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.

Old Gunthorpe Bridge (1)

One day - in about 1870 - when the wife and children of George Beaumont (the Land Surveyor, of East Bridgford) were in their carriage crossing the Trent by the ferry on their way to Lowdham to catch a train to Scarborough, the chain of the ferry broke and they were all swept away some distance downstream. Happily no-one was hurt, but it led to George, with other local proprietors, putting up the capital to build a bridge at Gunthorpe.

Profits were at first 'elusive' and there was also a scare one winter when the river froze, and when the thaw started, great blocks of ice threatened to bring down the bridge. 

Only when motor traffic started to increase did the enterprise start to become profitable but it was never hugely so and in 1927 they - or rather their successors - were relieved to be taken over by the County Council, for the sum of £9,500.

The above is from the notes of my uncle, R.M.Beaumont

..........

The bridge stood somewhat to the east of its replacement, and I think the toll house is still standing.

These pictures were taken by my father in the late 1920s.

The first picture was taken from the East Bridgford side. The second, from the Lowdham side, shows the bridge already partly dismantled.

..........

Another version of the story comes from notes written by my father:- "In the seventies Emma [George's wife] was taking a load of children on holiday to Scarborough when the ferry across the Trent got washed downstream, the chain having broken, and they missed their train at Lowdham. George was so angry that he helped to promote a private company which built the Gunthorpe Toll Bridge. My father managed the Company until the bridge was demolished in about 1926 when the present bridge was built and opened by the Prince of Wales. All the subscribers got their money back, but my father was very scornful of the compensation which was paid by the County Council because with the increase in motor traffic the enterprise was only just becoming profitable."

I think the truth may be that it showed signs of becoming very profitable, so from the perspective of the shareholders it was taken away from them just at the wrong time, and after they had provided a public service for 50-odd years.

..........

Some newspaper reports that I have gleaned:-

George Beaumont (my great-grandfather) was the Honorary Secretary of the Gunthorpe Bridge Society, and shareholders at the first ordinary company meeting, which was held at the George Hotel in Nottingham in January1876, expressed their thanks to him for the exertions which have so long been given [by him] in the cause of this bridge; in reply, George said he himself held nearly one third of the shares and that it was a pleasure to him to try to make the best of it, he desired to pay a fair dividend, and the bridge itself was a fitting and useful memorial of his connection to it... (Notts. Guardian 28 Jan.1876).

By early 1903 Charles Beaumont (my great uncle) was the Secretary of the Gunthorpe Bridge Company. He reported at the half yearly meeting, again at the George Hotel, that the Company had taken about £194 in tolls in the half year to Dec.18 and a dividend of about £93 was to be paid (Nottm. Evening Post 11 Febr. 1903).

But Charles died in 1904 and his younger brother R.H. Beaumont (my grandfather), then practising as a solicitor in Nottingham, took over. The Evening Post report (14 January 1905) shows that this meeting took place at Eldon Chambers in Wheeler Gate (which was where grandfather had his office). The Rev. Canon Godber was in the chair, and those others present included Capt. W. Sherbrooke, and Messrs C.W.Maltby, ?.F. Manning, W. Stanton, J.M.Hind, and T.W.Hoskinson, besides of course grandfather. The tolls taken had been £126 for the quarter ending in September but only £73 for the quarter ended in December, and some painting work had been carried out or needed to be done. The dividend was only to be one 1 per cent, but there was a hope of returning to a 2 1/2 per cent dividend in the future.

My father's 100th Birthday

Today is 18 February 2016, my father's 100th birthday.

"Happy Birthday," Diddy, wherever you are!

Probably taken at Wollaton at the house where he was born - (in his own words) "shortly after a Zeppelin attack on the Ordnance Factory at Chilwell, nearby."

L-R Richard H. Beaumont, Archdeacon Egbert Hacking, Tom Beaumont, Winifred Hacking, Margaret Hacking, Richard M. Beaumont, Edith Beaumont
A family group from about 1920, with parents, Uncle Richard, grandparents, and Aunt Win.

Probably taken in Eritrea in early 1941

Mowing the lawn in 1957 or 1958 (not wanting to lose a moment's time - whilst waiting for Mum to get ready, before going to Glyndebourne?)

Cooking sausages in the wood at Pulborough with William and me in the early 1960s.

