DERBYSGEN-L Archives

Archiver > DERBYSGEN > 2000-08 > 0965163758


From: Elizabeth Needham <>
Subject: [DBY] NEEDHAM's In Derbyshire
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 14:02:38 -0700


Hello Listeners Liz, Cousins Suzi, Tony & Jeff,

Here are some of the references (good, Ok and ugly) to the
NEEDHAM's in Derbyshire.

"We have already noted that Swein was the only under-tenant
who seems to have retained the tenancy of property in
Derbyshire of which he has been owner or occupier before the
Conquest. This is Cowley, in which he held tow manors of
Henry de Ferrers. The manor remained in his family until the
fourteenth century, passing thence to the Cadmans and
afterwards to the Needhams."

"Of the families listed, no pedigrees can be traced back
beyond the reign of King John, although there are earlier
references in records to the Daniels, Foljambes and Balguys.
Some of these families and their successors as foresters
established dynasties which survived for many generations
and became gentry families of considerable influence. A
number - like Gomfreys, Foresters, Hores, Mainwarings and
Whitfields 0 died out at an early date; while new families -
like Bagshawes of Wormhill and Abney, the Needhams of
Thornset and the Barlows of Stoke - appeared on the scene as
foresters from the fourteenth century onwards."

"The Needham family, who were resident at Thornset in the
fifteenth century (if not earlier) were for a time foresters
in Campana. In 1402 William de Needham held one messuage and
32 acres of land at Wormhill and the "office of one forester
in le Chaumpayn". This holding was granted to Robert
Middleton in 1448. In 1525-6 Hugo Needham was a forester in
Campana. A later William Needham of Thornset was a forester
in 1527. Like the Bagshawes, the Needham coat of arms
alluded to the hunting world - "argent a band engrailed
azure between two stags heads, caboshed, sable attired or".

"While the Derbyshire bench was mainly the preserve of
knightly families (e.g. Vernon, Foljambe, Gresley,
Fitzherbert of Norbury, Longford, Pole of Radburne), it was
also supplemented by a number of squires who were the
younger members of these families and by gentry who had been
trained as lawyers (e.g. Lawrence Lowe, Thomas Powtrell,
John Tunstead). Sessions were held in different towns within
the county (e.g. Whitwell, Chesterfield, Belper and
Ashbourne). In the second quarter of the fifteenth century
most of the work was done by Sir Peter Pole of Radburne, a
justice of Chester, along with Gerald Meynell (a
professional lawyer and by then the representative of the
senior male line of the Meynells late of Maynell Langley)
and John Pole of Hartington. From the mid 1430's until c.
1460 their places were taken by Sir Ralph Pole (justice of
the King's Bench 1452 and son of Peter above), John Curzon
of Kedleston and the professional lawyer John Tunstead.
After c.1460 the emphasis moved away from a legally
qualified bench towards one comprising more of the lay
gentry landowners and the following names may be noted as
justices: Henry Vernon (from c. 1469) John Booth (until
1481) and his son William Booth (from 1492 and who
incidentally had married the daughter of Ralph de Pole of
Radburne). Nicholas Fitzherbert of Norbury (from c. 1460),
Thomas Franceys (from c. 1458) John Needham (from 1462)
Robert Eyre (from c. 1472) Thomas Babington (from 1483) John
Savage (from c. 1483) and John Leake (from 1485 he ahd
married the daughter of John Savage). The county nobility
represented on the bench included Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor
(from c. 1460 to 1493) George, Earl of Shrewsbury (from c.
1486) and Walter Blount, Lord Mountiov (1460-73). towards
the end of the century the numbers on the commission of the
peace increased considerably, and the selection of justices
became more broadly based amongst the gentry."

"Another grange owned by the canons was on the outskirts of
Ockbrook and was later known as Littlehay Grange. It first
features as part of William fitzRalph's Ockbrook wood which
towards the end of Henry 11's reign he gave to his brother
in law Serlo de Grendon 1. It would have been amongst the
property granted by his son William de Grendon to the canons
c.1200 towards the end of his life. After the Dissolution it
was rented by Francis Pole (as the grange of Ockbrook), but
by 1562 it was held by Thomas Stanhope. Other granges were
owned by the Abby at Ambaston (in the parish of Elvaston)
and at Alvaston (from which half the pension os Abbot John
Stanley who retired in 1491 was derived), the latter being
held in 1546 -7 by Henry Needham and William Scheverell. A
grange was also held in Alvaston by Darley Abbey."

