Richard was born on February 21, 1761 when his father (George) was curate at Gedling near Nottingham, and was christened there just over a month later.
(He was the fifth child of his parents George and Betty. Soon afterwards he had a brother named Henry).
There has been long-standing confusion, as to whether Henry was Richard's middle name. I have found no contemporary mentions of him having any middle name. As suggested in an earlier piece on errors in the family tree, the muddle is due to someone seeing a list of the brothers in birth order without realising that Henry was another person.
I mean to write up after this what I know of Henry Beaumont (1762-1784); his life was one of confusion, rebellion, and apparently unhappiness.
When Richard was about three the family moved to Bingham, where his father was a kind of temporary curate. The Rector of Gedling had been living at Bingham but now went to his own parish, and "booted out" Richard's father, who was sent to Bingham to stand in till a new Rector was appointed there.
Bingham's new Rector was John Walter, a wealthy man originally from Birmingham who came to know the Beaumonts well, and who in due course married Richard's aunt, Susannah.
(See my note on John Walter. John and Susannah Walter were childless, and I have a number of clues that they treated Richard very kindly).
Richard's father, mother, and the rest of the family then moved to Nottingham, where (with the help of Abel Smith, the banker) George was appointed Rector of St. Nicholas. I think they lived in Castle-gate near the church.
I don't know where Richard went to school. He had an old great-uncle in Nottingham who died in 1771 leaving him £500 at age 21, and in 1773 when Richard was only twelve his father died also. It appears that Richard's mother Betty - who had several younger children to look after - remained in Nottingham rather than (as I once thought) returning to her home town, Leeds.
Unlike his eldest brother Thomas, Richard did not go to University. He started to look in the direction of Derby and Birmingham, and I believe this happened through his uncle, John Walter, introducing him to people from there including his lawyer brother Richard Walter. The Walter family owned a house in a prestigious and elegant square in the best part of Birmingham.
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The Walters' house was no.15, the low one on the right with tall chimneys
J.Hill and R.K.Dent, "Memorials of the Old Square." |
(From the "Old Square" the Walters moved to Handsworth, outside Birmingham. Richard Walter's wife Anna Maria (nee Burnaby) was the daughter of Richard Beaumont's great-aunt, the Hannah Beaumont whose marriage Abel Smith (sr) had arranged in 1728 (see earlier notice in this blog)).
Other influential people included Girton and Sarah Peake, who had a house in Nottingham but many connections to Birmingham, where they moved in the same circles as the Walters.
(Mrs Peake was from a Birmingham family called Rann. Her husband Girton Peake, a lawyer and property speculator, was a trustee of the settlement in 1767 when John Walter and Susannah Beaumont married. When Sarah Peake died at the end of 1784 her finances and those of her late husband unravelled and their Nottingham house was sold. It was in Angel Row very near Bromley House, which had been built for Sir George Smith, whose second wife Catherine was the daughter of the Birmingham clergyman (William Vyse) in whose church the Peakes had married. A report of litigation in the early c.19 - Carver -v- Vyse - hints at the family and financial connexions. Another example is the case of Mark Huish, a Nottingham hosier, who married a Birmingham girl. Abigail Gawthern in her diary says that "Mrs Peak" - undoubtedly the same - was responsible for the match. There is a volume of circumstantial evidence to connect all these parties, indeed some of them were related to one another. The Walter family's Birmingham town house was in "Old Square," a development of sixteen houses, two of which had belonged to people called Pemberton, the same name as Richard Beaumont's first wife - see J.Hill & R.K.Dent, "Memorials of the Old Square" - passim for the Pembertons, and pp.110-115 for the Walters).
It seems that at one time Richard considered going to sea. This information emerges from a letter written from Nottingham in late 1779 by Mary Smith, wife of Abel Smith, to her son George. The Smiths and Beaumonts were closely related and in touch with one another. In the next sentence after saying that "Dick Beaumont wishes to go to sea," Mary tells her son that "Mrs Peak" has gone to Bath, for her health (Notts Archives DD/SMT/294).
