SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY

A Message from New Zealand.
and
Richardsons, Creasers in Victorian Skelton. Can anyone help.


The following email was received 18 April 2016 from Catherine Hill [nee Flintoff] of-
11 Bay Road,
Riverton 9822,
New Zealand.

Hello Bill Danby,
I am impressed by the detail on the Skelton in Cleveland History you have placed on the web.
For, me, living at the opposite side of the world it is amazing to be able to have such a thorough look at a village which sits a long way back in my family history.
I recently found where a distant matriarch was born to one Thomas Carter in 1725 and the record does not give the mother's name just refers to her as 'bastard'.
I see you have had access to the Skelton Poor Book and give details of those for 1722.
Is it possible you are able to access 1725 to find out where my Dinah Carter, daughter of Thomas Carter fits?
I see also references to a William Flintaf receiving charity of 2 shillings and one pound.
While I do not think he is the William Flintoffe of Great Ayton who married Dinah Carter about five weeks before giving birth to my 4Xgreat grandfather Francis Flintoff, it could fill in a bit of history anyway if you can discover anything of him.
I am happy to pay for any information you can find on this family.
As a local historian I know what it takes to do searches.
I wish other villages had histories even half as comprehensive.
And I realize this is an on-going project.
Well done.


The Skelton Poor Book of 1722, to which Catherine refers, was unfortunately just a loose page that Dorothy "Dot" Harris found in the Skelton Parish Registers, when she was transcribing them in 1984. [see page 57]
Dot, who has contributed much to this website, had said in the past that she would not mind undertaking research for the odd enquiry, so I put Catherine in touch with her.
It transpires that Catherine's 5x Great Grandmother, Dinah Carter, was in fact born in Skelton Parish, at nearby Upleatham.
She was a widow, formerly Easton, and married William Flintoffe of Great Ayton.
If anyone reading this has any of the above mentioned in their ancestry, please let me know and I will inform Catherine.

David Taylor on behalf of The Great Ayton History Society has recently been sharing information on the lads from that village who died in the First War for my website on our local 4th Yorks Battalion.
He has also kindly given me the following URL for anyone interested in the Censuses and Parish Registers of their village -
Click here.



WHERE IN SKELTON WERE THE RICHARDSON'S HOUSE AND FARM -
THAT JOHN WHARTON M.P. OF SKELTON CASTLE CONTRACTED TO BUY, BUT COULD NOT AFFORD ?

The following email was received from Jeanne Renshaw of Winchester, Hants on 29th June 2016.

I have been looking at the fabulous website 'Skelton-in -Cleveland History'.
My 4thx Great Grandfather was John Richardson.
He lived at Kilton Thorpe and married Jane Duck in 1738 in Skelton.
They had a son Daniel Richardson, who was baptised in Brotton in 1747.
Daniel sometime between 1796-1804 moved to farm at Lund Cote (now Lund Court Farm), Nawton in Kirkdale.
He died at Lund Cote 6 Nov 1813.
His will was proved in York on 20 July 1814 and went to Chancery 30 Dec 1817.
He entered into an agreement in 1811 to sell John Wharton of Skelton Castle in 1811, 57 acres and a farm house.
There seems to have been some a problem with the sale, as it never seemed to go ahead in his life time.
Do you have any knowledge of the Richardson's owning land in Skelton, or John Wharton's estate business please ?
Any help would be appreciated.

The Will of Daniel Richardson [1745 to 1813] begins by leaving to his immediate family all of his property and possessions in Nawton, a small village between Helmsley and Kirbymoorside, N Yorks, about 30 miles from Skelton in Cleveland.
It then continues -

"Also I further give and devise unto my said son Daniel Richardson, his heirs and assigns forever all my messuage and garth and also all that my Close or parcel of ground situated at Skelton in Cleveland in the said county of York.

Whereas, I did sometime ago agree with John Wharton of Skelton Castle, in the said County of York Esquire, for the sale to him of all that my messuage or dwelling house, farm, closes or parcels of ground, and also all that parcel of ground covered with wood containing altogether fifty seven aces, three rods and eleven perches be the same more or less situate lying and be in the township precincts for territories of Skelton in Cleveland in the said county of York and now in the occupation of John Hold as tenant or farmer thereof with all the appurtenances thereunto belonging at or for the price or sum of £3,875.
And by an agreement entered into with the said John Wharton, bearing date the 21st October 1811, I did agree to grant, sell, release convey and assure unto the said John Wharton his heirs and assigns or to whom he or they should appoint.
All the same premises on or before the 13th May 1812, upon payment etc etc."

A codicil to the Will shows that the sale of the land in Skelton to John Wharton was never completed.
As the pages of this website record, this John Wharton, named in the Will, squandered a great fortune, inherited from his Aunt, on re-building Skelton Castle, the Parish Church and bribing the populace of Beverley to become their MP.
He ended his life in the Fleet Debtors' Prison.
The fortunes of Skelton Castle were restored only by the discovery of Iron ore under its land later in the second half of the 19th Century.
This Will and Wharton's failure to complete the land sale contract, was interestingly just a part of his bankruptcy and used as a piece of evidence in the legal procedures that ended in his imprisonment.
In the early 19th Century, the Skelton Castle Estate and Skelton Parish covered a wide area , but for family researchers, like Jeanne, and those of us who are just simply fascinated by our Local History, it would be interesting to know exactly where the farm buildings and land referred to in the Will were located and how the Richardsons came to own in Skelton a house and farm in the first place.

Please email the address on Introduction page, if you can assist or have any connections to the family.

Hi Bill,
Can I just congratulate you on your website, it is a really terrific and interesting resource.
I am from Garforth and I just wish we had something similar.
I/we regularly spend a few weeks here, in our tourer caravan and I like to research the local areas we are staying. We stay at How La Hay farm.
Harry Bloomfield.

CREASERS IN SKELTON.
Dear Mr Danby,
I've just discovered your fascinating website, brimming with social history.
My interest in Skelton is that my Great, Great Aunt and family moved there from Wintingham, in rural north Yorkshire.
I found them there in 1891 and 1901, her husband previously had been an agricultural labourer and found work in Skelton as an ironstone miner.
So it was so interesting to see on your website the sort of life they might have lived.
Thankyou,
Liz Kirkpatrick.

The Aunt was Sarah Ann Creaser [nee Dobson] born in 1845 in Rillington and died in 1906.
She was married to William Smith Creaser,(1841-1908).
In 1891 he was an Ironstone Miner, most likely at Park Pit and living at 30 Park St, Skelton.
Their children at that time were John, 20, a shoemaker, Arthur, 18, Miner, Martha, 11 and Sarah Ellen, 5.
By 1901 they had moved to Carney St, Boosbeck. John and Arthur had left home. Martha was a dressmaker and Sarah a Stocking knitter hose.
Sarah married a Mr Duckering.
Martha married their Ironstone Miner lodger, Richard Coulthard. They had 2 children, Ernest, born Skelton 1910 and died 1924, somewhere in Cleveland. And Robert William, born 1911 in Boosbeck.
The family emigrated to Alberta, Canada in the mid 1920s. Martha died 1927, Richard, 1948 and Robert William 1981.
If anyone knows anything more about the family, please email the address on the Introduction page.

Go to Next page - The Church Rates for the Parish of Skelton in Cleveland.
Go to Previous page - The Orphans of Hollybush Farm.
Go Back to Index of Emails.
Go Back to Main Contents.