thomas in 1782 (I wrote recently about the portrait of him) and the fact that RHB was not going to marry, meant that the estates would devolve to John, and John's children. But I don't think John and RHB liked one another much.

RHB set off for Italy in 1787 and was away for about a year. In regard to this trip, certain writers have confused him with his younger brother. He went as far as Naples and wrote various letters to Walter Spencer-Stanhope at Cannon Hall (see note).

RHB was not much interested in managing his estates, though they gave him an income of between £5,000 and £7,000 a year. Naturally he was in Yorkshire a good deal, held various offices there, and was party to numerous leases and other deeds. Amongst the documents are some showing that he leased property at Crosland (a place redolent of family history, or legend anyway) to his cousins George and Walter Beaumont who set up there (unsuccessfully, in the end) as manufacturers. George and Walter were sons of George, the clergyman of Nottingham who died in 1773, and brothers of Rev. Thomas (d.1835) and Richard (d.1828) of Birmingham.

RHB's real interest lay in history, and genealogy. He was accurate, painstaking, and relatively detached. For example, of his own father's actions in moving the remains of ancestors out into the rain and snow, he wrote:

Richard Beaumont deceased 1764 made a Vault in the Choir at Kirkheaton in consequence of which 

the Bones and Dust of Knts Esqs & Gents repose in ye Churchyard except Adam son of Sir Thomas B 

and Richard and Susanna abovementioned.

(at the end of transcripts of deeds sent to his cousin - this Archive, Box 1/18, a puzzling entry)

I suppose RHB spent some more time at Oxford researching documents. But many of the documents that he used were actually in Whitley Hall, including I think the originals of some that Roger Dodsworth (1585-1654) had seen. RHB made his own transcripts, some of which are in this archive (Box 1/18). Fortunately many documents from Whitley have survived, now in West Yorkshire Archives and elsewhere.

RHB realised the value of what he had and wanted to preserve it. He gave some important manuscripts to the Bodleian, whose librarian John Price was his (distant, perhaps) friend. He also sent pictures from Whitley to Oxford, including "Susannah and the Elders" and (in 1802) one that was thought to be of Queen Elizabeth, which had come from Little Mitton.

Many pictures of Beaumonts and their relations were hanging in Whitley Hall in RHB's time. Several that have survived are marked on the back of the frame or stretcher in his handwriting. I have written about this elsewhere, and would say that, where this is found, it is a very strong pointer to the provenance. I confess to being suspicious about some pictures, and would simply urge their present custodians to look on the back, and send me a picture of what they see written there.

RHB had other scholarly acquaintances such as Brasenose contemporaries Richard Williams (1747-1811), of Fron (near Mold) and [Sir] Christopher Sykes (1749-1801) of Sledmere - and of course Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1759-1821).

Another friend was James Paine (1745-1829), his cousin, and the son of the well-known architect. James Paine senior might well have designed the "temple" at Whitley. If it still stands, it must be in a sorry state by now.

Temple at Whitley - in happier days

- and in 1959 (Yours Truly in red jumper, with my mother and brother).

It is known locally as Black Dick's temple, but that is (of course) just guff!

RHB visited his cousin Rev. Thomas Beaumont at Chapelthorpe in the 1790s. He provided pedigrees and evidence to prove how they were related, and thus demonstrated pointedly that he was the rightful proprietor of Whitley (lest there be any doubt). RHB was nothing if not a snob. The letters are polite - I had an unpleasant ride home. Comps to your Brother, two Mrs B's and Miss H - but suggest acquaintance rather than close friendship, and yet my side of the family often mentioned its Whitley connections in a wistful tone. Certainly, my forebears retained what RHB had sent them, now an important element in our collection!

RHBs mother died at her house in York in 1791; this was perhaps on the Mount outside Micklegate Bar. As her second & third sons (who might have been intended to inherit Mitton) had died, RHB was now the owner of that estate as well, which he sometimes visited with great pleasure, according to his friend T.D. Whitaker. Mitton is near Whalley, so Whitaker would in due course cover it in his book on that parish.

