The 17th & 18th century Jacksons of Broughton Grange

With many thanks to Jim Watson for this information.  We hope that publishing it here will be helpful to people trying to disentangle their Jackson ancestors as well of course to those interested in Great Broughton.

The Jackson family of Broughton Grange, 

descendants of Robert Jackson of Wilton

by Jim Watson  

Today, Broughton Grange is a large arable farm set at the south end of the village of Great Broughton, near Stokesley in North Yorkshire.

Broughton Grange was a farm under Rievaulx Abbey, near Helmsley, from 1316 until the Abbey’s dissolution in 1538.  The subsequent lease changed hands several times before being granted to Hester and John Hewerdyne by Queen Elizabeth.  The Hewerdyne family was resident at Broughton Grange at least until 1629. 

Some time between 1629 and 1636, the Jackson presence at Broughton Grange commenced with William Jackson son of Robert Jackson of Wilton.  In 1637, William Jackson was sued for non payment of tithes for some fields for the year 1636.

In 1650, William Jackson of Broughton Grange conveyed to his brother Robert of Lazenby a messuage and 2 oxgangs of land at Lazenby, and in the same Indenture the conveyance by William’s father Robert to William of Topliffe Farm Great Broughton was recorded.

William died in 1658, leaving his widow Dorothy with five under-age children.  The eldest Jane married William Harrison of Kirkleatham.

It has been recorded in several submissions to the Court of Chancery, that following her husband’s death, Dorothy set about acquiring property to ensure that her three sons would have satisfactory incomes.  It was also recorded that Dorothy spent large sums of money on the Mansion House at Broughton Grange, in excess of £300.  This makes it clear that the Jacksons of Broughton Grange were a wealthy family.

Son William achieved his majority in 1665, and it may be no coincidence that there is a lintel in the Mansion House bearing the initials WJ and the number 1665.  William junior married and had two daughters Anne and Dorothy.  William’s brother Richard died in October 1673, followed by William in November 1673.  Subsequently William’s widow Ann married a widower Edward Edwards, probably about 1681.  The record of the marriage has not been found, and it doesn’t appear to have occurred in the local church St Augustine’s in Kirkby.

Widow Dorothy’s second daughter Margery remained single until her death in 1678.  Dorothy died in 1685, leaving her youngest son Robert as her only surviving male descendant.  About 1690, the Edwards family moved to London, where William and Ann’s two daughters Anne and Dorothy found themselves a husband each, respectively Charles Tracy a lawyer and John Harper a watch maker.

It is possible that there was no Jackson presence at Broughton Grange from about 1690 until Robert Jackson first became a tenant of part of Broughton Grange in 1705.   Later Robert became tenant of the all of Broughton Grange and by 1707 he was also agent for Ann Tracy and Dorothy Lee and their husbands.

Robert remained as tenant at Broughton Grange until 1727, possibly a few years later.  By this time Robert was already in his seventies, but he had recently married, and he disposed of a significant amount of property to a local mason Robert Patton in 1729.  It was about this time that Robert Jackson became embroiled in a nasty sequence of suits with the London section of the family that eventually ended up in the Court of Chancery.  Robert’s property sale may have been to ensure Robert had sufficient funds for his legal expenses.  The Court found in balance in Robert’s favour, but not until after his death.  In the meantime, Robert and his wife Hannah retired from Broughton Grange to the Dog House, a property Robert had purchased about twenty years earlier.

By the time that Robert retired, Anne Tracy née Jackson, by then a widow had probably returned to Great Broughton and for most of her time in the village she lived at Broughton Grange, though she owned other property in the village.

Shortly before her death, Anne moved into one of her other properties in the village along with her widowed daughter Elizabeth Amaiday.  Broughton Grange was sold by Henry Harper, Anne’s eldest nephew, to John Preston an attorney of Stokesley in 1742.  Anne died in 1742 and her daughter Elizabeth died in 1743.

Jackson family presence in Great Broughton continued after Robert Jackson’s death.  Robert and his wife Hannah had three children, Robert, Dorothy and William.  Robert had the unenviable task of executing his father’s over generous Will, effectively a hopeless task, even after the Court of Chancery settlement produced in excess of £600.  Fortunately, Robert’s mother, brother and sister cooperated in solving the financial headache, and eventually the matter was dealt with, but at the cost of the complete disposal of father Robert’s estate, including splitting the Dog House into four separate dwellings and much reduced legacies to Hannah and Dorothy.

What became of Robert Jackson’s three children?  Robert, became a mariner and appears to have left the village about 1760.  William became a bricklayer and lived in Stokesley.  Dorothy married John Raw with whom she had at least ten children, three of whom died in infancy.  John and Dorothy Raw lived in Great Broughton till 1771, thereafter they appear to have left the village.

Sources

Borthwick Institute:  

Cause Papers:  CP.H.2171 (1637),  Dispute re Tithes, Sutton v Jackson

Wills and Probate;  PROB Register 85, Folio 150 on MIC 1005, Robert Jackson’s Will      

National Archives:  

Cause Papers:  

C 6/289/59  1664,  Watson v Howardyne et al, gives details of previous lease holders.

C 11/1/44  1713,   Cornforth v Geer,  contains reference to the conveyance of the Dog House and Harrisons Farm from John and Margaret Cornforth to Robert Jackson

C 11/1495/36  1731,  Harper v Jackson

C 11/2695/42  1732,  Jackson v Tracey

C 11/2695/47  1733,  Jackson v Harper

C 11/1370/14  1733,  Harper v Jackson  Statements taken at Durham

C 11/1370/17  1734,   Harper v Jackson, Deponents statements

The above five references relate to the financial dispute between Robert Jackson and the executors of William Lee, Dorothy Jackson the younger’s third and last husband.  They include some vital event data for the London Jackson family, ie Tracy,Harper, Sadler and Lee.