A little later, perhaps a military career was considered. I know little about that side but I wonder if the £500 - hopefully not all of it - may have helped to get the Commission that was granted to Richard in 1782. This was in the Derby Militia.
(For this document dated 25 January 1782 - Box 1/121 in our Archives - see an earlier notice).
Almost immediately it seems Richard would have set off with his military unit to the south-west of England - Plymouth area - for much of 1782....
(Newspaper Reports in eg the Derby Mercury).
... but in 1783 the unit was disbanded (stood down) and this is when I think Richard must have gone to Birmingham to take up some employment. He soon married Ann Pemberton, at Aston parish church in October 1784. His witness was not a member of his own family but a woman called Sarah Hallen.
Added this 16 July 2022:- I now know that Ann's father was called Abraham or Abram Pemberton. His will, proved in 1792, makes that clear. At about the time his daughter met Richard, Abram was running Vauxhall Gardens (Duddeston, NE of Birmingham centre, and near to the [future] Ashted suburb) as what might be called an entertainment venue.
(Sarah was the widow of John Clay Hallen and mother of John Boylston Hallen, both lawyers in Birmingham).
Within a short time it would appear that Richard was working as a druggist or chemist at New Street in the centre of Birmingham.
(Pye's Directory, and a report in the Derby Mercury that his warehouse was broken into and robbed).
However Richard's military career had not ended for he was promoted from ensign to lieutenant in 1789.
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From Derby Mercury 25 June 1789. Also of
course in the London Gazette. |
Richard and his wife lived at Great Charles Street in the town. A son was born in October 1792 but died at the age of four days. Another child was conceived but, in October 1793, Ann herself died "in childe-bede."
(Aston Parish Register. Both apparently buried "north side" or "north corner." I think this means the old church of Aston, where they had married).
Whether, or when, Richard remarried is one of the mysteries. His son George (our ancestor) was born in February 1796. George's mother might well have been Ann Walford, who Richard actually married many years later!!
Richard became involved in the affairs of Anna Maria Walter, at Handsworth, attending at her deathbed on behalf of the extended family. This was at the end of 1796. After the funeral he was asked to read the Will.
(Letter from Thomas Beaumont Burnaby to John Walter at Bingham, 18/309 in this Archive).
Richard must have sometimes gone back to Nottingham. I am thinking of family occasions such as the deaths of his brother Henry (late 1784), the death of his mother (1792), the death of his brother Thomas' daughter (1786), and the weddings of his sisters Frances (Fanny) (1788) and Charlotte (1784).
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| St.Nicholas' Church, Nottingham, from Deering. Mid c18 and so, much as Richard will have known it. |
(Abigail Gawthern's note of Betty's death, and the announcement of it in the Derby Mercury, show that she still lived in Castle-gate, the street leading past her late husband's church and towards the castle. Betty was buried in that church, with her husband. I am sure that Richard would also likely have gone to Bingham for the funerals of his aunt (1804) and uncle (1810), the Walters - he received a very substantial legacy - £3,000 - from John Walter).
Richard still worked in Birmingham - being noted as a wholesale dealer in Porter at Snow Hill and a little later as a woollen draper at 44 High Street.
(Pye, New Birmingham, and Chapman Directories 1797-1801, and 1808. Being a woollen draper may fit with his brothers George and Walter in Yorkshire, about whom I have written a special piece).
Richard's connexions with the Derby Militia appear to have ended and in 1803 he was made a Captain in the Loyal Birmingham Infantry, a role which I feel sure must have been "part-time." This may coincide with his move to Ashted, where there was a barracks. There is another Commission issued to him in 1808, again as Captain, this time in the Second Regiment of the Warwickshire Militia.
