Gell family of Hopton Hall, Wirksworth

D8760

Gell family of Hopton Hall, Wirksworth

1714-1994

The contents of D8760 can be broadly summarised as follows:

D8760/E Estate material, consisting only of one map for Maynel Langley, late 18th century and documents for the London properties of the Porden family, 1794-1863
D8760/F Family records of the extended Franklin family and the later Gell family, 19th-20th centuries. The family records are sub-divided as follows:

D8760/F/FBO The Booth family of Lincolnshire
D8760/F/FEG Eleanor Isabella Franklin later Gell (1824-1860), only daughter of Sir John Franklin
D8760/F/FEP Eleanor Anne Porden (1795-1825), first wife of Sir John Franklin from 1823
D8760/F/FJR Sir John Richardson (1787-1865), colleague, friend and later relative of John Franklin
D8760/F/FKA The Kay family, the family of Eleanor Porden's sister, Sarah Henrietta
D8760/F/FLJ Lady Jane Franklin nee Griffin (1791-1875), second wife of Sir John Franklin
D8760/F/FSJ Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)
D8760/F/FWP William Porden (1754-1822), father of Eleanor Anne Porden
D8760/F/GBM Bord Pollen Manningham (1807-c.1830), relative of Henry Chandos Pole-Gell
D8760/F/GEL Edith Lyttelton Gell nee Brodrick (1860-1944), wife of Philip Lyttelton Gell
D8760/F/GFK Frederick Gell (1820-1902), brother of John Philip Gell
D8760/F/GHW Henry Willingham Gell (1856-1942), son of John Philip and Eleanor Isabella Gell
D8760/F/GJF John Franklin Gell (1851-1884), son of John Philip and Eleanor Isabella Gell
D8760/F/GJP John Philip Gell (1816-1898), husband of Eleanor Isabella Gell nee Franklin
D8760/F/GMF Mary Frances Gell (1854-1946), daughter of John Philip and Eleanor Isabella Gell
D8760/F/PLG Philip Lyttelton Gell (1852-1926), son of John Philip and Eleanor Isabella Gell
D8760/F/GPV Philip Victor Willingham Gell (1897-1970), son of Philip Lyttelton Gell, and his wife Aileen Edith Pauline nee Maunsell (1895-1986)
D8760/F/LIB Printed volumes and other printed material, mostly on Sir John Franklin and related topics
D8760/F/OBJ Objects collected by members of the Franklin and Gell families

A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of the letters can be downloaded below (second document).

Later generations of the Gell family had reorganised the material, particularly the letters, so that its original order was lost. The material has now been arranged, wherever possible, to restore a likely original order according to a standardised classification scheme.

It is envisaged that the D8760 collection will continue to expand to incorporate more items from the D258 and D3287 collections, as opportunities for the re-assignment and re-listing of other parts of the collections become available.

The remaining Gell family archive can be found in collections D258 and D3287.

24 boxes

This collection has been created in order to bring together and catalogue the Gell of Hopton archive which is currently split across two existing collection references D258, D3287 and the former collection reference D3311. Collection reference D258 had been originally deposited with the Derbyshire County Council in the early 1950s before it passed to the custody of the Derbyshire Record Office after its being opened in 1962. Collection reference D3287 was acquired by the Derbyshire Record Office in 1989 at the time that Hopton Hall was being sold by the Gell family. Collection D3311, which consisted of most of the Franklin material was acquired by the Derbyshire Record Office later in 1989.

The Gells have had a presence in Hopton from at least the 14th century to the late 20th century. They are first recorded as holding an estate in Hopton since at least 1327, with earlier references to them in Wirksworth in the early 13th century. The family derived their wealth from lead mining. It has been said that the Gells acquired the manor in the mid 14th century, but letters patent of 1553 show that Ralph Gell acquired the manor of Hopton then. The Hopton estate remained mostly in the Gell family for the next four centuries, at times passing through different branches of the the family. More information about its ownership can be obtained from the introductory sections of the D258 catalogue.

In 2018 Derbyshire Record Office received an Archives Revealed cataloguing grant to list in more detail the material relating to the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) and his family, including his two wives, Eleanor Anne Porden (1795-1825) and Jane Griffin, later known as Jane, Lady Franklin (1791-1875), and his daughter Eleanor Isabella (1824-1860), who married the Reverend John Philip Gell (1816-1898). All the material in the D3311 collection and several items from the D3287 collection have been removed and put into the new D8760 collection, where they re-listed in more detail to accord with current archival standards.