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The Eyres of Hassop from the Test Act to Emancipation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
Thomas Eyre, son of Rowland Eyre and Mary Teresa Widdrington, was the last of eleven generations of the Eyre family who had passed down the Hassop estate from father to son in direct succession. He was born on 29 September 1743, the only child of parents so retiring that genealogists have assumed Rowland predeceased his father (d.1749); in fact he lived until 1777 and appears to have taken considerable personal interest in the Hassop estate. Large scale maps of the manors of Hassop and Calver made for him in 1752, and a carefully written book of the Hassop evidences compiled in 1768, have survived among the muniments. The only record of his participation in public affairs in Derbyshire is the appearance of his name as one of the signatories to a Notice of an Association for prosecuting poachers, made in 1751 by the leading landowners of the county. Rowland was survived by his wife, who died in 1785.
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- Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1968
References
1. Kirk, J., Biographies of English Catholics, 72.Google Scholar
2. Buried at Eastwell 13 Feb. 1777; will, PCC Collier E209.
3. Maps, Bag C.242, 243; Evidence book in possession of Lady Stephenson at Hassop.
4. OD.1385 in SCL.
5. Buried at St. Pancras Old Church 2 Apr. 1785; will, PCC Ducarel E 184.
6. Rowland Eyre, 7th Douai Diary, CRS.XXVIII passim. Details of Thomas Eyre's progress through the College have been kindly supplied by Fr. W. Vincent Smith from the Ushaw College copy of the Douai Prefect of Studies' book; he is entered as Thomas Stanley (Eyre) and in 1756 (Eyre of Hassop).
7. See for e.g. letter from Rev. Thomas Eyre's father Dec. 7, 1775, at Ushaw EF 13, 14. (This family was only very remotely connected with the Hassop Eyies.)
8. Kirk, J., op. cit. 72.Google Scholar
9. Now at the presbytery of St. Cuthbert's R.C. Church, Durham.
10. “Calver Mill and its owners”, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal LXXXIII (1963) 24.
11. Schedule of deeds Bag C.2701; text quoted in deed enrolled in CP43/762 Michaelmas 1773.
12. Will, Sheet, Somerscales and Widdrington. 118-20; rental in Lanes. CRO. DDTO/P/12.
13. Durham Recusants' estates, Surtees Soc. CLXIII, 48-54. (Eyre's registration particulars incomplete.)
14. Obituaries CRS. XII, 33 and 34 (deaths of Silvertop and Bishop Gibson at Stella).
15. CP43/762, Michaelmas 1773.
16. Letter (unnumbered) in Melbourne archives at Melbourne Hall.
17. Bag C.2701; enrolment CP43/773 Trinity 1776.
18. ACM/SD 230.
19. Will quoted ACM/SD 601.
20. AAW., Bishop Challoner's Correspondence, 166.
21. e.g. from Henry Howard's Sheffield estate accounts ACM/S 185 (14): — April 2 1776. “Expence of Post Chaise from Hassop to attend Counsellor Parker about his Grace's affairs at Worksop. 0.15.6”.
22. Tibbitt's Collection (in SCL) 506/12.
23. ACM/D107 Letters from Mr Mander, solicitor of Bakewell, to H. Howard. Morgan professed to believe he was the illegitimate son of Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle.
24. Printed in the London Gazette, 2 May 1778. (Copy printed as a handbill ACM/S543.)
25. Burton, E. H., Life and Times of Bishop Challoner, II, 192–4.Google Scholar
26. Derbyshire CRO. per county archivist.
27. Letter from Rev. Thomas Eyre, 23 Sept. 1788. (Eyre Papers EF63 at Ushaw College.)
28. AAW., Bishop Talbot's Correspondence 91(2).
29. EF55 (at Ushaw).
30. Ushaw Magazine, March 1894, 7. Quoted Ward, B., The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England I, 117,Google Scholar where it is ascribed to the Rev. Thomas Eyre. The original letter cannot now be found.
31. Petition quoted by B. Ward, op. cit. from the Western District archives at Clifton, but without signatories’ names. These have been checked by Fr. William Mitchell at Clifton.
32. EF (at Ushaw).
33. AAW., Bishop Douglass's Correspondence, 8. Francis Plowden had published in 1791 The case stated … occasioned by the Act of Parliament lately passed for the relief of the English Roman Catholics. There may however be confusion here with Fr. Charles Plowden, who had just published a pamphlet supporting the bishops in extravagant terms.
34. Will PCC 329 Fountain. Details of the “private instructions” among the Northern District archives at Newcastle have kindly been supplied by the Rev. W. Vincent Smith.
35. AAW., Douglass Correspondence 177, 215. Other letters from Fr. Smelt mentioning Lady Mary quoted in Ward, B. op. cit. II, 220.Google Scholar
36. Buried in the Church of the Franciscans at Pisa. Copy of monumental inscription in Bag.C.3520. Her age was 66 at the time of her death.
37. CRS. XVII, 132. In 1800 he promised £10 annually towards the support of the Blue Nuns, then living at Cossey (Jerningham Letters, I, 170).