(Commissions: 1803 - newspapers; 1808 - Box 1/123. The old idea that he was a Captain in the 84th Regiment is wrong, confusing him with his brother, who was connected with that Regiment as chaplain - not captain)
Richard now had another son, named Henry (born in March 1801), and very soon after this moved to a new suburb, at that time a genteel and upmarket one, where he would live for the rest of his life. I intend to put up a piece shortly after this about Ashted. The house was in Ashted Row. Numbers were rarely used but later evidence is that it was No.15.
The elder boy George was sent to a school owned by a Mr Townsend at Castle Bromwich from where he wrote what is to modern eyes a hilariously formal letter to his "Honoured Father" about the timing of the school holidays.
(Letter from Castle Bromwich - Box 1/86. The letter is not dated but must I think be of about 1808-1810. It is addressed to Ashted Row).
At Ashted, Richard helped to run a soup kitchen for the poor (remembered over 20 years after his death)... Here is his own recipe:-
Put into a boiler on the previous evening, and there to remain until the next morning, sixty gallons of soft water, 2 pecks of peas, 6 ounces of pearl ashes. On the following morning place the fire underneath the boiler, and then add, 36 pounds of beef, cut into pieces of not more than 3 ounces each; 6 ounces of ground black pepper; 6 ounces of celery seed; 1 peck of onions, 2 pecks of Swede turnips, cut into small pieces. The whole of the above to be boiled throughout the day and frequently stirred, until evening, when the fire should be removed from under the boiler. On the following morning let the furnace be again heated. When the ingredients above named are well-boiled, put in gradually four pounds of oatmeal and 4 pounds of salt, and continue stirring, without ceasing, full one hour after the last-named have been added. Particular care must be observed not to leave the boiler after oatmeal is put in, lest it should adhere to the bottom of the boiler, and spoil the flavour of the soup. The fire may be removed after the lapse of one hour from the oatmeal being mixed.
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| 9 January 1854 |
The anonymous informant added that at the Ashted Soup Shop each adult had to pay a penny, for which they got a quart of the soup and piece of bread about four ounces in weight...."the late Captain Beaumont of
Ashted-row".... “a most benevolent gentleman,” who “every day
regulated and superintended the admixtures of the various
ingredients, according to his own recipe.”
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| Box 1/124 Toast List |
And he was a Committee Member of the (Tory) Birmingham Pitt Club and attended its dinners.
The Toast List above is from this Archive, and the details below are from the New Monthly Magazine (both dating from 1816).
In 1811 Richard arranged for his eldest son George to be articled to a land surveyor called Richard Court at Bewdley on the river Severn. After his training George returned to Ashted and had some sort of practice there for a short time before he married.
(Articles of Agreement - Box 1/105)
Then at the very end of 1815 or beginning of 1815 Richard and his wife - identified as called Ann - had another son, a poor little one who lived only a month and five days.
Another Parish Register entry is that in 1817 that Richard, described as widower, married Ann Walford, described as spinster. Recall that his first wife Ann (Pemberton) died way back in 1793. Now, either (a) he and Ann (Walford) have been together since the mid 1790s and he is now making her an "honest woman," or (b) there was an unknown second wife called Ann who has died and he is now marrying for the third time. I suppose (a) to be more likely!
(Usually books assign only one wife - Ann Walford - to Richard. His son George (1796-1882) had some correspondence with the editor of "County Families" - who was called Edward Walford. Perhaps George was hoping to get his family into this book. "County Families" appeared annually from 1860 for about 50 years. I have looked at several (but not all) editions. The editions I have seen do not mention Richard's wife but they do contain some muddle and error about him (eg the middle name, and his being in the 84th Regiment). I am afraid this is down to George. The statement that Richard married Ann Walford, and that she was the daughter of William Walford of Penn Bank, Staffordshire, first appears in print in a Family Tree which (from its own internal evidence) was produced in about 1873, and which accordingly must also have had input from George himself. Here also it is stated that they married in 1795. From the Family Tree it has been picked up in E.T. Beaumont's book, in Burke's Peerage, and in other derivative works. If George Beaumont did not think that Ann (Walford) was his actual mother it would not have been necessary for him to say that she had married his father the year before his own birth).
