Thomas Atkinson (1722-92), Master of Sir William Turner's Hospital, Kirkleatham

This follows on from the preceding post, The Atkinsons of Scaling Dam in the 17th & 18th centuries

Thomas Atkinson was born on Friday 13 April 1722, between 9 and 10 o'clock at Night.

We don't know where he was educated – perhaps in one of the Whitby schools – but he clearly was something of a mathematician (for example, his answer to a problem was printed in Miscellaneous Correspondence, in Prose and Verse Volume 4, 1764).

He married Elizabeth Featherstone (c1720-1805) on 21 September 1749 in Westerdale.  Elizabeth may have been the daughter of Peter Fetherstone, who was baptised on 2 February 1720 at Danby in Cleveland.

On 9 May 1751, when Thomas was 29, he took up the post of Master of the Blue Coat Boys at the Turner Hospital at Kirkleatham.  When he and his family moved into the master's house, the Hospital – which consisted of almshouses, boys' and girls' schools and a chapel – had only recently been extended and remodelled by Sir William's great-nephew Cholmley Turner.  Thomas must have been very pleased with his new situation.  He and his family stayed there for nearly 25 years.   

Sir William Turner's Almshouses by Mick Garrett

He was clearly an able and meticulous man, and in 1774 he drew up a map of the parish and manor of Kirkleatham for his employer.  So perhaps when he left Kirkleatham a year later at the age of 53, and went to Marske Hall on the Cleveland coast, it might have been to become steward for Lawrence Dundas.  Dundas was an ambitious and forceful Scottish businessman and politician who had bought the Marske Hall estate a dozen years earlier, at about the same time as he bought the Aske estate in Richmondshire.  

By 1788, Thomas was in retirement and he and his wife Elizabeth were with their son William in Whaddon in Cambridgeshire.  

He now had time to repair the family Bible that had been spoilt and defaced after his father's death in 1755, when it had been 

clandestinely taken away from my Mother, by one Hudson who had not the least Right or Pretention of Right to it; after having kept it several Years in his Possession, I obliged him to return it; but it was in such bad Condition by his writing his own Name a vast Number of times, and a Repetition of the Names of his Children and many Sentences too ridiculous to be seen in a Book of this Sort; I thought proper to cut out the Pages he had so Contaminated and to introduce several Leaves of fresh Paper in their Stead; whereas I shall transcribe such Particulars as my Father thought fit to leave on Record in this Book relating to our Family; and do hereby earnestly recommend this Book to the Care of my Children, that they never suffer it to go out of the Family for the future. 

Example of Thomas Atkinson's repair to the family Bible

Thomas Atkinson and Elizabeth Featherstone had 6 sons and 2 daughters:

• Jane Atkinson, born 9 March 1751
• on 4 June 1775 at Rotherhithe, she married Captain Thomas Galilee (1744-97) (for more on his family see here) 
• they had 6 daughters who survived infancy: Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, Jane, Harriet & Henrietta
• Jane died on 19 December 1817 aged 66 and was buried at Whaddon, Cambridgeshire
• for more on Jane and her daughters see later post, Jane Atkinson of Kirkleatham (1751-1817), wife of Captain Thomas Galilee

• Thomas Atkinson, born 16 April 1753
• trained as a surgeon, worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada and as surgeon at the British Settlement in Honduras Bay, where he died  
• for more on Thomas's life see later post, Thomas Atkinson, surgeon (b1753) of Kirkleatham, Canada & Honduras Bay

• William Atkinson, born 16th May 1755
• academic and clergyman
• he died at Stapleford near Cambridge on 28 May 1830 aged 75 and was buried at Whaddon, Cambridgeshire
• for more on William Atkinson's life see later post, The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830)

• Isaac Atkinson, born 5 March 1757
• was a London wholesale linen draper with premises in Cheapside, while living out of town in the country air of the parish of St Mary, Islington
• he died aged 46 on 6 July 1803 and was buried with his father at Whaddon on 13 July 1803

• Daniel Atkinson, born 7 February 1759
• he is known to have married and had 3 children, because they are mentioned in his brother William's Will, made in 1828:
• Thomas (a letter from Thomas to his uncle William survives, see later post, The Revd William Atkinson of Kirkleatham & Cambridge (1755-1830) .  He went to New York in 1830 and it is not known what became of him
• William 
• Mary, who married a Mr Thompson
• An undated entry in the family Bible says that Daniel himself "Died at New York"