North Yorkshire County Record Office:

Kirkleatham Papers:  

ZK 4223  Conveyance of property within the Jackson family in 1650.

Old Parish Registers:  

Kirkby cum Broughton, vital event data relating to Broughton Grange and Great Broughton.

Wills and Deeds:   

DB 114 53, refers to sale of property by Robert Jackson to Robert Patton, original Indenture to be retained by Isaac Chapman, 

A 503 616,  14/8/1738,  Henry Harper agrees terms for Anne Tracy occupying part of Broughton Grange.  Anne had been living in Great Broughton several years before this Indenture was executed.

P 379 619  2&3/1742,  I 392 460  3/2/1742  and  B 120 33  3/2/1742,  all relate to the sale of Broughton Grange by Henry Harper to John Preston.

Next:  Jacksons of Broughton Grange

Descendants of the Jacksons of Lackenby

My Canadian contact, the source of my information on the family of the Revd Thomas Todd and his wife Elizabeth Jackson, has begun a blog to share the family history information that she has gathered over the years.

So if there are any descendants of the Jacksons of Lackenby and Lazenby out there, do keep an eye on Ancestral Road.

John Jackson and his uncle, Captain Thomas King (1748-1824)

continued from 'The Jackson family of Lazenby and Lackenby' ...

Captain Thomas King

Thomas King, merchant of Wapping, played a hugely influential role in the life of the Jacksons of Lackenby during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

He was the brother-in-law of George Jackson (1746-1810) of Lackenby.  George and his sister Dinah (1753-1819) had both married members of the King family:  George married Elizabeth King (1752-82) in 1774 at Skelton, and Dinah married Robert King in 1783 at Wilton.  (Elizabeth and Robert King were probably cousins.)

Elizabeth King and her elder brother Thomas were the children of Newark King and Elizabeth Boyes, who married in 1746.  Thomas was baptised on 19 Feb 1748; he left home to go to sea and by 1766 he was second mate of the Royal Charlotte.  He became an increasingly successful London merchant, and left the sea in 1780.  He had a family of his own, but remained a powerful figure in the lives of his relatives in Cleveland.

He invested in property in the area – in 1783 he paid £1,200 for Lackenby Low Farm, which had belonged to another branch of the Jackson family.  This was the year that Robert King married Dinah Jackson, and the farm was to be the home of Dinah King until her death in 1819; Thomas was perhaps coincidentally providing a home for the newly married couple.  At that point his address was George Yard, near Tower Hill, Middlesex.  Five years later, he sold the property to William Jackson of Guisborough for £1,300 [Kirkleatham Hall] and by then his address was Great Aliffe (Ayliffe) Street, Goodman’s Fields.

He would eventually have a counting house in London and a country seat in Wandsworth.

The Jackson family of Lazenby and Lackenby

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a family called Jackson farmed at Lackenby and Lazenby, two small hamlets in the parish of Wilton, at the northernmost edge of the North Riding of Yorkshire.  This low-lying land, stretching northwards to the mouth of the river Tees – and later mostly covered by ICI Wilton – was once known as the Lowside.

We are so used to the view of the petrochemical complex that inspired the opening scenes of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner that it is hard to imagine how empty and beautiful the place once was.

Here it is – before the Tees became an industrial river – described by the Revd John Graves in his History of Cleveland in 1808:

The village of Wilton is small, and consists of a few houses, seated on the northern declivity of a hill, the summit of which being nearly level, has been brought into cultivation; while the sides, rising abruptly, are ornamented with young and thriving plantations.   

The grounds on the north from the village have an easy and gradual descent, and the prospect is extensive and pleasingly diversified: near at hand upon the right are seen the hospital and mansion, with the richly cultivated grounds of Kirkleatham, beyond which, tracing the circling line of shore to the left, the town of Hartlepool in a prominent position, with the bold figure of its church, affords a striking object; while the serpentine course of the river Tees, which on its approach towards the sea, expands itself into a fine extensive bay, is seen winding through a tract of rich and fertile grounds beneath, adding greatly to the beauty and interest of the general view. 

It was a small agricultural parish and, in 1801, consisted of 67 houses occupied by 74 families – a total of 328 people.

The lands within the parish consist nearly of an equal portion of arable, meadow, and pasture; and the soil in general a fertile clay; which, notwithstanding its northern aspect, and exposure to severe blasts from the sea, produces crops of wheat and other grain in great perfection, and the harvests in general are as early as in any of the more favoured parts of Cleveland.   

The low grounds near the river Tees are principally in grass; as was formerly an extensive tract, which lay in common open fields, stretching from the village in a direction north and south; but, by the late inclosure, has been brought into a more advantageous state of cultivation.

The Jacksons of Wilton were for the most part yeomen, that hardworking, prudent class that lay between the gentlemen and the petty farmers.

In the mid 20th century, a descendant of the Jacksons of Wilton compiled a family tree covering the 17th to 19th centuries, based on a collection of legal documents, information and artefacts that had remained in the family, and supplemented with research. 

It was subsequently examined and extended by the late Miss Grace Dixon, local historian of Guisborough, with assistance from the Kirkleatham Museum, and then Grace Dixon and I worked on some specific areas of the story. 

The early parts of the family tree remain imperfect, but nevertheless useful (perhaps particularly to those trying to disentangle the many Jacksons of Cleveland), and the later developments are very interesting.  Where I can, I indicate sources; it is obviously open to correction, but will at least point to areas of investigation.