"The new house - begun in 1724 - was a sumptuous baroque
building designed by Francis Smith of Warwick, with carving
by Edward Poynton of Nottingham, joinery by Thomas Eboral of
Warwick, paintwork by Joshua Reading of Derby and
plasterwork by Joshua Needham of Derby."

"Church Gresley Colliery, which was reconstructed after
1895, continued to be one of the major collieries belonging
to the Moira Colliery Co. Also active in the area was the
Netherseal Colliery Co. (which as the Coton Park Colliery
Co. had been founded in 1866 at the instigation of Charles
Binns of Clay Cross Co.) which began mining operations
beneath the Coton Park estate and in the Linton area; the
Granville Colliery Co., which worked coal north of Gresley
Common, and a number of other smaller companies mining in
the Bretby, Stanton and Newhall areas. The small North West
Derbyshire coalfield was worked as early as Elizabethian
times; a license being granted by the Duchy of Lancaster in
1599 to Henry Needham of Thornsett to dig for coal, while in
1606 there was a record of as dispute over the ownership of
a coal mine at Fernilee."

"By 1789 there were 22 cotton-spinning mills operating in
the county. In addition to the various mills operated by
Strutt, Arkwright and Evans families, there were others at
Litton, Cressbrook, Bamford, Calver, Tansley, Lumsdale, Lea,
Pleasley and Wilne. The mill at Litton was built in 1782 by
Ellis Needham (1760-1830) and his cousin thomas Frith on
land leased from Lord Scardale. It was not a great success,
but in 1786 William Newton (the framesmith and mechanic who
had built Arkwright's first mill at Cressbrook in 1783) was
offered a junior partnership of 200 pds id he would overhaul
and superintend the machinery thereafter. Newton was also to
become partner in the Brough and Castleton cotton mills. The
mill was worked by parish apprentices, and the first
apprentice house was built near the mill shortly before
1793. A second apprentice house was built in 1795 on land
purchased on the west bank of the River Wye in the parish of
Taddington. In 1797 Newton left the partnership to become an
innkeeper (having been left property by his Godmother on her
death that year). This however was not a success and in 1800
he became bankrupt. Nevertheless he managed to retrieve his
fortune and we next hear of him in 1810 being invited to
manage Cressbrook mill for Francis Phillips. After Newton's
departure the history of the Litton Mill acquired notoriety
through the Memoirs (published in 1832) of the London orphan
apprentice Robert Blincoe who was employed for his term
(1803-14) at Litton under Needham and purported to receive
extremely harsh treatment. It is clear that the requirements
of the Health and Morals of Apprentice Act of 1802,
introduced by Sir Robert Peel in order to establish minimum
standards in cotton factories, were being flouted at Litton.
Needham's apprentices were obligated to work more than the
statutory twelve hours every day; they were poorly fed, and
were often callously and brutally treated. Their plight was
in contrast to the paternal and humane treatment accorded to
his young apprentices by William Newton at his nearby
Cressbrook mills. It has to be remembered however that
Blincoe's story was first published in serial form by the
radical and controversial printer and publisher Richard
Carlile (1790-1843), a disciple of thomas Paine, and ws
subsequently published in memoir form by John Doherty the
founder of the National Union of cotton Spinners. The story
based on events that were alleged to have taken place 25
years earlier was clearly contrived as a sensational piece
of propaganda by those seeking to reform the factory
system."

"Needham was obviously as inadequate as a mill manager as he
was a competent and innovative farmer, and after his
financial backer Francis Haywood of Manchester became
bankrupt in 1798 he began to get into financial
difficulties, and in 1815 he himself was declared bankrupt.
At least 80 of his apprentices were left destitute and had
to be supported on parish relief; ten died between 1816 and
1818. It is a pathetic and shocking story. In 1816 Lord
Scarsdale canceled Needham's lease. Needham himself died in
Chapel-en-la-Firth in 1830. A new mill was built at Litton
in 1874 and little remains of the earlier buildings."

Ellis sounds like he was a real piece of work!!!

Cheers, Elizabeth
researching NEEDHAM/SMITH/BURTON/MASON/KIRK


This thread: