MS: two letters LRO, DDWh/4/46, 94 (MS span: 1814).
John and Jane Horrocks, Edgeworth, Lancashire
Grandparents of Eliza Whitaker, this couple began their married life as rather humble Quakers.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/41 (MS span: 1814).
Mary Horrocks, Lark Hill, Preston, Lancashire (b. 1798)
Fourth daughter of Samuel and Alice Horrocks. She moved briefly in the Lakes circle of Samuel Coleridge, Sarah Hutchinson et al., among whom she was known as ‘the daisy’. She married Revd William Birkett, rector of Great Hasely, Oxfordshire, in 1824. At her father's death in 1842 she inherited eight hundred pounds cash and, with her husband, ten thousand pounds in trust.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/90 (MS span: 1816).
Samuel Horrocks, Lark Hill, Preston, Lancashire (1766–1842)
Eliza Whitaker's father also wrote from London, when attending parliament and doing business at the Bread Street office.
MS: seven letters LRO, DDWh/4/24, 26, 35, 48, 50, 80, 86 (MS span: 1812–16).
Sam Horrocks, Bread Street, London (1797–1846)
The Horrocks heir Sam attended preparatory school in Parsons Green and Eton, and then went into the London end of the business, becoming a junior partner. In 1827 he married Eliza Miller, the daughter of his father's business partner Thomas Miller. The newlyweds' fashionable address was 9 Winckley Square, Preston. From 1827 Sam was a full partner in the firm; in 1839 he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Lancashire; in 1842 he became Preston Guild major and served as the head of Horrocks and Co., 1842–6. At his father's death, he inherited the Lark Hill estate on trust for his lifetime. He had no legitimate offspring, though his will refers to ‘his natural daughter’ Mary Standing, for whom he ordered an investment of five hundred pounds. Most of the letters used in the book were written when Sam was still a rather hypochondriacal bachelor, undergoing his initiation in business at the London office. In this period, he fulfilled his sisters' fashionable commissions and communicated news of their London kin. Two later letters were written from Lancashire when Sam was enjoying the grouse shooting.
MS: eight letters LRO, DDWh/4/39, 43, 66, 67, 70, 75, 118–19 (MS span: 1813–14).
Sarah Horrocks, Lark Hill, Preston, Lancashire (b. 1792)
Second daughter of Samuel and Alice Horrocks. She appears to have managed the Lark Hill household in the 1810s, but still enjoyed a lively social life in Preston and Liverpool. In 1825, at the age of thirty-two, she married Dr William St Clare junior, at the parish church of St John, Preston. At her father's death in 1842 she inherited eight hundred pounds cash and, with her husband, ten thousand pounds in trust. Eventually, she lived out her widowhood in Bath.
MS: five letters LRO, DDWh/4/44, 51, 54, 122, and 129 (MS span: 1814).
Mrs M. Johnson, Bashall Lodge, Lancashire
The precise social position of this Lancashire widow cannot be established. She wrote in the first shock of bereavement, supported by her sister, a Mrs E. Daunsey of London.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/58 (MS span: 1814).
Jennette Leighton, address unknown
Little can be discovered about this woman, since no address or kin are named. Miss Leighton was a Horrocks family friend, who was to be met with regularly in London. She may have resided in north-east Lancashire, as her own letter to Eliza talks of a shared walk to Clitheroe. At the very least, she must have had friends or relatives in the area.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/123 (MS span: c.1814).
Mrs M. C. Martin, Enfield, Middlesex
Comments in her letter suggest this woman was Lancashire born, though she rarely visited the north because her husband had ‘such a horror of Lancashire and its environs’. She maintained direct contact with the London-based Horrocks clan. She herself had married into a professional family and complained of the lack of romantic initiative displayed by her spinster sisters, finally packing them off to board with another family.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/79 (MS span: 1816).
