» Lives» John Lewthwaite (1792-1863)

John Lewthwaite (1792-1863)

John Lewthwaite

Written by Tim Cockerill

Occupation: Landowner

Family Background

John Lewthwaite was baptised at St Anne's church in Thwaites, near Millom, in Cumberland on 24 March 1792, the only son of ‘Mr William Lewthwaite of Broadgate’, Thwaites, a farmhouse where the family had lived since 1642. He was the great-grandson of William Lewthwaite (1700-1767) of Broadgate, a relative of the artist George Romney (1734-1802; ODNB) who was one of the first people to recognise the artist's talents and to suggest to his father that he should follow that profession. His father William Lewthwaite (1766-1845) JP, also of Broadgate, had married in 1791 Eleanor Cragg (d.1830), a daughter of Thomas Cragg, a yeoman of Lowscales, Millom. John was also the nephew of John Lewthwaite (1771-1849) (qv), of Stott Park, Finsthwaite, attorney-at-law and town clerk of Lancaster and of the Revd George Lewthwaite (1772-1854) (qv), rector of Adel, near Leeds. In addition he was the grandfather of Sir William Lewthwaite, 1st baronet (1853-1927) (qv).

In the 1790s, when young John was a child, the Lewthwaite family were on the verge of leaving behind their yeoman status, to become members of the landed gentry. This was largely because they had just triumphed in a Chancery action, against their relatives the Lawson family of Isel and Brayton, concerning the disputed Will of John Lewthwaite of Whitehaven (1701-1790), a cousin and rich tobacco merchant in America, who died childless. Their inheritance cannot now be fully assessed as only the deceased's personalty, amounting to £70,000 (now about £4.3m) was then quantified in the pleadings.  In addition they inherited a fine house at 42 Queen Street, Whitehaven; 24 Roper Street; and other houses in Queen St, Roper St, King St and Strand St, in the town. Also the testator owned five ships at Whitehaven and had an extensive tobacco trade with Virginia and Maryland in America. He also owned land and houses in the Millom area, in Kirksanton and Thwaites, including Beckbank, Thwaites, purchased in 1787 from a relative, the amateur artist Thomas Sunderland of Ulverston (qv) for £2,060 (now about £133,500). As the old merchant's obituary stated he ‘was supposed to be possessed of very considerable property'.

However, young John Lewthwaite's father did not immediately benefit from this large inheritance until his own father died in 1809.Consequently , the first seventeen years of John's life was lived on the family farm at Broadgate in relatively modest circumstances.

Education

Unlike his father William and uncles John and George, who were all contemporaries of Richard and William Wordsworth at Hawkshead Grammar School, young John was sent to King Edward the Sixth Grammar School at Macclesfield, in Cheshire.  This establishment was also favoured by other local families of similar social standing, such as the Postlethwaites of Broughton House, Broughton-in-Furness and the Fells of Flan How, Ulverston, both upwardly mobile merchant families.

John Lewthwaite left school in his late teens and was not given a university education as his destiny as the only son was to run the family estate at Broadgate and not to enter one of the professions.

Public Duties

In 1830, at the age of 38, John joined his father on the Millom bench, a position he was to hold for the remaining 33 years of his life. However, in 1859, he fell out with his fellow magistrates because, for reasons now unclear, he insisted on dispensing justice by himself in his own home instead of sitting with his colleagues at the Millom Court House. This rather high-handed behaviour resulted in him being reported to the Lord Chancellor by the other magistrates but, as he is known to have remained on the bench, he presumably only suffered a reprimand. As his wife was by then rapidly declining in health, this may have been the explanation of why he behaved in this way.

Apart from his duties for the magistracy, he was also a deputy lieutenant for the county of Cumberland, responsible for calling out the local militia in case of emergency. In addition, from 1837-1845, he was the overseer for the poor for the parish of Thwaites and for many years chairman of the Poor Law Guardians at Bootle, some nine miles to the north. All the above public positions were non-stipendiary. His ownership of property qualified him for the office of a magistrate, appointed by the Crown, and for that of a deputy lieutenant, appointed by the lord lieutenant of the county. Without a property qualification, however deserving on merit, it was then impossible to be appointed to these two public offices.

Marriage

John Lewthwaite attained his majority in 1813, by which time his father had succeeded to the Broadgate estate, together with the ownership of numerous houses in Whitehaven and a substantial income from 3% consols. It appears that John was allowed to run or receive the rents of several farms on the estate as a means of providing him with his own income.

By the late 1810s John was probably coming under some family pressure, as the only son and heir, to find a suitable bride. He did not have far to look, choosing Ann Kirkbank (b.1798), always called Nancy, the daughter of William Kirkbank JP, DL of Beckside, Whicham, a farmhouse still occupied by her descendants. The Kirkbanks were both old friends of the Lewthwaites and also of similar social standing. However, this must have been a love match, not an arranged marriage, as Nancy was not an heiress, having two brothers, John, the coroner of the lordship of Millom and the Revd Joseph Thompson Kirkbank, the vicar of Dalton in-Furness.

In 1819, no doubt with his father's help, John Lewthwaite built ‘New’ Broadgate, opposite, the family’s old 17thc farmhouse. This elegant Regency villa sat within its own demesne, was on three floors and had more than 8 bedrooms. The name of the architect, if any, has not been found and, from the sparse information in the family archives, it rather looks as if most of the design and structure was the brain-child of John Lewthwaite and his future brother-in-law William Postlethwaite (1790-1876 ), a merchant, banker and ship-builder in Ulverston, trading in the firm Petty and Postlethwaite, the latter business providing some of the main timbers for the construction.

