APLEY PARK ESTATE RECORDS

5586

APLEY PARK ESTATE RECORDS

1277-1974

The contents of a box that was sent by John Bradley & Co. (Stourbridge) Ltd., of Stourbridge, to Mr. R. P. Roney-Dougal, the estate agent, whose office was then (and until 1953) at 76 High Street, Bridgnorth, are for the most part 18a catalogued with other miscellaneous material in section 15. They may bear comparison with the records deposited in Worcestershire R.O. in 1963 by Harward & Evers, solicitors, of Stourbridge. 19

Apley Estate: agents

William Haslewood, by 1732 to 1760 20

Henry Wollaston, 1760-79 21

Thomas Barnfield, 1780-1815 22

Valentine Vickers, by 1822 to ?1833 23

Thomas Branson ('steward'), ?1833-42 24

John Samuel Smith, 1842-6 25

George Parson, 1846-54 26

William Wyley, 1854 to 1863 or later 27

Henry James Wyley, perhaps from the 1860s or 1870s to c. 1901 28

William Otway Wilson, c. 1901-(d.) 1934 29

Richard Patrick Roney-Dougal, 1934-76.

James Maxwell Donald, since 1976 30

1 A map (deposited temporarily for repair in 1962 and never reclaimed) and maps and books (lent, not deposited, in 1962) from the Apley Estate Office or Apley Pk. (S.R.O. 1762); a 1613 map of Morfe forest deposited in 1981 from the Apley Estate Office (S.R.O. 4296); a few deeds relating to Edwness, Apley Pk. estate, and Bridgnorth deposited by Brig. C. Goulburn in 1980 for cataloguing (S.R.O. 4387); Bridgnorth poll bks. for 1705 and 1741 deposited in 1987 through Dr. J. F. A. Mason (S.R.O. 5224). For S.R.O. 3628 see below, note 4. S.R.O. 1205 is a print of Apley Pk. (n.d.) presented by Worcs. R.O. in 1962. S.R.O. 1321 consists of microfilm and photocopies of maps and plans lent by the Apley Estate Office in 1963 through Mr. A. T. Gaydon, then working on the history of Woolstaston for the V.C.H.

2 V.C.H. Salop. iii. 244; iv. 134; T.S.A.S. 4th ser. iv. 267-8; v. 54, 56-7.

3 V.C.H. Salop. iii. 242.

3a T.S.A.S. 4th ser. v. 62, 65; V.C.H. Glos. vi. 130.

3b e.g. below, 5586/5/5/30-30A,.

4 Formerly in the Apley Estate Office, but deposited by Gen. Goulburn in 1977 as S.R.O. 3628. Cf. V.C.H. Salop. iii. 280.

5 V.C.H. Salop. iii. 280, 282, 311; iv. 208; viii. 101, 152, 173; T.S.A.S. liv. 200; G.E.C. Baronetage, ii. 124 note b.

6 V.C.H. Salop. iii. 311 n. 56, 335; iv. 208; N. Mutton, 'The Foster Fam.: A Study of a Midland Industrial Dynasty 1786-1899' (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1974), 212 (copy in S.R.O. 5403/6/1/2).

7 V.C.H. Salop. iii. 232 and n. 3, 242, 336; J. F. A. Mason, Boro. of Bridgnorth 1157--1957 (Bridgnorth, 1957).

8 The Madeley Ct. est. was bought for its coal and iron (V.C.H. Salop. xi. 37, 48, 51), the manor of Whixall, with 200 a. of turbary, apparently for fuel for the forges: Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 212; T.S.A.S. lviii. 241.

8a Below, 5586/2/3/1-36. For what follows, except where otherwise stated, see Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 210-18.

8b Below, 5586/2/19/1-3, 6-9, 11; 5586/2/20/1-4.

8c Below, 5586/13/156.

9 J. Bateman, Gt. Landowners of Gt. Brit. and Irel. (1883), 173; T.S.A.S. lviii. 239; W. Hughes, Sheriffs of Salop. 1831 to 1886 (Shrews. 1886), 79. His dau. in law, (née Mahon), wife of his heir (marr. 1874), was of Co. Roscommon.

9a Under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1901, 1 Edw. VII, c. 3. Cf. below, 5586/5/5/24, pp. 31-4.