Eliza Molyneux, Alkincoats, Lancashire
Probably the sister of Mary Molyneux of Liverpool who in 1824 married Captain Thomas Parker, eldest son of Thomas Parker of Alkincoats and Newton. Captain Parker was a great friend of Charles Whitaker and Sarah Horrocks. His disastrous amours were widely discussed among the Whitaker network.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/121 (MS span: c.1824).
S. Mortimer, Cuerden Hall, Lancashire
This woman (probably a wealthy widow or young heiress) enjoyed some means, being in a position to chose at leisure where she wanted to settle. She was welcomed into the homes of the greater Lancashire gentry for long visits and was probably herself a member of the lesser gentry.
MS: two letters LRO, DDWh/4/25, 57 (MS span: 1812–14).
Margaret Nichols, Bewdley, Worcestershire
This sophisticated correspondent shared a great many of female acquaintances with Eliza Whitaker, many of whom were designated by nicknames and surnames, such as ‘La Camea’, ‘Bisby’, ‘Tom’, ‘Knighton’, all of which suggests the two women were former schoolfellows. Margaret Nichols considered herself one of the fashionable set, but the source of her income remains obscure.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/73 (MS span: 1814).
E. Nuttal, Overleigh Hall, Chester
This woman was a ‘business’ acquaintance of Eliza Whitaker; they corresponded concerning the employment of servants.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/45 (MS span: 1814).
Anne Eliza Robbins (née Horrocks), 23 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London (1786–1825) Daughter of John Horrocks of Edgeworth, sister to Mrs Mary Whitehead, the enterprising John Horrocks of Preston and to his successor Samuel Horrocks of Lark Hill, Preston. The aunt of Alice, Eliza, Jane, Mary, Susanna and Sarah Horrocks. Her first husband, Robert Robbins, a barrister, died tragically when she was pregnant with their fifth child. (Children: William, George, Percy, Caroline, Elizabeth.) She remarried 1818 Revd Cornelius Pitt, Rector of Rendcombe, Gloucester. Convention has it that Mr Pitt senior, builder of Pittville, Cheltenham, opposed the match and disowned the couple. Together they had yet more children.
MS: seven letters LRO, DDWh/4/36, 38, 88, 117, 125, 131–2. See also LRO, DDWh/4/22 (11 Oct. 1812), R. Robbins, Radnorshire, to Samuel Horrocks, Preston (MS span: 1813–16).
Dr William St Clare, 4 Fishergate Hill, Preston, Lancashire (b. 1784)
The second son of Dr William St Clare of Blackburn, who was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1805, B.Med. 1809, D.Med. 1812). The family owned considerable property in Preston and Grindleton, Lancashire. Like his father before him, St Clare was regarded as a fashionable professional, treating most of the county's genteel families, including the Horrockses of Lark Hill, Starkies of Huntroyde, Whitakers of Simonstone and Roefield, Parkers of Alkincoats and Newton, and so on, but also worked in the Preston dispensary opened in Fishergate in 1809 supported by voluntary contributions. He stood as a witness at Eliza Whitaker's wedding in 1812 and was named godfather to her first son. In 1825 he married Eliza's younger sister Sarah Horrocks.
MS: twenty-one letters LRO, DDWh/4/87, 91–2, 95–7, 99–115. Compare with LRO, DDWh/4/12 (6 July 1789), W. St Clare, Preston, to Mrs H. Whitaker, Rosegrove, and LRO, DDB/72/492–507 (1780–1812), W. St Clare, Preston, Newton, Burnley and Grindleton, to Thomas Parker, Alkincoats and Newton. See also the 1812 will of William St Clare senior, LRO, DDWh/3/110 (MS span: 1816– 21).