Having secured his future home, John Lewthwaite married Nancy Kirkbank, on 18 May 1820, at Whicham and they immediately began married life at the new house. This became the main dwelling of the family until its sale in 2024.

Family

The couple produced eleven children over the next eighteen years, but three of them died in infancy. The eldest son William (1826-1867)  JP DL, went to his father's old school in Macclesfield and then to Trinity College, Cambridge.  He married in 1851 Mary Challinor (1824-1904), the only daughter of William Challinor (d.1867) of Pickwood, Leek, Staffordshire, a solicitor, but died 6 years later aged 41, leaving a son and two daughters.

The second son, the Revd Joseph Lewthwaite (1834-1886), was educated by a private tutor in Yorkshire, then attended Christ's College Cambridge.  He became vicar of Kelstern, near Louth, Lincolnshire from 1875-1886 and was unmarried.

The third son ,George Lewthwaite (1839-1912) JP, went to Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge and married in 1864 Margaret Atkinson (d.1924), a daughter of Christopher Atkinson (d.1851) of Ivy Tree, Blawith, North Lancashire, a land agent. She was also the niece of William Atkinson (1800-1855) (qv) of Broughton-in-Furness, a surgeon. George and Margaret had eleven children and in the 1870s moved to near Settle in Yorkshire, so that their 8 sons could be educated with minimal expense at nearby Giggleswick Grammar School. Afterwards five of the sons and a daughter emigrated to Canada.

Of John Lewthwaite's 5 daughters, two died unmarried. Of the other three, Mary Lewthwaite (1821-1890) married in 1854 Walter Buchanan of Lower Bebington, Cheshire, a shipbroker and coal merchant in Liverpool. Eleanor Lewthwaite ( 1824-1901) married in 1853 Robert Francis Calrow of Kirkby Lonsdale, a bank manager and Agnes Lewthwaite (1829-1885) married in 1860 William Adam Allen of Woodplumpton, Lancashire, owner of a cotton spinning factory at Preston.

The Final Years

John Lewthwaite continued to farm 300 acres of the Broadgate estate, letting out the hill farms which comprised the remaining 1,500 acres. Despite this and his public duties he found time to enjoy traditional field sports such as shooting over his own land and kennelling his private pack of foxhounds at Broadgate until the early 1860s.  In 1859 his wife Nancy died aged 61, after three years suffering from what her death certificate calls ‘a disease of the brain’, which was perhaps dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The 1861 census return for Broadgate gives us a glimpse of the household with John as a widower at its head, described as ‘Esquire, JP and Landowner’. Other residents include his eldest son William, with his wife and young family, together with John's unmarried daughter Anne, aged 32. They had 5 living-in servants to look after them and, in addition, John employed several gardeners, a coachman. He must have had a number of farm employees and horsemen to work on the home farm of 300 acres, apart from the more distant tenantry who farmed the main acreage of the estate.

John Lewthwaite died suddenly of apoplexy (a sudden paralysis caused by blockage or rupture of the brain artery), at his home at Broadgate on 11 April 1863, aged 71. Both the Cumberland Pacquet and the Ulverston Advertiser carried a brief death notice but no separate obituary. He was buried in the old churchyard at Thwaites, beneath a large stone monument surrounded by iron railings, which remains there today.

He had made his will on 13 May 1851, but failed to alter it after his wife's death in 1859. Consequently, a large part of the text was irrelevant but it does show his devotion to her and his concern for her welfare. She was given a life interest in the house and demesne, together with the household goods, a lump sum of £2,000 (now about £120,000), and sufficient corn and grass for a horse and two cows, in addition to room in the coach house for keeping a carriage, the horse and two cows. She was also to have an annuity of £300 (now about £16,000 p.a.) charged on his freehold estate.

His five daughters were each given a lump sum of £1,600, his unmarried son Joseph a couple of farms and his youngest son George, also unmarried and under age, was to receive a lump sum of £2,500 when he reached 21, with land at Arnaby and Millom Marshes and a further £500 charged on his estate at Hall Green, Kirksanton. His eldest son William was the executor and was given the remainder of the Broadgate estate.  He was also the residuary legatee.

John Lewthwaite's probate, dated 6 November 1863, showed that the deceased’s effects were sworn at ‘under £16,000’, which represents today about £900,000, but this excluded his land and houses, known as ‘real property’, which was not taxed at death at that time. Greater death duties were introduced in 1894.

Sources

  • Adams, Percy W.L., Notes on some North Staffordshire Families, pp108-115, Tunstall, 1930 
  • Burke, John and Burke, John Bernard, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 1, pp.728-729, London, 1847
  • Cockerill, Timothy, The Life of a South Cumbrian Squire; John Lewthwaite of Broadgate ( 1792-1863), Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, Volume XC1X, 1999, pp. 251-256
  • Collyer, Sylvia and Pearson, Sarah, Whitehaven 1660-1800, HMSO, London, 1991
  • Mannex and Whellan, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Cumberland 1847, pp. 348-351, Beverley, 1847
  • Parson and White, The History, Directory and Gazetteer of Cumberland and Westmorland with Furness and Cartmel for 1829, pp. 224-227, Leeds, 1829
  • Salisbury, Neil, editor, Tales of Olden Glories: A Hunting Miscellany, Ambleside, 2022
  • Warriner, Frank, Millom People and Places, pp.16-17, Millom, 1937
  • Warriner, Frank, The Millom District: A History, Millom,1932
  • Family Information (the author is a great-great grandson of John Lewthwaite)