Richard was an active investor in canals. A canal that still exists, in a tunnel close to the Ashted Circus roundabout, was very near to his house!
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Looking NNW to where the tunnel goes under the A47 Jennens Road,
very near (formerly) the west end of Ashted Row. |
Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 31 October 1825 contains a notice by the Proprietors of the Birmingham Canal Navigations calling a meeting to elect a new clerk. The notice was signed by "Rd. Beaumont" and others.
His eldest son's wedding took place in July 1821 at Redmile, Leicestershire. A couple of years later George brought his own family to Ashted where Richard's grandson was christened.
(This was the eldest grandson, another Richard, who did have the middle name Henry. He had already been christened at Winthorpe.)
Here is the address side of something sent to Richard perhaps by his son George. The date on the postmark is hard to read but looks like ?6FE26.
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| Box 1/122 |
The younger son Henry married Elizabeth, nee Taylor, in 1823 in Birmingham. I plan to write something about him too. It seems that the Taylors ran a timber and boat-building yard in Birmingham, and that Henry was (briefly) in that business.
We don't have a portrait of Richard Beaumont of Birmingham (see discussion elsewhere), but there are one or two things that we do have that must have belonged to him and been in his hands, and we have one or two scraps of his handwriting.
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Part of the note in Richard's writing about the baptisms
of his sons George (1796) and Henry (1801) from Box 1/126 |
Describing himself as "Richard Beaumont of Ashted," he made his will 28 April 1828…. his wife Ann to receive dividends on Old Birmingham Canal shares and to have the right to live in house and have use of furniture, plate, linen, china…. wine in “my house” to be divided between her and his sons George (of Winthorpe, Notts., Land Surveyor) and Henry (of Birmingham, Timber Merchant)….legacy to “faithful servant” Phoebe Walford…. residue to George and Henry….witnesses John Arnall, Samuel Hobday, Joseph Stedman… proved by George and Henry in September 1828…
Richard died in July 1828 aged 67 and was buried at Ashted. Ann survived him for many years. She went first, I think, to live with Henry and his wife at Meriden, between Birmingham and Coventry.
The move to Meriden came to light in a curious way. I knew that Ann was a shareholder or partner in the Coventry Union Banking Company, as various publications listed her in that context, giving her address as 89 Ashted Row. But I noticed that Marchant, List of Country Banks (1838) gives her address as Meriden. I then found that Henry Beaumont lived there in the 1830s. Henry's wife Elizabeth became ill and I suppose they all returned to Birmingham more or less at the same time, late 1830s.
Anyway by 1841 Ann had returned to Ashted Row, now in No.89 where she would remain for the rest of her life. Her niece Phoebe Walford lived with her.
Evidently the Nottinghamshire family came to visit sometimes. George and his son were staying in the Ashted Row house on census night in 1851.
When Ann died in 1864, her age stated on the death certificate was 91.
Her will was proved by her son Henry Beaumont now of Frederick Street, Edgbaston, here referred to as Gentleman. Power was reserved to George. The will had been made in 1855, and a codicil shows that George and Henry had later made provision for Phoebe, so a legacy to her was revoked. The will shows that Ann had another niece called Harriet Walker, of Wolverhampton.
(All of which together tends to make it look very likely that Ann's parents were William Walford and Phoebe Clark, who had married at Wombourne near Wolverhampton in 1761, Ann being baptised at Penn on 14 October 1772 (from Family Search site)).
Ann's death was registered by a neighbour, Mary Parker, referring to her as "widow of Richard Beaumont, proprietor of houses." Her will likewise speaks of "real property" but I do not know what property this means, if any.
As I will explain, I think that some of the Ashted houses were on leases which by the 1860s had very little time left to run, and so must have been almost valueless.
Date: February 2019
Revisions on: 22 July 2022