9b Cf. V.C.H. Worcs. iii.

9c S.P.L., sale cat. 27/41; below, 5586/6/3.

9d Kelly's Dir. Salop. (1934), 334; (1941), 313; below, 5586/5/5/27, pp. 103-5; 5586/6/4. Items from Woodcote were deposited in 1949: S.R.O. 224, 231, 234.

11 T.S.A.S. lviii. 239.

12 Daily Telegraph, 16 Jan. 1961, p. 13.

13 The Times, 19 Feb. 1980, p. 14.

14 Ibid. 28 Apr. 1990, p. 12; Shropshire Star, 18 Apr. 1990, p. 14.

15 Burke, Land. Gent. (1952), 1029--30; Burke, Peerage (1967), 1145.

16 V.C.H. Surr. iii. 168; S.C.C. Mins. (Educ.) 1960--1, 61--6; 1961--2, 133.

16a Many of the 'Charters (Various places)' (below, 5586/2/1/1 sqq.) have more than one no. pencilled on them. The (presumably) more recent numbering seems to antedate the boxing and binding work of the Lamacrafts in 1935-6: in boxing the 'Charters' the Lamacrafts preserved the old nos. but separated some categories of 'charter' to be boxed out of numerical sequence: see notes inside lids of their boxes.

16b Below, 5586/2/12/2a.

16c Below, 5586/1/105-7; 5586/15/208-14. A bk. by Shadwell and H. Russell, Notes on the Manor and Family of Whitmore, taken from the Court Rolls of the Manor of Claverley, Shropshire (Boston, 1938), must have been an offshoot of this work. It is referred to in a letter (19) in but has not been traced in the British Library or National Union catalogues.

17 Below, 5586/15/208-14.

17a Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 210, 213-18.

17b W. O. Foster (d. 1899), however, was unable to deal with business adequately in his later yrs. (ibid. 158-9; Ld. Berners, First Childhood (1934), cap. 2), and W. H. Foster did not have such immediate authority over the agents during his father's lifetime.

17c Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 226, 231.

17d Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 178-9.

17e Ibid. 146-7; below, 5586/15/8; S.R.O. 5403/16/2. Mutton's inf. on the Pearces should be compared with their printed genealogy below, 5586/14/13.

17f Mutton, 'Foster Fam.' 146; Kelly's Dir. Salop. (1934), 284 (last mention); cf. previous note.

17g V.C.H. Salop. xi. 38.

18 Dr. J. F. A. Mason, Dr. N. Mutton, Dr. M. D. G. Wanklyn, V.C.H. editorial staff, etc.

18a Except for some Staffs. and Worcs. deeds (below, 5586/2/20/1-4) and a bdle. of corresp. (below, 5586/5/20/1).

19 Worcs. R.O., ref. 705:260 BA 4000: list in S.R.O. searchroom. Parts of this deposit were later transferred to Staffs. R.O. and Dudley Public Libr. A copy of a list (c. 1965) of Haward & Evers material is in the Apley Estate Records deposit file, Records and Research Unit: it was made by Mr. (later Dr.) N. Mutton for his own research purposes and the material was then in Brierley Hill Public Libr. In 1991, however, the Library had only a single file of papers relating to John Bradley & Co. and they concerned the building or a railway bridge at Shut End in 1869. The material listed by Dr. Mutton at Brierley Hill had in fact by then passed to the Archives and Local History Dept. of Dudley Libraries. In the 1980s, when the firm closed, that Dept. received three accessions (8435, 8439, and 8441) of records from John Bradley & Co. (Stourbridge) Ltd.

20 Below, 5586/5/5/29-31.

21 Below, 5586/5/5/31-33.

22 Below, 5586/5/5/33-37; cf. S.R.O. 1104, box and parcels 33, for Barnfield's letter bks. 1780-1806 (3 vols.) and loose enclosures.

