Edenhall Introduction
Please also read Edenhall:Technical, which you can get to by clicking on the Edenhall thumbnail above.
In 2009, I saw that a dealer on eBay (Dennis Morrison, Border Stamps, Hawick) was selling documents from the Edenhall estate in Cumbria. These were mainly bills and receipts predominantly from the 18th and 19th centuries, with a few documents from the late 17th century. Most of these documents contain personal names, usually the name of the tradesman who had submitted the bill or signed the receipt in addition to the name of the agent or steward who had paid the bill on behalf of the MUSGRAVE family. Some documents contain whole lists of names. In addition to the obvious relevance to family historians, the documents as a group also give a fascinating insight into the lifestyle of the MUSGRAVE family and the expenses involved in running a big household.
It saddened me that a family archive like this was being irretrievably dispersed, and I decided to transcribe the documents still offered for sale from the excellent scans the seller had provided on eBay. Unfortunately many of the documents had already been sold, and for those the scans were no longer available.
I bought the remainders of two boxes of Edenhall documents from Dennis and I am slowly working my way through the originals. The first box contained a total of 66 bundles with 1769 individual documents, and the second box is slightly bigger but has not yet been transcribed – it mainly contains 19th century documents.
Dennis continues to put more documents on eBay so this is an ongoing project and more transcriptions will be added in the future.
The first box of original documents is now in Carlisle Record Office, and the second box will also be given to the Record Office once I have completed the transcriptions.
I have tried to transcribe the documents as accurately as possible and to preserve as much of their style as I could, particularly when it comes to 19th century printed billheads, but of course a typed transcription can never give the same impression as an original document, and in particular it cannot replace the personal touch of people’s signatures and marks. Old handwriting is not always easy to read, and there may well be transcription mistakes as well as typing errors, for which I apologise.
I have used the following rules when transcribing:
All spelling is transcribed exactly as found in the document.
If a word was difficult to read or the transcription made no sense, I have added a question mark or comment in square brackets [?]. If words or letters were completely illegible, they were replaced by asterisks *** .
Surnames have been capitalised. All other use of capitals is as found in the document (sometimes it was difficult to decide whether initial letters were upper or lower case).
Transcribed signatures are preceded by [signed].
The marks made by people unable to write were represented with a letter or symbol as close as possible in their appearance to the original mark, but it was not always possible to find a closely matching symbol.
If there were several pages to one document or several documents in the same lot, different pages and documents were separated by wavy lines ~~~~~~~ .
The documents are listed in chronological order, with a heading and some additional information (e.g. size and condition of the document) based on the seller’s or my own description of the item and occasionally some background information.
The tag system has been used to create an index of surnames by their standard spelling. Several documents had too many surnames for the tag system and have been given the tag “Not fully indexed”. The category system has been used to create an index of occupations and locations (counties and some places).
I hope that researchers will find these transcriptions useful not only as a resource for their own family history research but also as fascinating fragments of social history.
Petra E. Mitchinson
July 2014
2. The Musgrave Family, Baronets of Edenhall
The MUSGRAVE family had long been a leading family of Cumberland and Westmorland and was originally of Hartley Castle in Westmorland. After a marriage around 1549 of Thomas MUSGRAVE to Joan, elder daughter and coheir of William STAPLETON of Edenhall, the MUSGRAVEs made Edenhall in Cumberland their main residence; Hartley Castle was demolished by the 5th baronet (1704-1735) for building stones, which were used to repair Edenhall. Edenhall was sold by the family in 1921 and demolished in 1934.
The MUSGRAVE Baronetcy was created in the Baronetage of England on 29 June 1611 for Richard MUSGRAVE, MP for Westmorland.
1st Baronet (1611-1615), Sir Richard MUSGRAVE
Born 1585 at Kirkby Stephen. Died 06 Nov 1615 aged 30 at Napoli, Italy.
Married Frances WHARTON in 1602. One daughter (died unmarried) and one son Philip, who succeeded him.
2nd Baronet (1615-1677), Sir Philip MUSGRAVE
Born 21 May 1607 at Edenhall. Died 07 Feb 1677/8 aged 70 at Edenhall.
Married Juliana HUTTON in 1625. Seven children, of which son Richard succeeded him as 3rd baronet, and son Christopher became 4th baronet after the death of his brother.
MP for Westmorland 1640-42, resigned and fought for the Royalist cause in the Civil War, for which he was rewarded after the Restoration with a patent of peerage (which he never took up), a grant for 31 years of the passing tolls on cattle going through Cumberland (very lucrative), and the appointment of Governor of Carlisle Castle. MP for Westmorland 1661 until his death in 1677.
3rd Baronet (1677-1687), Sir Richard MUSGRAVE
Born June 1628 at Edenhall. Died 27 Dec 1687 aged 59.