In 1793 RHB served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire; this meant visiting York and involvement in matters to do with the 84th Regiment that was raised by his brother-in-law George Bernard that year. The Bernards had a house in York. Nearer Whitley, RHB had given them a site by the river Calder where they had built a house called Heaton Lodge, where I think there was a portrait of RHB, the one which I wrote about quite recently. The Bernards had no children of their own. George however had a lady friend, and a daughter!

By the early 1800s RHB's eccentricity had reached its peak; a visitor in November 1808 noted:
The master of Whitley is a strange creature, half-mad. He leads the life of a hermit, and has not had a brush, painter, or carpenter in his house since he came into possession many, many years ago.
It is more like a haunted house in a romance than anything I ever saw. He is now an old man, and has never bought a morsel of furniture; half the house never was finished; one of the staircases has got no banisters..... The rooms he lives in have not been put to rights for many years - a description of the things they contain would not be easy - hats, wigs, coats, piles of newspapers, magazines, and letters, draughts, bottles, wash-hand basins, pictures without frames, apples, tallow-candles, and broken tea-cups.
The whole house looks like a place for lumber. There are some fine rooms, but so damp and mouldy it is quite shocking. There is a chapel completely filled with old rubbish and a plaid bed which was put up for the Pretender. 
In the room Mr Beaumont sleeps in I saw his coffin, made of cedar wood. He scarcely ever sees a living creature, and quite dislikes the sight of a woman. He does everything in the room, which no housemaid ever enters, nor indeed any part of the house (see note below).

Whitley Hall. The oldest portion at left, ivy-covered. I don't think the third storey had been added in RHB's day.

He was unduly anxious about his own health, and his friend James Paine told the diarist Joseph Farington that he had taken medicine prescribed by a Dr Latham, which made his last days rather uncomfortable. He died in November 1810 and was buried at Kirkheaton. I believe he is remembered now only by a brass plate, amongst the grander monuments of his relations.

An obituary or tribute by T.D.Whitaker is printed in the Introduction to the History of Craven (1812). Three phrases stand out. That RHB was "an excellent judge of forgeries," that when visiting Little Mitton he "contended with the owls for possession," and that he was by the end, a "hermit in a palace."

RHB was survived by his sister Elizabeth Bernard and his youngest brother John. John's son Charles Richard Beaumont had been to RHB's old college and was certainly seen as preferred ultimate successor. However John immediately took possession of Whitley and Mitton, and litigation quickly started, only to continue after Charles Richard himself died (which was in the lifetime of John).
............

Note on RHB's trip to Italy
It has been widely assumed that he went on this trip soon after, or even before, going to Oxford. But the only evidence I have seen for such a trip seems to be for 1787-1788 when RHB was nearly 40. Anna M.W. Stirling, the editor of the Spencer-Stanhope letters - in "Annals of a Yorkshire House" - assumed the writer to be John. See the second volume, pages 123-128. The only letter printed in full starts "Dear Stanhope," suggesting that the name at the end would just be "Beaumont." I think it is more likely RHB than John. I might be able to identify RHB's handwriting if these letters survive.

Whitaker in the obituary says that after his trip to Italy, RHB's understanding and memory were devoted principally to the study of history and antiquities. Whitaker does not give the date of the trip, but being several years younger, would not have had first-hand knowledge of what RHB did as a student.

Note on RHB's hermit-like life at Whitley
See The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Stanhope, ed. A.M.W. Stirling, vol. 1, p.123, footnote, and p.124. This is the same editor as before. It is also there said to be John, but in 1808 John had not yet "come into possession" of Whitley, let alone been there for many years.

Note on pictures
In Bodleian Picture Books, Portraits of the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries (1952), the Elizabethan Lady (not thought to be the Queen) is said to have been given to the Librarian by RHB in 1802 for the Library Gallery. The booklet adds that it came from "Little Milton" [must mean Mitton]. Today she is on artuk still as given by RHB in 1802. I have no useful information about Susanna & The Elders except that it was said to be by "Jordan" [Jordaens?] according to notes in my possession, and to have measured more than 8 ft x 7 ft.

American Adventures 1872-c.1890 - Allayne Beaumont Legard

Commander James Anlaby Legard came out of the Royal Navy in 1844 or 1845, was promoted to Captain, and married a young widow called Catherine Beaumont (nee Cayley). The Legards then lived for eight years at Lenton Hall, now part of Nottingham University's campus (see note 10).