23 Below, 5586/5/5/38-48; cf. S.R.O. 515, 2496, 2889, 5306.

24 Below, 5586/5/5/49-62.

25 Below, 5586/5/5/63-72.

26 Below, 5586/5/5/73-88.

27 Below, 5586/5/5/89-98.

28 By 1863 and in 1870 Wm. and Wm. J. Wyley, land agents, were living at Dothill Pk. At Bridgnorth there was a firm of land agents called Wyley & Taylor in 1863, but by 1870 that firm was represented only by H. J. Wyley. It was H. J. Wyley, in the partnership Keary, Wyley & de Wend formed in the 1870s, who was the Fosters' agent for the Apley estate in the late 19th century and until c. 1901. See P.O. Dir. Salop. (1863-79); E. Cassey & Co. Dir. Salop. (1871); Kelly's Dir. Salop. (1885-1905); below, 5586/15/63, 194-5, 204.

29 Below, 5586/5/5/198; 5586/15/63, 204; Kelly's Dir. Salop. (1905), 256; (1934), 284.

30 Of Burd & Evans, Sch. Gdns., Shrews.: inf. from Apley Estate Office.

The archive is arranged in accordance with the scheme recommended for estate records by the Society of Archivists. In the list the Lamacrafts' arrangement has been respected as far as possible, though it has been necessary to supersede most of their numbers. A concordance of old and new numbers has been placed at the end of the list. That has been done not only because work of such quality is a notable event in the history of a private archive, but also because historians who have had generous access to the estate records over the years 18 have cited documents arranged by the Lamacrafts according to the box and deed descriptions and numbers given to them in 1935.

English

• <famname>Whitmore family of Shropshire</famname>
• <famname>Foster family of Shropshire</famname>
• <famname>Goulburn family of Shropshire</famname>

4.45 m³

THE MAIN bulk of 'ancient' records of the Apley Park estate was deposited in the Shropshire Record Office (S.R.O.) by the Trustees of the Goulburn Settled Estates after their removal from the Apley Estate Office (the Governor's House, 18 East Castle Street, Bridgnorth) on 17 October 1990. There had been earlier deposits of particular items. 1

The Apley Park estate was assembled in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by William Whitmore of London (d. 1593), his son Sir William Whitmore (kt. 1621, d. 1648), and his grandson Sir Thomas Whitmore (kt. and bt. 1641, d. 1653). Descended from a long line of Claverley copyholders and deriving their name from Whittimere in Bobbington, the Whitmores were investing their City profits in land primarily in their native county but also in Gloucestershire, Somerset, and other counties. 2 The Shropshire estates they bought included that of the Horde family of Hoards Park in Astley Abbots, with much Bridgnorth town property inherited from the Palmer family. 3

On the death, without issue, of Sir William Whitmore, 2nd bt., in 1699, the baronetcy became extinct and the Apley estate passed to Sir William's relation and godson William Whitmore of Slaughter (Glos.), great grandson of Sir William (d. 1648). 3a The rental sequence shows that Sir William left an estate consisting of chantry property, yearly rents, and tithes and lands in the parishes of Alveley, Astley Abbots, Bridgnorth, Chetton, Claverley, Kidderminster (Worcs.), Morville, Oldbury, Quatford, Stockton, Tasley, and Worfield besides property in other counties. Purchases continued under his successors: the rental sequence shows that William Whitmore (who married Elizabeth Pope) bought more property in Astley Abbots, Bridgnorth, and Worfield: that may have formed the 'Trust estate' referred to in the rentals. Property in Bridgnorth was bought from Mr. Yate, Mrs. Warter, and Mr. Boucher. Perhaps c. 1755 an estate was bought from George Wellings. 3b

The Whitmores' Shropshire estates reached their territorial apogee (c. 14,800 a.) at the time of Dutton and Hand's 1777 survey. 4 William Whitmore's son Sir Thomas, of Apley, inherited the Pope family's Woolstaston estate (including Smethcott and Leebotwood) on the death of Catherine Pope in 1754. Sir Thomas settled that property on his daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Maj. Thomas Whitmore (grandson of William Whitmore), in 1771. Sir Thomas died in 1773, disappointed in his expectation of the Wolryches Dudmaston estate. His bachelor brother George inherited Apley and, next year, the Dudmaston estate, only to die in 1775. The Apley estate then passed to Maj. Thomas Whitmore who had had Woolstaston since 1771.

