Salkeld Clients

Correspondence with his client Mrs Salkeld as to her estate at Whitehall

Note: These papers mainly concern AH the elder, but some of those in Bundle 24 are of 1780 and after. AH the elder (= Counsellor Hudleston) died in August 1780

Thereafter, "AH" signifies Andrew Hudleston his son, of Gray's Inn, called to the Bar in Trinity 1756. (Married 1794. Buried 1821. His only child Andrew Fleming Hudleston born 1796).

Salkeld correspondence: Introduction

This Mrs Salkeld was Margaret (née Charlton of Hesleyside near Bellingham in Northumberland born at Newcastle in 1716, married her cousin Dr Henry Salkeld in London, 1737; no children; lived at Whitehall, Cumberland, till his death in 1749. In 1750, various relatives and "adventurers" began the long series of lawsuits with which this correspondence is concerned; complicated by Sir James Lowther's part in stop-go buying her colliery at Clifton near Workington, in putting forth new claimants at law to embarrass the title and so hinder the sale; and in Lord Verney's attempt to gain the estate. The Charltons of Hesleyside and the Salkelds of Whitehall were both Roman Catholic families.

As her husband was last of the male line, on her death (1769) the estate passed to her nephew William Charlton of Hesleyside, then a minor living in Paris.

The worry and frustration of these never-ending proceedings broke her spirits and health; she died on 20 April 1769, aged 53. The lawsuits continued after her death.

The estate was a moderate one, but much burdened with her late husband's debts and mortgages, which she sought to pay off by getting it sold once the lawsuits were concluded. It lay mainly in the parishes of Allhallows and Torpenhow and in the manors of Elennerhasset and Upmanby and Clifton Cumberland), also the rectory and tithes of Ireby and Newbiggin Grange nearby, leased from the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle. As lady of the manor of Clifton, she was much concerned with Clifton Colliery. In Yorkshire, she had the Manor of Catterick.