addleworth istorical ociety ulletin Volume 46 Number 3 2016 Bulletin of the Saddleworth Historical Society Volume 46 Number 3 2016 New Additions to the Archives The Family Papers of Joseph Whitehead Johnson of Leeds Mike Buckley 59 A Saddleworth Commemorative Jug Mike Buckley 72 Memory Lane Una Ross 78 Members of my Family who took part in WWII Patricia Foster 83 Obituary Keith Taylor 87 Cover Illustration: Mary Jane Johnson (née Whitehead (c1840-1905) SHS Archive ©2016 Saddleworth Historical Society and individual contributors and creators of images. i ii SHS Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2016 NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ARCHIVES The Family Papers of Joseph Whitehead Johnson of Leeds Mike Buckley The Society acquired a collection of deeds and family papers at an auction by Capes Dunn on the 29th November 2016. The lot, which was described as an ‘Interesting Collection of mainly 19th Century ephemera relating to the Whitehead, Buckley and Radcliffe families from the Shaw Hall and Shaw Hall Bank areas of Saddleworth’ turned out to have belonged to the Johnson family of Leeds who, though never having resided in the district, had acquired the bulk of the papers through marriage. The collection is a mixture of wills, deeds and other household documents spanning a century and a half and is a useful example of how deeds and papers belonging to a particular property or family can end up in the most unlikely and unrelated places. The earliest documents belonged to the Buckley family of Shaw Hall Bank. Following the sale of the James Farrer’s manorial estate in 1791, the large Shaw Hall Bank farm was bought by John Buckley of Abels (1704-1795) and three of his sons. The earliest document in the collection is the will of one of them, William Buckley (1730-1801). It is a large parchment sheet attached to which is the grant of probate, also on parchment, bearing the seal of the Bishop of Chester. In fact, many of the early wills in the collection are of this nature and are in sharp contrast to the modest paper copies deposited in the diocesan court records. By Buckley’s will, part of the Shaw Hall Bank estate passed to his son, James Buckley (1759-1839). Both William and James were described as clothiers and in his will, William left to his son ‘implements for dressing and finishing of cloth’. James had a large family of nine surviving sons and daughters. This is illustrated by family tree in Figure 2. All three of his sons and five out of his six daughters died childless. Many of the Buckley documents in the collection are the wills of these children leaving their property to their surviving brothers and sisters. Only one daughter, Peggy Lees Buckley (1807- 1863), married and had a child and it was to this child that the accumulated wealth of the brothers and sisters ultimately devolved. By the 1860s the family had moved away from Saddleworth. One of the sons was a cotton dealer in Salford, one daughter died in Flixton and another lived at Bowden in Cheshire with her married sister. The last remaining brother, Robert Buckley (c1802-1892), a woollen manufacturer, was described as ‘gentleman’ at the time of his death. He lived at Congleton and died a wealthy man, his estate valued at more than £10,000. He would have been the last to possess the Buckley family papers. His estate passed to his nephew, Walter Whitehead, the son of his sister Peggy Lees Buckley who had married Charles Whitehead of Shaw Hall (1814-1893). The majori- ty of the documents in the collection relate to this Whitehead family, their history running in parallel with the Buckley’s fortunes. The Whitehead family had long lived at Shaw Hall, having inherited the leasehold estate from the Radcliffes in the late seventeenth century. They purchased the freehold in 1791 but seem to have lost the estate in the early nineteenth century, possibly through bankruptcy. Whether or not this was the case, the estate was put up for auction in 1809. It was not this Whitehead family, however, that Peggy Lees Buckley married into. Ann Whitehead (1783-1824), a daughter of the John Whitehead who had apparently lost the Shaw Hall estate, married William Whitehead (1782-1848), the son of Robert Whitehead of Manns. The two families appear to have been unconnected, however after the marriage, both William and his son Charles Whitehead, the husband of Peggy Lees Buckley, went to live at Shaw Hall. Both father and son were described as shopkeepers. Like the Buckleys the family seem to have risen in status and wealth as 59 SHS Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2016 the nineteenth century progressed. William was described as ‘gentleman’ at the time of his