Miss ?Sarah Whalley, Rocke Court, Fareham, Hampshire
Since this unmarried woman referred to Lancashire as ‘our own best country’, it seems safe to say that she met Eliza Whitaker in the north in her youth. She was godmother to Eliza's eldest son Charles. From her contacts, conversation and residence, it is assumed that she belonged to the lesser gentry. She was probably one of the Whalleys of Hampshire and Somerset, who possessed an ancestral right to the lordship of the parish of Whalley, Lancashire.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/77
(MS span: 1816).
Mary Whitehead (née Horrocks), Winckley Square, Preston, Lancashire (d. 1858) Eldest daughter of John and Jane Horrocks of Edgeworth, sister of Anne Eliza Robbins and therefore aunt to the seven Horrocks sisters. Her husband, the Prestonian John Whitehead, was a merchant of some description, though in 1802 he went into partnership with his brothers-in-law Samuel and John Horrocks. After his death in 1810 his widow continued to live in the fashionable residential area Winckley Square, though she made frequent visits to her sister Mrs Robbins in London, her mother and father at Edgeworth, and to other relatives at Ainsworth Hall. She had at least one child, Walter Whitehead.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/69 (MS span: 1814).
Elizabeth Wiglesworth, Townhead, Slaidburn, Yorkshire (1762–1820)
First wife of Henry Wiglesworth ‘the Bold Rector of Slaidburn’ (1758–1838). He was educated at Sedburgh School and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Despite his long clerical career, he was famed principally for his love of hunting and pack of hounds. Mrs Wiglesworth seems to have found her own diversion in her hothouse and garden.
MS: single letter LRO, DDWh/4/83 (MS span: 1816).
Mrs A. Wright, 54 Lower Brook Street, London
The exact status of this metropolitan correspondent is unknown, however she and her husband were clearly wealthy enough to undertake lengthy national tours. MS: two letters LRO, DDWh/4/34, 128 (MS span: 1813).
SELECTED CORRESPONDENTS FROM THE STANHOPE NETWORK, 1727–1769
John Spencer, Middle Temple, London
The eldest son of the Spencers of Cannon Hall, he was educated at Winchester and Oxford before he qualified at the Bar. His younger brothers were sent to Mr Watt's Mercantile Academy in Little Tower Street, London, to learn arithmetic, book-keeping and good handwriting. One of them at least, Benjamin Spencer, went on to work as merchant in London.
MS: scattered letters to him, from his sister A. M. Graeme of Sewerby, from his brother-in-law Walter Stanhope, and from his sister Anne Stanhope. Letters by him to the Stanhopes are also preserved: WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/55, 64, 65, 66, 72 (MS span: 1748–57).
Anne Stanhope (née Spencer), Leeds, Yorkshire
One of the Spencers of Cannon Hall, Cawthorne, Barnsley, a substantial landed family active in the exploitation of the mineral reserves on their estates. In R. G. Wilson's view ‘they were as much industrialists as Landowners. Much of their wealth was derived from their interest in a group of furnaces, forges and slitting mills scattered throughout South Yorkshire’, Wilson, ‘Three Brothers’, p. 115. In 1749 the twenty-seven-year-old Anne Spencer married the widower Walter Stanhope of Horsforth. Theirs was a successful partnership. Her letters date from after her marriage, when they set up home in a commodious house in High Town, Leeds. After her husband's death in 1759 she retired to the vicinity of Cannon Hall. MS: scattered letters to her brother John Spencer, her husband Walter Stanhope, as well as plentiful correspondence she received from friends and kin: inter alia WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/55–9, 69, 70, 75–7, 80, 92, 94–5, 101 (MS span: 1748–C.1767).
Barbara Stanhope (née Cockcroft), Horsforth, Yorkshire
A Bradford heiress, Barbara Stanhope is the least literate woman whose letters survive in this study. She seemed pitifully subservient to the pleasure of her husband John Stanhope of Horsforth. She produced no children and took the waters at Scarborough in the 1720s, presumably in quest of a cure.
MS: six letters to her husband: WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/42 (MS span: c.1727).