Married Margaret HARRISON. One daughter Mary, who married John DAVISON of Blakestone , Co. Durham.
After Sir Richard’s death, the baronetcy passed to his younger brother Christopher.
4th Baronet (1687-1704), Sir Christopher MUSGRAVE
Born c. 1631 at Edenhall. Died 29 Jul 1704 aged c. 73 at Swallow Street, London.
Married twice. First marriage 31 May 1660 to Mary COGAN. Second marriage 15 May 1671 to Elizabeth FRANKLAND/FRANCKLYN. 3 children from first and 12 children from second marriage. Succeeded by his grandson Christopher, only son of his eldest son Philip (1660-1689).
MP for more than 40 years (Carlisle 1661-90, Westmorland 1690-95, Appleby 1695-98, University of Oxford 1698-1701, Totnes 1701-02, Westmorland 1702-04).
5th Baronet (1704-1735), Sir Christopher MUSGRAVE
Born 25 Dec 1688 in London (son of Philip MUSGRAVE & Mary LEGGE). Died Jan 1735/6 aged 47 at Penwortham, Lancashire.
Married Julia CHARDIN on 21 Jun 1711. 11 children, including Philip (6th baronet), Hans (born 1717) and Chardin (1723-1768).
Demolished Hartley Castle. MP for Carlisle (1713-15) and Cumberland (1722-27).
6th Baronet (1735-1795), Sir Philip MUSGRAVE
Born 04 May 1712 at Edenhall. Died 05 Jul 1795 aged 83 at Kempton Park, Sunbury, Middlesex.
Married Jane TURTON on 06 Jul 1742. 10 children, all but two were girls. Succeeded by his son John Chardin.
MP for Westmorland 1741-47.
7th Baronet (1795-1806), Sir John Chardin MUSGRAVE
Born 15 Jan 1757 at Edenhall. Died 24 Jul 1806 aged 49 at Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Married Mary FILMER on 13 Jul 1791. 5 children. Three of his sons successively inherited the baronetcy.
8th Baronet (1806-1827), Sir Philip Christopher MUSGRAVE
Born 12 Jul 1794 at Marylebone, Middlesex. Died 11 July 1827 aged 33 at Edenhall.
Married Elizabeth FLUDYER on 21 Oct 1824. One daughter who died aged 18.
Succeeded by his younger brother Christopher John.
MP for Petersfield (1820-25) and Carlisle (1825-27).
9th Baronet (1827-1834), Rev. Sir Christopher John MUSGRAVE
Born 06 Aug 1797 at Edenhall (son of 7th baronet). Died 04 May 1834 aged 36 at Edenhall.
Married Marianne HASELL on 14 Sep 1825 (she died 1835). Five daughters. Succeeded by his younger brother George.
10th Baronet (1834-1872), Sir George MUSGRAVE
Born 14 Jun 1799 at Edenhall (son of 7th baronet). Died 29 Sep 1872 aged 73 in London.
Married Charlotte Catherine GRAHAM (of Netherby) on 20 Jun 1828. 3 sons and 3 daughters, but the two older sons predeceased him. Succeeded by his youngest son Richard Courtenay.
11th Baronet (1872-1881), Sir Richard Courtenay MUSGRAVE
Born 31 Aug 1838 at Edenhall. Died 13 Feb 1881 aged 42 at Marylebone, London.
Married Adora Frances Olga WELLS on 17 Jan 1867. 8 children. Succeeded by his son Richard George.
Lord Lieutenant of Westmorland 1876-81. MP for Cumberland East 1880-81.
12th Baronet (1881-1926), Sir Richard George MUSGRAVE
Born 11 Oct 1872 at Edenhall. Died 21 May 1926 aged 53 in London.
Married Eleanor HARBORD on 09 Feb 1895. 2 sons. Succeeded by his only surviving son Nigel Courtenay.
Stopped living at Edenhall around 1900 and sold the hall and estate in 1921.
13th Baronet (1926-1957), Sir Nigel Courtenay MUSGRAVE
Born 11 Feb 1896 at Edenhall. Died 19 Feb 1957 aged 61.
Unmarried. Succeeded by his cousin Charles MUSGRAVE.
14th Baronet (1957-1970), Sir Charles MUSGRAVE
Born 09 Nov 1913 in London, son of Thomas Charles MUSGRAVE (a son of the 11th Baronet) and Ethel FROST. Died 26 Jul 1970 aged 56.
Married Olive Louise Avril CRINGLE in 1948.
15th Baronet (since 1970), Sir Christopher Patrick Charles MUSGRAVE
Born 14 Apr 1949 in Norwich District.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Musgrave Manor website (no longer exists)
The Times Digital Archive
FreeBMD
BMD on Ancestry.co.uk
The Memorial Inscriptions of Edenhall etc. (transcribed by Jeremy Goodwin, published by Cumbria FHS 2002)
No guarantees for accuracy of details!