• John Atkinson, born 12 February 1761
• an undated entry in the family Bible says that John died on the coast of Africa

• Robert Atkinson, born 8 February 1763
• he died in infancy and was buried on 14 June 1765 in Kirkleatham

• Elizabeth Atkinson, born 18 February 1764
• she was baptised on 29 Feb 1764 and died 3 days later.  Buried at Kirkleatham

Thomas Atkinson died on 1 February 1792 at the age of 70.  A note in the burial register records that he was "late of Marsk near Gisborough N Riding Yorks died at the Vicarage house at Whaddon Feb 1"

Thomas's son William wasn't the vicar of Whaddon, so that wasn't why Thomas was living in the vicarage house.  William isn't recorded as having held any benefice, and I think a Revd Thomas Wilson was vicar at the time.  According to the Victoria County History 

In the 1790s the vicar had only a room in an old cottage, probably the old vicarage, which was enlarged in the early 19th century, and again c1877  

Robert Hurlock, who succeeded Mr Wilson and was vicar from 1797 to 1852, also held Shepreth.  It must have been more comfortable at Shepreth before the Whaddon vicarage was enlarged, because by 1807 he was recorded as living at Whaddon.  So perhaps Thomas and Elizabeth were renting the old cottage that had been the old vicarage.

St Mary's Whaddon, Cambs by Alan Kent

Elizabeth survived him by 7 years.  She carried on living with her son William at Whaddon and it was there that she died on 19 November 1805 aged 85.  

Thomas and Elizabeth were both buried at Whaddon.  

Elizabeth had also outlived her son Isaac, who died aged 46 in 1803.  Though he lived in the parish of St Mary Islington, he was buried with his father at Whaddon on 13 July 1803.  Whaddon was to become the place of burial for all of the family who lived in Cambridgeshire:  Thomas and Elizabeth, their children Isaac, William and Jane, and their granddaughter Harriet.

When Stella Sterry visited Whaddon in 1970, she was able to read the inscriptions on the gravestones of Thomas, Isaac, Elizabeth, Jane and Harriet.  William's gravestone, with its Latin inscription, was not very legible.  

Excerpt from insert in Atkinson Bible

Extracts from the York Herald, 12 January 1850

Local news and local names - I thought this sort of thing might be useful or interesting to readers:-

Yarm

Seasonable Benevolence

During the past week, Marshall Fowler, Esq., of Preston Hall, one of the executors under the will of the late Benjamin Flounders, Esq., deceased, has caused to be distributed the sum of £20 in blankets and coals, among the poor people in this town; 75 families received half a ton of coals each, and 25 families one blanket each.  This sum is an annuity of £20 bequeathed by the late Mr Flounders, to be distributed annually at Christmas, among the poor of Yarm.

Inquest. - Verdict of Manslaughter. - An inquest was held on Friday, the 4th inst., before J P Sowerby, Esq., coroner, on the body of John Mudd.  It appears that the deceased and a youth of the name of George Crabtree, had, on the previous Monday, a few angry words together, when the latter kicked the former in the lower part of his body, and thereby injured him so seriously that he died on the following Thursday.  After a lengthened inquiry, the jury returned a verdict of "manslaughter."  The prisoner was committed to York Castle, to take his trial at the spring assizes.  He is 17 years of age, and the deceased was 19 years of age.

Marske

Odd Fellowship. - On the 28th ult., the members of the Zetland Lodge held their anniversary at the house of Mr Wm Bulmer, Marske, Mr Thos Shaw in the chair, when the company partook of an excellent supper.  After the usual loyal and other toasts had been given, the chairman said at a previous meeting it was unanimously agreed that a token of respect should be presented to Brother John Green, D.G.M., of the Zetland Lodge, in the Stokesley district, for his valuable services to the lodge.  He (the chairman) thereofre, in behalf of the members of the lodge, presented Brother John Green, D.G.M., with the emblems of the order, and also that of the widows and orphans.  Brother Green then rose and returned thanks in an able speech.  (Loud cheering).  The toasts and speeches were enlivened by a few friends with popular songs, after which the company separated, highly gratified with the evening's entertainment.