38. Described as “Francis Eyre, Esq. Worksop”, in list of subscribers to G. Cart-wright's Journal of Transactions … on the coast of Labrador, 1792.
39. CRS. XVII, 222-3.
40. CRS. XIII, 205.
41. Add. MSS. 28,233/294.
42. Quoted in Ward, B. op. cit. II, 115.Google Scholar
43. MDA/C1031 (in answer to the enquiry circulated by the Staffordshire clergy).
44. Minutes of the Catholic Committee (written by Charles Butler as secretary), Add. MSS. 7961, 194-5 and 201-6.
45. LC, Lot 28, letters dated 21 Apr. 1795 and 8 Dec. 1802.
46. It appears likely that it was to Lady Mary that the red velvet cloth in which the head of the Earl of Derwentwater was received at his execution in 1716, was given by Fr. Charles Plowden, rather than to her husband, she being the Earl's niece (F. J. A. Skeet, Life of the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, p. 119). It seems possible, in fact, that the Earl in question may have been her own father, executed 1746. The cloth was at Hassop at least until the sale in 1919.
47. Brief obituary notices of his death on 8 Feb. 1822 appeared in the Nottingham Journal and Nottingham Review. He died at Blidworth, aged 92. Will proved at York, May 6 1822 (under £2,000).
48. Information (per the Librarian of Metz Bibliothèque Municipale) from J. J. Barbé, Metz. Documents généalogiques d'après les régistres de VÊtat-civil. Caroline Eyre is described by Lady, Bedingfeld in 1830 as “a Miss Eyre who is a great fortune. Her Mother is a French woman, and she is more French than English, but of the Newburgh Eyres and a Catholic” (Jerningham Letters II, 324–5).Google Scholar
49. Jerningham Letters I, 131.Google Scholar
50. LC, Lot 28, 2 letters of Dec. 1802, in which he asks urgently to be supplied with the date of her birth; he also wants the register of his own birth, which puzzles him “damnably”.
51. LC, Lot 16.
52. London directories, 1797-1812 (information per Librarian, Guildhall Library).
53. LC, Lot 28.
54. Jerningham Letters I, 265.Google Scholar
55. ibid., I, 327.
56. Bag C2794 (printed particulars of sale).
57. See the list of pictures in Hampton's sale catalogue of The Hassop heirlooms at Hassop Hall, 30 April, 1919.
58. LC, Lot 38.
59. Will PCC Pakenham 38.
60. GEC, Newburgh.
61. On this point see Thompson, F. M. C., English landed society in the 19th century, 1963, chapter 1.Google Scholar
62. Bag C 2578-80.
63. BagC. 371/107.
64. Account book of the chapel fund in the Midland District Archives C617. Bishop Milner has added at a later date: “N.B. The said accumulated stock, with the help of the present F. Eyre, produced a sufficient sum to build the present elegant chapel at Hassop”.
65. Jerningham Letters II, 113; LC, Lot 70 (certificate of health of Lord Newburgh for a life insurance); Bag C.371/107.
66. Lady Blanche Howard, daughter of George, 6th Earl of Carlisle and Georgiana, elder daughter of the 5th Duke of Devonshire, married William Cavendish on 6 Aug. 1829. He became the 6th Duke's heir presumptive on the death (in May 1834) of his grandfather, created Earl of Burlington in 1831. There is a number of letters from Lady Newburgh to “dear Lady Blanche” in the Chatsworth Collection. That the friendship was mutual appears from a letter from Lady Blanche to Lady Dover (no. 3141): “… you know that I love her but … I do not think hers a character which everyone can understand”. William Cavendish became Lord Cavendish in 1831 and 2nd Earl of Burlington in 1834, but to avoid confusion his wife is here referred to as Lady Blanche throughout.
67. CC.2157.
68. CC.2675-87 relate to the election, including one from Lady Blanche written from Hassop.
69. Bag C.371/8, dated 30 July 1832, from Corfu.
70. CC.2343.
71. CC.2110.
72. Letter to Lord N. from his steward Matthew Frost, 17 June 1832 (Bag C.3531): “The Plaisters has now affixed all the Casts and will get forward with the remaining work in the Dining Room. We hopes now to be able to get plenty of Old Oak” [from old buildings being pulled down at Taddington].
73. CC.2343, 2447.
74. CC2765-78 relate to Lord N's illness and death. Quoted: 2768 and 2776.
75. Gentleman's Magazine, June 1833, 559; Duke of Devonshire's diary, 1833 in CC.
76. CC.2776.
77. Bag C.371 /2 is a legal arrangement reciting the facts.
78. Lady N's letter at Hassop chapel; there is a list at the chapel of names of the congregation in 1828, headed by Lord Newburgh, but not including Lady Newburgh; GEC, Newburgh VII, note b.
79. Diary in the possession of Lady Stephenson.
80. Reports in The Catholic Standard, Dec. 10 1853, and The Derbyshire Courier.