death in 1848, as were his two brothers, John Whitehead of Tunstead (1778-1846) and Samuel Whitehead of Kinders (1792-1868). Samuel lived in Stayley for part of his life and acquired a number of leasehold estates there. The deeds to these are in the collection. They were leases for three lives, a particular form of tenure popular in earlier centuries but still then in use by the lord of the manor of Stayley, the Earl of Stamford and Warrington. The documents, which are standard printed pro formas on parchment, make interesting reading, almost medieval in their manorial obligations and payments. The deeds were retained by the family after Samuel’s death, even though the estates had been disposed of. Both Samuel and his brother John Whitehead appointed their brother Charles as executor of their wills and this is no doubt how the papers passed down through the family. The earliest Whitehead document details an 1829 sale of three seats in a pew in Saddleworth Church from Timothy Whitehead of Uppermill, to his brother-in-law, William Whitehead of Shaw Hall, shopkeeper. It is unlikely William enjoyed these for very long as the old church was rebuilt shortly afterwards and it is perhaps surprising this document has survived. It possibly entitled the family to a seat in the new church without paying a pew rent. Like the Buckleys, the Whiteheads had moved away from Shaw Hall by the 1860s and Charles and his wife settled at Bowden in Cheshire with Alice Buckley, one of his wife’s sisters. At the time of his death in 1893 he was living in Southport and was described as ‘gentleman’. The estate passed to his only son, Walter Whitehead, a solicitor, who died in 1915, and was then described as ‘of Manchester, gentleman’. His estate was valued at nearly £21,000. A separate collection of papers relates to Charles Whitehead’s brother, Joseph Whitehead (1810-1867). A letter, now no longer in the collection, but a transcript of which has been included, is from Joseph Whitehead, writing as a young man in1838 from Sydney, Australia, to his uncle Samuel Whitehead. Among other things it discusses the quality and price of Australian wool and makes some acerbic com- ments about the inhabitants of Sydney. Joseph settled back in Saddleworth at Shaw Hall and at the time of his death was described as a cotton spinner. He left three sons and three daughters. Two of the sons were also cotton spinners and lived in Oldham and perhaps it was here that their father’s cotton interests lay. One of his daughters Annie Whitehead, married Thomas H. Tanner, woollen manufacturer of Greenfield, and the Tanners for many years were linked with various members of the family as trustees of Joseph’s estate. But it was another daughter Mary Jane Whitehead that was central to the fate of this collection of documents. Another transcript of a letter, the original once part of the collection, is dated 1861 and is addressed from Mary Jane to a Mr Johnson. It is affectionately written and it comes as no surprise that the two subsequently married. It is not clear how the couple met. William Johnson was a woollen manufacturer and lived at Farsley near Leeds but through the marriage he became involved in the Whitehead family affairs and was one of the last trustees of the estate of Joseph Whitehead, Mary Jane’s father. On the death of Mary Jane’s cousin, Walter Whitehead, in 1915, administration of his estate was granted to the Johnson family, by this time to William Johnson’s son John Whitehead Johnson and, presumably, this was how the Johnson’s acquired all the Whitehead and Buckley papers as well as some or all of their property. The property at Tonge, Middleton, purchased by Charles Whitehead and Robert Buckley remained in the Johnson family until at least 1951 and the collection contains an interesting abstract of title to this property. The 60 SHS Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2016 Johnsons acquired a large house called the Beeches in Roundhay, Leeds which was rented to the Secretary of State for War during the Second World War. They lived in the adjoining cottage at the time and after the war settled in Salisbury. Finally, two documents in the collection relate to property in Saddleworth but cannot be connected to any of the Buckleys, Whiteheads or Johnsons. The will of Ann Lees, of Huddersfield, Spinster in 1825 left all her freehold and leasehold estate in Saddleworth in trust for her nephews John Driver, Samuel Lees Driver and Eli Lees Driver. Samuel Lees Driver acquires the whole of this estate by a deed of 1849 in which the properties are listed. The quite extensive holding included houses and land at Latham and Knowsley in Shelderslow and property in Strinesdale and High Moor.