Letters Patent of James VI & I

This is a Licence to Alienate.  These Letters Patent of King James VI & I gave Ralph Stowpe permission in 1616 to sell to Robert Layton a cottage, toft & croft, 2 oxgangs & 19 ½ acres of land in the area of Marske, Upleatham and Redcar.

The Great Seal is a little battered. This is the reverse of the deed and the seal:

At some point this deed came into the hands of Middlesbrough solicitor Thomas Duncan Henlock Stubbs.  He took it to the noted scholar and antiquarian Thomas McAll Fallow at Coatham House.

Mr Fallow was born in 1847 and educated at Brighton College and St John's, Cambridge.  He originally intended to take Holy Orders but instead divided his time between parish work and scholarship.  He acted as layhelper to his cousin the Rev R B Kirby at Chapel Allerton, Leeds between 1872 and 1885, and then moved to Coatham where again he was active in the parish but primarily devoted his time to archaeology.  He was editor of The Reliquary and The Antiquary, and died in 1910.  Here is his letter to Stubbs:

And this is his transcription of the Letters Patent:

The Weatherill family tree: compiled by Richard Weatherill (1844-1923)

Excerpt from Richard Weatherill's manuscript

Richard Weatherill (1844-1923) compiled a family tree from the memories of his father, the artist George Weatherill (1810-90). 

He supplemented it with further research, particularly in the Parish Registers of Easington and in the Easington, Whitby, Hinderwell and Guisborough churchyards.  A copy of his manuscript (missing one page) is held by the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society.

Another copy is owned by descendants of the Guisborough Weatherills; this copy has later amendments by Charles Buchannan (Richard Weatherill's nephew) and others.

The information below is taken from both manuscripts.  Passages marked in quotations are taken directly from Richard Weatherill's manuscript. 

More about Thomas Atkinson, surgeon, of Kirkleatham

This was revised and rewritten 30 January 2022 with many thanks to Stella Sterry for her information

Thomas Atkinson, the writer of the Whaling Journal of Thomas Atkinson of Kirkleatham, 1774, was a young man of 21 when he made the voyage to Davis Straits.

He was born in the spring of 1753 in Kirkleatham, a North Yorkshire village a couple of miles from the mouth of the River Tees. 

His father Thomas was Master at the Hospital founded in Kirkleatham in 1676 by Sir William Turner for the relief of ten "poor aged" men and women and the relief and upbringing of "ten poor boys and ten poor girls". 

The "poor boys" and "poor girls" usually entered the Hospital at the age of eight and left at sixteen.  At this time most of the boys came from the North Riding, from Scarborough to Askrigg, but some came from much further afield – from Ticknall in Derbyshire, Bristol and Hertfordshire.  They included the sons of a local clergyman, a Darlington bookseller and a Northallerton attorney, which must indicate that, in addition to the poor children, the school was taking paying scholars.  This was usual in schools that began as charitable foundations. 

Thomas Atkinson's mother was Elizabeth Featherstone (c1720-1805).  His parents were married in Westerdale in 1749, so Elizabeth may have been the Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Fetherstone, who was baptised in 1720 at Danby in Cleveland.

It seems very likely that Thomas Atkinson's sons were taught alongside the boys of the Hospital.  Wherever they went to school, he and his brothers clearly received a good education; Thomas's second son William was to become a Doctor of Divinity and Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. 

The career chosen for young Thomas may have been influenced by the surgeon employed at the Hospital (at a salary of £50, compared to the £45 paid to the Master), but the Hospital was also in contact with the York Infirmary whose surgeons pronounced one boy's "scrofulous disorder" as incurable in 1773.  

In his mid-teens Thomas's parents sent him to Ripon to be apprenticed for 6 years to William Chambers of Ripon, described by Thomas's father in the family Bible as "an eminent Surgeon and Apothecary".  

Then on 27 February 1774 at the age of 21, he went to sea as a surgeon on the Hope of Whitby, on a whaling voyage to the Davies Straits.

We don't know why he decided to make the trip.  Perhaps it was a hankering for adventure; perhaps he wanted to find out how he would cope in harsh conditions.  We don't know how he came to choose the Hope, but it's interesting to see that at this time one of the boys at the school was Thomas Peacock, son of the Revd John Peacock, curate of Stainton in Cleveland.  Perhaps they had a family connection to Captain Robert Peacock of the Hope.