The 1851 census shows the Legards at Lenton with their own two sons and three of Catherine's four children by her first husband Henry Ralph Beaumont. The Beaumont children were Emily (she was away), Henry Frederick, Mary Catherine, and Thomas Richard - whose names are recorded the wrong way round. Then four year old James Digby Legard and lastly Allayne Beaumont Legard, who was only three.

There was some land at Lenton Hall, and Captain Legard had ideas about agriculture. In due course he bought an estate at Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, so the family moved there.

Kirby Misperton Hall, perhaps early c20
(from kirbymisperton.org.uk)

But by about 1860, Captain Legard and Catherine separated. He went to Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where he was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the most prestigious yacht club in the country.  He died in 1869. Catherine lived in London until her death in 1887.

When his parents split up Allayne Beaumont Legard ("ABL") was in his teens. He joined the army (60th Foot), and was serving in Canada when his father died. A couple of years on, (now) Lieutenant ABL chucked in his commission and embarked on a three-month trip to Colorado.

ABL kept a Journal. When he first arrived in New York in March 1872 he expected to meet a person he identifies only as HPB (Note 1) at a well-known hotel. But he found only letters -

He then pursued HPB to St. John, New Brunswick, a train journey which was delayed due to snowy conditions. HPB (who had agreed to go with ABL), now declined. HPB was supposed to be looking after a young man called [Arthur] Ommaney, but handed him over to ABL.

ABL and Ommaney then went to Colorado. ABL met many people and considered various options for investment in sheep and cattle enterprises. He was interested in share-farming.

(But when a thing seems too good to be true, as a rule, it is .......)

Before leaving Colorado, ABL bought a 320 acre property with a small house in the Wet Mountain Valley in Custer County, near the town of Rosita. He left this in young Ommaney's hands, bought a prairie dog, returned to New York, and sailed for Southampton in June, on the "Weser."

This 1872 trip was only the start of ABL's American adventures. He must have gone straight to London to leave his Journal to be printed - and to see his mother. He returned to New York in October on the same ship. His interest was still large-scale sheep farming, but his interests quickly moved from Colorado in the direction of Texas, which he thought was better (Note 2).

Sometime during, I think, 1876, ABL's elder half-brother Thomas Richard Beaumont ("TRB") turned up in Colorado. Impliedly more land was bought, presumably with family money. TRB may have been motivated as much by the "silver rush" as by the prospects for sheep-ranching, though he was engaged in both. Prior to this, TRB had been in a cotton-spinning-mill partnership in Lancashire.

Wet Mountain Valley.... A.B. Legard, of the firm of Legard Bros., who has been down in New Mexico for six weeks past, looking after his immense herd of sheep, has returned. Messrs E. and T.R. Beaumont own one of the largest ranches in the valley, and are among our most honored and esteemed citizens (Colorado Daily Chieftain, May 25, 1876).

(Note 3).

A painting of a property in Wet Mountain Valley has been handed down to TRB's descendants. I'm not sure if I have permission to show it.

A Google street view in Wet Mountain Valley!

ABL, who now preferred the Texas Panhandle, was venturing towards New Mexico with apparently even larger sheep enterprises (Note 4).

When ABL was in London in 1872 he had obtained money from his mother (Note 5). Other writers have observed how prices would rocket when English "capitalists" arrived in town (Note 6). The Beaumont brothers' late father had inherited £50,000 (Note 7), some of which may well still have been washing around.

In 1881 ABL married, in Detroit, Michigan. Whether or not he had sold up, he certainly returned, for many years later when completing a census form in England, he noted that his elder daughter was born in Colorado City, Texas, and the younger in a place read as "Watnons" (which I suspect means Watrous, New Mexico).

Catherine Legard died in London in March 1887. Her will (Note 8) shows that her lawyers knew that money left to ABL (or to TRB) outright might end up in the hands of creditors.  Indeed, in Colorado shortly after this there were hearings in the District Court in Silver Cliff (Note 9).

