FREARSON of LEYLAND and ULVERSTON
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
FREARSON of LEYLAND and ULVERSTON Ellen Frearson and James Ashcroft In January 1735/6 James Ashcroft (1704–1782) of Aughton, Lancashire married as his second wife Ellen Frearson (1700–1787) of Cuerden and Euxton townships in Lancashire’s Leyland parish and hundred. The earliest Frearson traced in the direct line is Ellen’s father John Frearson (>1674–1734/5) of Farington, Cuerden and Euxton (all Leyland townships). According to Bardsley the name Frearson is of the nickname variety, meaning ‘son of Friar’: the name crossed from Yorkshire to North Lancashire, occurring chiefly in the Furness peninsula. The name Frearson simply means ‛son of a friar’.1 Margaret Frearson of Ulverston It seems quite possible that John Frearson of Farington was a son of Margaret Frearson, widow of Flan in Mansriggs (a township in Ulverston parish, then in Lancashire), who made her will on 15 February 1689/90, making her son John executor and a beneficiary from her estate. There were bequests to her grandson David, her daughter Mary (and her three daughters) and her sons James and Reginald. Margaret asked to be buried in Ulverston church. The witnesses were ... Benson, John Taylor, Rendal and John Frearsone, Thos Benson and Thomas Fisher. Margaret was buried at Ulverston on 10 February 1690/1. An inventory was subsequently taken by John Bellman and John Taylor and the will proved on 16 June 1691. It seems entirely reasonable to think that it was Margaret’s death which enabled her son John to marry (although so far away) two weeks later. Origins One David Frearson occurs at Mansriggs in 1661/2,1 but the family do not occur in the Ulverston registers until 1674. Most of the relevant entries concern the baptism and burials of children of Robert Frearson of Flan in Mansriggs from 1674–1690. Robert Frearson of Flan (probably a son of David and Margaret) was buried on 12 May 1695 and David Frearson of Flan (probably Margaret’s husband) on 23 May 1682. It was probably Margaret’s grandson David (son of Robert) who was baptised at Ulverston on 12 December 1675 and married there in 1717.2 John Frearson and Ellen Jackson The Frearson family first appear in the Leyland registers on 23 February 1690/1, when John Frearson of Farington married Ellen Jackson of ‘Kuerden’, after banns, at Leyland. Three children were born to John at Kuerden and baptised at Leyland: David (6 December 1691); Jane (21 January 1693/4, buried 23 January); and Ellen (29 September 1700).3 In 1717 John Frearson held a messuage and tenement in Euxton under Viscount Molyneux, by the lives of his wife and son, at £1 2s 8d rent, plus the keeping of a hound and a consideration of £60.4 John Frearson's son David (1691–1772) married Ann Barker at Leyland on 5 February 1716/17: both were ‛of Euxton’. Here they had children, baptised at Leyland: John (5 April 1717); William (1 February 1718/19, buried 11 July 1726, son of David Friarson, labourer); Elen (2 April 1721); Ann (17 May 1724, daughter of David Frierson, husbandman and Ann); and William (2 October 1726). The second William and his mother Ann both died at Charnock Richard (Standish), but were buried at Leyland on 2 June 1728 and 15 November 1729. David Frearson's daughter Ann died at Euxton and was buried at Leyland on 9 February 1739/40. David Frearson made a second marriage at Standish on 13 September 1731, to Ann Halliwell: both were of Standish parish.5 Ann Frearson died at Euxton on 22 April 1757. David Frearson of Charnock Richard was buried at Leyland on 24 April 1772. John and Ellen Frearson’s youngest child Ellen (baptised on 29 September 1700) had a ‘base- born’ daughter Jane, by Lawrence Rose of Euxton: Jane was baptised at Leyland on 19 May 1729. John Frearson of Euxton, husbandman, made his will on 7 November 1734, with his daughter Ellen and friend Robert Latham as executors. He left his Molyneux tenement in Euxton to his son David, but the kitchen end of the house with a room over and half his new orchard to Ellen. There was a provision that if Ellen and David ‘cannot live in peace so near neighbours’, then David was to pay £2 per annum to Ellen. Ellen was in any case to have one year’s profits from her father’s estate, subject to a £20 payment on her marriage to ‘her daughter Jane Frearson alias Rose’.6 John Freerson of Euxton was buried at Leyland on 19 February 1734/5 and the will proved on 7 May 1735. In January 1735/6 Ellen married James Ashcroft (q.v.). It was probably John’s widow Ellen Frierson who died at Euxton and was buried at Leyland on 1 November 1761. Of the children of David and Ann Frearson, John (born 1717) married Ellen Bamber by licence (?at Coppull) in 1739. They had children Ann (1743–1759, baptised at Euxton 29 May); Elizabeth (4 August 1740); and John (30 September 1750), before Ellen died at Charnock Richard and was buried at Leyland on 7 May 1760. Her widower John died a yeoman of Euxton in 1785: in his will made on 17 March 1785 he referred to a settlement made by his late father [David] to his daughter Ellen(by then wife of John Watkinson). © T.M. Steel (last revised 7 April 2010) 1 C.W. Bardsley, A Dictionary of English & Welsh Surnames (London, 1901), p. 300; P.H. Reaney, A Dictionary of British Surnames (London, 1976), p. 134 1 The National Archives, E 179/250/5 (free & voluntary present, 1s) 2 For christenings, marriages & burials [hereafter cmbs] Ulverston: C.W. Bardsley & L.R. Ayre (eds), ‛The Registers of Ulverston Parish Church’, Lancashire Parish Register Society [hereafter L.P.R.S.], M 22 (1989). The house of David Frearson, Mansriggs was lic. as a dissenters’ meeting house c. 1727/7: L.R.O., QSP/1277/4 3 For cmbs Leyland: W.S. White (ed.), ‛The Register Book of Cmbs within the Parish of Leyland, 1622— 1710’, Record Society of Lancashire & Cheshire [hereafter R.S.L.C.], 21 (1890); K. Ashford (ed.), ‛The Registers of St Andrew’s Church, Leyland, 1711–1780, II, 1711-1780’, L.P.R.S., 147 (1999) 4 R. Sharpe France (ed.), ‛The Registers of Estates of Lancashire Papists, 1717’, I, R.S.L.C., 98 (1985), p. 226 5 For cmbs Standish: A. Kenwright (ed.), ‛The Registers of Standish, 1653—1732’, L.P.R.S., 167 (2008) 6 Wits Jn Hodson, Richd ?Clayton & … Backstanden.