It is clear from young Thomas Atkinson's journal that it wasn't the sea that took his interest, but the strange new lands he encountered and, above all, the Inuit. 

So it isn't surprising to find that, the following year, his curiosity and love of adventure led him to work for the Hudson's Bay Company.

At the beginning of June 1775 he took up his post as a surgeon at Moose Fort (now Moose Factory), the Company's oldest settlement in Ontario, established in 1673 about 11 miles from the mouth of the Moose River on the shore of James Bay.

This was the home of the Cree and Anishinaabe peoples, but from the 17th century it was where the British and French fought over the fur trade.  

In 1776 the Company was planning to establish a post on Lake Superior.  So they sent out a party of 5 men – Thomas was one of them – with two Indian families and instructions to "Build a Halfway House".  They set out on 16 October 1776 from Moose Fort and travelled about 200 miles by canoe along the Moose River, and by sledge, until on 11 December they reached "Wapuscogamee" Creek.  

Thomas chose a site for the Company's post – it was half a mile or so from the mouth of the creek, on the west bank of the Missinaibi River, which flows into the Moose River.  On 14 December they began to build a log tent in which they were to spend the rest of the winter.

When the spring came, they laid the foundation for the post and by early August 1777 Wapiscogamy House was ready for occupation.  Thomas was in charge there until 31 May 1778.

I hope he was a good doctor, because he wasn't very good at choosing a place for a trading post, or at planning its building.  

A report to Edward Jarvis, chief at Moose Fort, in 1781 described a site vulnerable to attack with no way of seeing the attackers coming.  There was a large creek within 200 yards of the back of the house and a ridge of high land within 100 yards, and at one end of the small, inconvenient house (it measured 26 feet by 18 feet) there wasn't a window or a port hole.  

The foundations were laid direct on the ground, so it wasn't possible to dig a cellar without undermining either the chimney or the frame of the house.  They  couldn't find anywhere to keep the gunpowder except "directly under the fireplace" and the summer heat spoilt their "Salt Geese".   Edward Jarvis decided it would be better to build a new post somewhere else.

By this time, Thomas Atkinson had been moved on to Henley House, a transit post on the junction of the Albany and Kenogamy Rivers.  He was Master there for 3 months from September to December 1779.  Perhaps he was filling in for the arrival of another man because he dropped down to Assistant for the next few months.  From June 1780 he was Assistant at Albany, the company fort on the James Bay, and then he left for home on the Royal George on 21 September 1781.

On 21 September 1788, when his father repaired the family Bible and recorded the most recent details of his children's lives, he wrote proudly that his eldest son had been "sometime Governor" of one of the Company Forts and was now "Surgeon at the English Settlement in Honduras Bay".  

So Thomas, having experienced the extremes of heat and cold in Northern Ontario, had taken a post in Central America, where the British were cutting logwood and mahogany.  There had been a British settlement in Belize for over a hundred years.  

An undated entry in the family Bible records that it was there that Thomas died. 

The manuscript is a contemporary fair copy of Thomas Atkinson's original journal and may not be in Thomas's own hand.  It is possible that it was transcribed by a relative.  It bears a strong resemblance, particularly in the decoration and flourishes, to his father's graceful hand.

By the end of the 19th century the journal was in the possession of his sister's granddaughter, Miss Margaret Langborne of Whitby, who gave it to one of her great-nieces.

Further posts on Thomas Atkinson and his family:

Jane Atkinson of Kirkleatham, wife of Captain Thomas Galilee (1744-97)

Captain Thomas Galilee (1744-97) and his family

Sources

Parish Registers of Easington and Kirkleatham
Turner Hospital Records (Teesside Archives and NYCRO)
The Will of the Revd William Atkinson, TNA (PROB 11/1771)
The Will of Thomas Galilee, TNA (PROB 11/1296)
'Biographical Register Volume II 1666 – 1905', Christ's College
Venn Alumni cantabrigienses, Cambridge 1940
(with thanks to Suzan Griffiths, Librarian of St Catharine's College, and Ruth Waite, alumni officer of Christ's College, Cambridge)
Hudson's Bay Company Archives online at the Government of Manitoba's Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport website: Biographical Sheet for Thomas Atkinson

Tracing the History of Northern Ontario at the British Library by Shaelagh Cull