So apparently the eldest brother had participated in the American investments somehow (if only as his mother's executor). Since 1857 HFB had been the owner of the Whitley Hall estate near Huddersfield. He had been a Member of Parliament since 1865. In the autumn of 1887 he travelled out to Colorado; he and TRB went to see ABL in southern Texas.

Incidentally on his way back, HFB went via Washington and had a brief face to face meeting with President Grover Cleveland (Washington Critic, December 3, 1887).

Sometime about 1891, for whatever reason, ABL returned to England. After a few months he took up residence in a house at Lepton, on his half-brother's estate. Weekly meetings of a charitable "Old Folks" group were held there, but two years later ABL had moved on, and the house was offered for sale or letting.

That is the last thing I have noted about ABL except that he went next to live at Bexley in Kent. His death was registered in Suffolk as late as 1933.

Perhaps the demise of the Whitley Beaumont estate was hastened by involvement in American investments.  It is far, far too early to draw conclusions, but does begin to look as though more money went to America than came back.

Main sources:
Legard, A.B., "Colorado" (London, 1872)
Colorado Historic Newspapers (online)
Colorado State Archives (catalogue online)
British Newspaper Archive (online)

(Note 1: "HPB" is Sir Harry Paul Burrard. About two years older than ABL, and probably richer (also then or later a member of the RYS), he too had been an officer in the 60th Foot.  HPB had a romantic reason for being at St. John - he married there about a fortnight after ABL's visit. Despite not going to Colorado then, HPB must have had some financial involvement with ABL and the Beaumonts in Colorado, as shown by his being the plaintiff in the 1889 case.)

(Note 2: Google will find good articles on the Texas Historical Association website by H. Allen Anderson on the "Pastores" and the "New Zealand Sheep Company." These mention "A.B. Ledgard" and I strongly suppose this to be in fact ABL. Anderson says that "A.B. Ledgard" was one of three British partners who had tried sheep-ranching in New Zealand, who arrived at San Francisco in 1870, bought large numbers of sheep, and operated in New Mexico and the Panhandle of Texas. ABL did indeed make use of contacts with experience of New Zealand (starting in 1872 with a man called Bevan), and was involved in large-scale sheep operations in those states. But I doubt if he had been to New Zealand. He was only 25 in 1872, and had been in the army).

(Note 3: James D. Legard visited Colorado in 1873, so "Legard Bros" is explained; Mr E. Beaumont is not identified, and I wonder if the initial should be H. HFB and TRB however had an uncle called Edward Blackett Beaumont.... An article in 1896 called Wet Mountain Valley the "Valley of the Second Sons," and said that the inhabitants lived rough lives (they had to chop their own wood, milk their own cows, etc), had opportunities for speculation, and were generally happy (eg The Globe 25 February 1896)).

(Note 4. ABL was said to have 13,000 sheep at the Victoria Ranch, Panhandle, Texas in 1879 (Colorado Daily Chieftain); the articles by H. Allen Anderson place "A.B. Ledgard" at Alamocitos Creek in Oldham County, and say that he sold out in 1881.

(Note 5. Catherine Legard's will, made in 1884, states that she had already made such an advance, and also that she had personally lent him £200).

(Note 6. Clark C. Spence, in British Investments and the American Mining Frontier, 1860-1901, says this about "titled persons from London," who stayed in the "best rooms of the best hotels." Spence was talking about mining interests, but it makes little difference. He expressly mentions ABL's formula (ultimately, from "Colorado" p. 67) for negotiating with Yankees, which was that they would settle for a sixth of the asking price. But they would have wised up and asked twenty times!)

(Note 7. Middleton v. Losh. This case shows that HFB's and TRB's grandparents had left an enormous total of £200,000 between four younger sons, one of whom was their father).

(Note 8. Proved in London 29 June 1887 by HFB and Rev. Richard Cholmondeley, the husband of the elder Beaumont sister, Emily).

(Note 9. Only from newspaper reports - Silver Cliff Rustler, 1887 and 1889) [I know of no connexion with Allen J Beaumont, who is prominent in the Colorado papers at this period])

(Note 10. It was suggested - Frank Barnes, Priory Demesne to University Campus..., (1993) p.202 - that Capt. Legard had an earlier wife, who had died. There is some muddle there, resolving which is outside the scope of this note).