John Stanhope, Horsforth, Yorkshire (1701–69)
Son of John Stanhope II of Horsforth JP and Mary Lowther, educated at Bradford Grammar School and University College, Oxford. Stanhope was the leading barrister on the Northern Circuit in the 1760s, recorder at Doncaster from 1766 and an influential promoter of the scheme to cut the Leeds–Liverpool canal. He refused to accept a judgeship or to move to London to advance his career. At his death Stanhope received a glowing obituary in the Leeds Mercury (19 Sept. 1769). MS: numerous letters sent to and received from family, friends and business aquaintances. The earliest letters he received are from Hannah Beale of York: inter alia WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/5/2/24, 30, 35; Sp St/6/1/31, 54, 57, 76, 85, 90, 99, 102 (MS span: 1697–c.1769).
Walter Stanhope, Leeds, Yorkshire (1703–59)
The second son of John Stanhope II of Horsforth, Walter was educated at Bradford Grammar School and after apprenticed for seven years to a prominent firm of Leeds woollen merchants, Croft and William Preston, for the princely fee of £230. Thereafter, Stanhope set up in business on his own in the Upper Headrow at Leeds and in 1731 was elected to the merchant-dominated Leeds Corporation. Subsequently, however, he relaxed his grip on commercial success. He resigned from the corporation in 1738 and never managed to establish a grand merchant house. He left the day-to-day management to Cavendish Lister, the son of a Leicestershire gentleman, taken on as apprentice in 1752. He married comparatively late, wedding first Mary Warde of Hooton Pagnell in 1742 and second Anne Spencer of Cannon Hall in about 1748. He enjoyed field sports, and made long visits to Cannon Hall and Sewerby to indulge his passion. At his death in 1759 his capital and assets added up to £3,685. The neighbouring gentry and the Leeds merchants were presented with scarves; his servants, clothiers, cloth-dressers and local innkeepers were given gloves.
MS: six letters to his second wife from Bath, and numerous letters he received: inter alia WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/68 (MS span: 1756–7).
Walter Spencer Stanhope, of Horsforth and Cannon Hall, Yorkshire (1749–1821) The only son of Walter Stanhope of Leeds, he assumed the additional surname and arms of Spencer, as heir to his uncle John Spencer. He was educated at University College, Oxford (1766–70). In 1783, after a supremely romantic courtship, he married Mary Winifred (b. 1850) daughter and heir of Thomas Babington Pulleine of Carlton Hall, Co. York. They had seven sons and seven daughters. He was MP for Carlisle 1775–80, Haslemere 1780–84, Hull 1784–90, Cockermouth 1800–2, Carlisle 1802–12.
MS: five letters to his mother and to his uncles, while at Bradford Grammar School and Oxford WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/75, 77, 85, 90, 102 (MS span: 1757–c.1767).
Mary Warde, Hooton Pagnell, Doncaster, Yorkshire (c.1747)
The daughter of Patience Warde of Hooton Pagnell and Anna Harvey of Wormersley. On the 21 December 1742, she married the handsome Leeds merchant Walter Stanhope Esq. She was said to be pretty and brought him £1,400 as a marriage portion. However she was dead within five years and her children died in infancy.
MS: forty-seven letters she received, mostly before her marriage, but some after: WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/50 (MS span: 1733–46).
Mary Warde, Squerries Court, near Westerham, Kent (b. 1760)
The first daughter of John Warde of Squerryes Court purchased in 1731. Warde himself was the son of a Lord Mayor of London, and was wealthy enough to entertain an estimated 7,000 of his country neighbours on strong beer to celebrate reports of Admiral Vernon's success at Cartagena in 1741. Mary Warde's letters present her as the archetypal young woman about town in the 1730s and 1740s, enjoying plays, opera, masquerades, ridottos, pleasure gardens and the latest publications. Out of season she took country tours with her brothers, visiting grottoes and cascades and riding to hounds in the winter. She was a cousin to her namesake Mary Warde of Hooton Pagnell. In 1745 she married William Clayton (c.1718–83) of Harleyford Manor, near Marlow, Bucks, MP for Bletchingly (1745–61) and Great Marlow (1761–83). He was the second son of a baronet, Sir William Clayton MP. Mary Clayton died in January 1760, leaving a daughter and heir who eventually married John Lord Howard de Waiden, KB. She was painted several times, once by Wootton, once by Hudson and once by Dandridge. Her brother George Warde was a bosom friend of the young General James Wolfe.