Dudmaston, however, was separated from Apley and Woolstaston on George Whitmore's death, and from 1775 it belonged to Maj. Whitmore's nephew William Whitmore, whose heirs were eventually known (though there was no blood connexion with the Wolryches) as Wolryche-Whitmore. 5 The main part of the Apley Park estate remained in the Whitmores' hands until 1867 when, very heavily incumbered, it was sold by Capt. T. C. D. Whitmore to W. O. Foster, a Stourbridge (Worcs.) ironmaster and descendant of a Cheshire family. 6 For many generations, under the Palmers, the Hordes, the Whitmores, and at last the Fosters, the estate conferred much power over the municipal affairs and parliamentary representation of the borough of Bridgnorth. The parliamentary borough (which returned two members) was abolished in 1885. 7

Not all the Fosters' estates whose records are listed below were bought from the Whitmores in 1867. One of their first landed properties was Windy Arbour, near Nantwich (Ches.), bought in 1788. Other early acquisitions were the Madeley Court estate and the manor of Whixall, bought in 1828 and 1829 by James Foster, the Stourbridge ironmaster. 8 Property in Alveley was bought 8a before the Apley estate, and much property was owned, some since the later 18th century, in Staffordshire and Worcestershire. 8b In the 1840s James Foster began the negotiations which led to his acquisition (1852) of the Annesley family's Camolin Park estate, Co. Wexford. 8c When James Foster died in 1853 his property passed to his nephew W. O. Foster, who was thus a considerable landowner in England and Ireland before his purchase of Apley. In Co. Wexford, of which he was high sheriff in 1876, he owned 9,724 a. (gross annual value £4,686) by the early 1880s. 9 The Irish estates were sold off by W. O. Foster's son and heir W. H. Foster in the early 20th century. 9a In 1859-60 W. O. Foster had also bought the 1,256-a. Elmley Park estate in Elmley Lovett (Worcs.) for his younger son James. 9b Capt. James Foster moved to Woodcote Hall, near Newport, which he bought in 1925. 9c After his death in 1927 it was the home of his sister Miss C. E. Foster. By 1934 Miss Foster's newphew, Maj. A. W. Foster, was the principal landowner in Woodcote, and it was he who sold the Hall in 1949. 9d

Maj. A. W. Foster had inherited the Apley Park estate from his father in 1924. He died a bachelor in 1960 and his Shropshire estate, 8--9,000 a., then passed to his nephew, Maj.-Gen. E. H. Goulburn. 12 Gen. Goulburn, also a bachelor, died in 1980, 13 and his brother Brig. Cuthbert Goulburn, of Ewdness, another bachelor, died in 1990. 14 The main beneficiary of the Goulburn Settled Estates trusts was by then the 4th Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, grandson of the Goulburns' cousin Amy Cecile Ricardo, who had married Maj. the Hon. L. d'H. Hamilton. 15 Lord Hamilton, like Gen.

Goulburn before him, lived at Betchworth House near Reigate (Surr.), the Goulburns' seat since 1819. After Maj. Foster's death Apley Park was leased (in 1962) to the Salop County Council as a secondary-modern boarding school; the school closed in 1987. 16

The estate archives were in general well cared for by the Fosters. Around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries many of the older deeds may have been numbered. 16a It was at that time that W. de G. Birch's opinion on a royal grant was sought 16b and that W. H. L. Shadwell transcribed the early Claverley manor court rolls. 16c In 1935-6 the manorial documents and the oldest muniments of title were boxed and bound for Maj. Foster by C. T. and Doris F. Lamacraft, of East Finchley, 'professional restorers and mounters of ancient records' and connected with Lamacraft & Laurence, binders, Museum Street, W.C.I. The work was done in the British Museum. 17

A list of the agents who administered the estate for the Whitmores and their successors is appended to this introductory note. It is worth noting that the Wyleys were not displaced from the Apley agency by the change of owner in 1867. That may be due in part to the fact that the Apley estate, great as it was, was only part of the Fosters' enormous wealth 17a and in part to the fact that central direction and administration of their overall financial and industrial affairs was determined by the Fosters 17b in consultation with their long-serving and influential agents in Stourbridge. 17c notable among whom, apparently, were Richard Lowndes 17d and various members of the Pearce family. 17e From c. 1911 to the 1930s Howard Wyndham Pearce lived at Apley as Maj. Foster's private secretary. 17f His uncle Charles Worth Pearce managed affairs at Madeley about the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. 17g