The Beaumonts and the Ironworks (3)

Here is a picture of one of the cast iron slabs in Darton Church

(Picture: Tony Warden, with thanks)

It looks to me as though the slabs were commissioned by Thomas Beaumont (c.1675-1731) and his nephew George (1696-1736) quite soon after the four deaths that occurred in 1712 and 1713.

Other evidence suggests that there is a vault beneath the floor into which the coffins were placed. The wording of a memorial on the wall in the same chapel suggests that several more Beaumonts were placed into the vault but that by 1731 (the date of the next burial after 1713) marble was used, and inscriptions were in latin.

Also in Darton church is another cast-iron memorial slab, in the floor near the main altar. This is for William Cotton, who died in 1703. He was involved in various iron-related enterprises. The slab gives the name of his wife but not the date of her death, which was in 1721 when she was also buried at Darton. This suggests that the Cotton slab was made between 1703 and 1721.

William Cotton junior, who had the middle name Westby from his mother, was also much involved in ironworks in the early and mid 18th century. He knew the Beaumonts at least a little later on; this is revealed by a letter from Revd. Thomas Cockshutt of Cawthorne in 1739 stating that the two then parentless Beaumont boys – Thomas and George – were then staying in his house at Haigh (Yorks. Arch.Soc. DD70 93/3).

Matthew Wilson of Wortley Forge and his partner James Oates must also have been known to the Beaumonts, as both men owed substantial sums to George Beaumont's executors in the late 1730s (see list of securities; YAS DD70). Accounts kept for the boys reveal that interest was being paid on several hundred pounds of such borrowings in the early 1740s (Accounts kept for William Wrightson, who took over as executor, now in Doncaster Archives DD/BW/T/3) (Accounts kept for George Beaumont himself, now in this Archive, Box 1/001).

What is not known is how long the Beaumonts had been acting as financiers for the ironworks. My supposition is that the connection went back some years and was to do with land owned by the family, and the demand for firewood for the forges.

That we have some detailed accounts for the period from 1736 is due to the children being in the hands of guardians. I don't think we have any earlier accounts of financial or business transactions.

The two further fine cast iron slabs in the church at Sandal Magna near Wakefield remember some of the children of George Beaumont of Chapelthorpe. These were not cast until after 1712 because of the wording that states that George lies in Darton church. Moreover I don't think that these can have been made before 1723 because the heraldic device they carry is that associated with the Beaumonts of Whitley Hall, with whom the Beaumonts of Darton had no family connection till that year.

The Beaumonts and the Ironworks (2)

This is the wording from the iron slabs at Darton - They are in the floor at the east end of the north aisle of the church, called the Beaumont chapel.

Geo Beaumont of Darton Gt was buried here Apr 29 1664. His Grandfon Geo Beaumont of Chapplthorp Gt in ye same Grave June 4 1712 in ye 49 yr of his Age. Willm Beaumont of Darton Gt son to ye Former and Father to Ye later G.B. was buried at their Feet Decr Ye 8 1713 in ye 76^th Year of his Age.

Sarah ye Wife of Geo Beaumont Senr was buried here Oct 15 1646. Jane ye Wife of Mr Wm Beaumont and Daughter of Mr Wm Milner of Burton Abby in ye same Grave May 29 1713 in ye 69 Year of her Age. Gertrude ye Wife of Mr Geo Beaumont Junr and Daughter of Jo Bagshaw of Great Hucklow in Derbyshr Esq at their Feet Sept 11^th 1713.

I myself have never seen these slabs. Transcripts have been made by several people, notably the antiquary R.H. Beaumont of Whitley (in Nov.1805), by Joseph Hunter (and published in his “South Yorkshire” c.1831) and most recently by Tony Warden, of Darton, c.2007. The slabs are, I think, not recorded in the work of [James and Hilda Dearnley] on the Monumental Inscriptions at Darton (copy of which is available in various places) presumably because they did not know they were there.

And from the slabs at Sandal, which were on the wall in the south side of the church when I last visited.

Here Lies the body of

Sarah Beaumont

Who departed this life July 14

1695

Also the body of

Frances Beaumont

Who departed January 31^st

1705

Also the body of

Ann Beaumont

Who departed August 14^th

1710

Daughters of

Mr GEORGE BEAUMONT

Of Chapelthorp

In Memory of

William Beaumont

Who departed this life Sept 28

1695

Also of

IOHN BEAUMONT

Who departed July the 26:

1695

Sons of

Mr GEORGE BEAUMONT of Chapelthorp

Who lies interred

In the North Isle of

DARTON CHURCH