MS: sophisticated letters sent to her cousin Mary Warde of Hooton Pagnell, before and after marriage: WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/50 (MS span: 1733–46).
SELECTED CORRESPONDENTS FROM THE GO
SSIP NETWORK, 1731–1813
William Gossip (1704–72), Anne Wilmer (d. 1780) and sons
William Gossip's father was a West Riding mercer who had amassed a considerable fortune and died a ‘gentleman’, bequeathing his son land in Hatfield, York and Beverley. William Gossip was educated at Wakefield and later Kirkleatham Grammar School, and Trinity College, Cambridge (1722–9), where he hoped to take the post of college librarian. After Cambridge he decided not to pursue a career in the Church or the wine business, but chose to manage his father's affairs and live as an independent gentleman. In 1730 he became one of the twelve directors and the treasurer of Burlington's glittering York assembly rooms. The next year William Gossip was advantageously married in York Minster to Anne Wilmer, the daughter and co-heir of George Wilmer of York, who brought him further estates in Helmsley, Yorkshire, and Sible Hedingham, Essex, and about two thousand pounds-worth of stock in the South Sea Company. At first the couple lived with William's parents in Petergate, York, and then just his mother Susannah after his father's death in 1733. In 1734 they bought a house in Ogleforth, York, with a coach house fit for six horses, and William Gossip was appointed Justice of the Peace in the same year. In the 1740s the Gossips kept their York town house and tenanted Skelton Hall near York, but by 1756 they had established their growing family at Thorp Arch Hall, designed by the soon-to-be-fashionable architect John Carr (1723–1807). The 1,100 acre estate lay between York and Leeds, on the River Wharfe, and brought with it the lordship of the manor, and thirty tenants. Gossip's prestige was confirmed by the appointment to the office of deputy lieutenant for the West Riding in 1757. Thereafter, he purchased a post-chaise and took on a postilion-cum-groom. His marriage was exceedingly happy and the couple were painted by Mercier. Anne Gossip bore him eleven children between 1732 and 1745, but, harrowingly, only one outlived her: William (1732–54), George (b. and d. 1734), George (1735–75), John (b. and d. 1734), Ann (b. and d. 1738), boy (still-born 1739), John (1740–51), Wilmer (1742–90), Randall (1743–69), Thomas (1744–76) and Anne (1745–6). Of the boys who survived childhood, William, the eldest, went to Edinburgh University to study medicine (where he died aged twenty-one), while the younger boys George, Randall, Wilmer and Thomas were all apprenticed to hosiers in Leicester. George Gossip, now the heir, proved a sad disappointment to his father: feckless, wrong-headed and indebted, he hurled away his father's good opinion when he secretly married Maria Copley, the daughter of a Halifax mantua-maker, in 1762. He was disinherited for his pains. Thereafter George and Randall left hosiery and went into the army. George Gossip's attempts to follow Clive to India came to nothing and he stayed a lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of Foot. Eventually the bulk of the Thorp Arch estate passed to Wilmer and subsequently (since he died without issue) to his brother Thomas's children. Thomas Gossip (1744–76), apparently the only steady son, married in 1770 Johanna Cartwright (d. 1825), the daughter and heir of Richard Cartwright of Evington, Co. Leicester, and widow of Richard Cook. They had two sons, William (1770) and Randall (1774).
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