Thomas Mirfield Law (1723-1796)
Written by Tim Cockerill
Occupations: Money Scrivener, Chapman and Dealer
Family background
Thomas Mirfield Law was baptised in 1723 at Otley, near Leeds, the son of Edmund Law (1684-1730) of that city, who was a supervisor of excise, and his wife Mary Mirfield (1690-1758). His Law ancestors were of yeoman stock from Askham in Westmorland. Edmund and Mary had married at St Oswald's Church, Giuseley, near Otley in 1720, Mary being the daughter of Thomas Mirfield (1659-1697) of Otley. Edmund Law must have left the Leeds area not long afterwards, returning to his roots. In 1730 he died at Hestham Hall Farm, situated between west Millom and Kirksanton. This property does not seem to have been occupied by the Law family much before this date, though ‘Mr Joseph Law’ of Hestham, presumably a brother of Edmund, also died there in 1730. Edmund's will, dated 25 July 1730, in which he is described as ‘Esquire’, refers to his wife Mary, his daughter Mary and his son Thomas Mirfield Law, who was seven at the time. He was to pay his sister £200 ‘when he comes into possession of the estate at Leeds called Murfield (sic) (perhaps Muirfield, Rothwell, Leeds rather than Mirfield, the name of a small town near Dewsbury and the home of the Community of the Resurrection), its houses, lands and tenements’. His inventory totalled £93, including chattels of £50, and lesser amounts for sheep, cattle and horses.
Nothing is known of Thomas Mirfield Law's early life and education after his father's death in 1730, but presumably he was educated locally and brought up by his mother at Hestham.
Career
Thomas became a money scrivener, that is a person who arranged loans of money to others. In addition, he was a dealer and chapman; a chapman being an itinerant hawker or pedlar. Frank Warriner says that he was of both Hestham and Kirby Kendal, which underlines his roving commission. However, in 1785 at the age of 62 he was stopped in his tracks by being declared bankrupt and found himself in prison in Carlisle. The Kendal connection is further confirmed as the well-known Kendal attorney John Postlethwaite (1738-1813) who sat to Romney (Abbot Hall Art Gallery) was acting for him. This may have been the end of his business career but he lived for another eleven years first at Hestham Hall and latterly at Broughton-in-Furness, where his daughter Jane had married the incumbent, the Revd. Jeremiah Gilpin (1751-1793; DCB) in 1777.
It has been asserted by Frank Warriner that Thomas Mirfield Law was of the family of Edward Law (1750-1818; ODNB) (qv), lord Ellenborough, who was lord chief justice in the reign of king George III and one of the eight sons of Edmund Law (1703-1787; ODNB) (qv), bishop of Carlisle from 1768-1787. This family came from Bampton, Westmorland a village some four miles from Askham. It seems very probable that the Laws of Askham and Bampton were cousins. However, the exact link has not been established, although William Jackson worked on the pedigrees of the two families in the 1890s; no printed information has appeared since.
Marriage and Family
The marriage of Thomas Mirfield Law has not been discovered but Frank Warriner, usually an accurate source of information although never citing his sources, indicates that he married a Hodgshon of Baston Bank Farm, half of which lies in Whicham parish and half in Thwaites parish. However, none of the Millom, Whicham or Thwaites parish registers mentions this. The Hodgshons were husbandmen who had been in the area since at least 1651 and had married into the yeoman families of Kirkbank and Postlethwaite in the 18th century. By 1829 they had settled at Whorlepippin, near Whicham. According to the Millom parish register Thomas Mirfield Law and his wife only had one son Richard (1759-1760) and six daughters, all baptised at Millom between 1750 and 1764. Margaret was baptised in 1750, Jane in 1751, Mary in 1752 (she was buried a year later), Elizabeth in 1754, Rosamund in 1762 and Lucinda in 1764 (she too was buried a year later). As we have already seen, Jane married in 1777 the Revd Jeremiah Gilpin and, in addition, Elizabeth married in 1782 Joseph Bowman of Askham. There is a memorial inscription at Askham to an earlier Joseph Bowman (d.1773 aged 80), perhaps his father, but the other marriages, if any, have not been traced. This Joseph Bowman also has a son called Edmund (d.1803 aged 83).
Thomas Mirfield Law’s wife died in 1770 and he did not re-marry. After fifteen years he migrated to Broughton-in-Furness, probably to live with or near his married daughter Mrs Jane Gilpin, or one of her surviving siblings. Jane left the area for Bolton in Lancashire in 1789 when her husband became vicar there. Thomas died in 1796 and was buried at Broughton aged 74, as ‘late of Millom’, indicating he had moved again. He left no will and no letters of administration have been discovered, presumably because he never recovered from his bankruptcy some ten years previously and had nothing to leave.
No portrait of him has been found.
Sources
- Ancestry.com
- Askham Memorial Inscriptions, genuki.org.uk
- Askham Parish Register
- Boumphrey, R.S., Hudleston, C. Roy and Hughes, J., An Armorial for Westmorland and Lonsdale, p.185 (for the Law family), 1975
- Burke, Sir Bernard, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, 20th edition pp. 364-365, 1858
- Haswell, Col. J.F., (transcriber), The Registers of Millom, Cumberland, 1591-1812, 1925
- Haswell, Col. J.F., (transcriber), The Registers of Whicham, Cumberland, 1569-1812, 1926
- Hudleston, C. Roy and Boumphrey, R.S., Cumberland Families and Heraldry, p. 199 (for the Law family), 1978
- Jackson, William, Papers and Pedigrees mainly relating to Cumberland and Westmorland, vol 1, pp.152-165, article entitled the Laws of Buck Crag in Cartmel and of Bampton, Kendal, 1892
- Kidson, Alex, George Romney: A Complete Catalogue, 2015, vol 2 p.47
- Warriner, Frank, Millom People and Places, 1937
- Warriner, Frank, The Millom District,1932