The Croft, Pardshaw, with inscription dating the porch.
This page last updated 31 January 2017.
This is my own surname line. It seems that for centuries the family stayed in a fairly small area of central and western Cumberland. The occupations have also been quite consistent; where information is available they all seem to have been yeoman farmers / landowners.
For many generations they were members of the religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which strongly influenced their marriages etc.
13. John (d 1578) and Jane WILLIAMSON, of Newhall, in the parish of Crosthwaite, Cumberland. More
12. John (1575-1610) and Winifred (d 1611/12) WILLIAMSON of Newhall. More
11a. Humphrey (b 14 Feb 1601/02) and Dorothy WILLIAMSON. Dorothy was previously a TICKELL of Thornthwaite. More
11b. Humphrey and Bridget WILLIAMSON. Bridget was previously a SOWERBY of Millbeck.
10. Jonathan (b 1625) and Mary WILLIAMSON of Tallentire in the parish of Bridekirk. Mary was previously a BOWES of Tallentire. More
9. William (1669-1712) and Mary (d1726)WILLIAMSON. More
8. Jonathan (1699-1779) and Rebecca (1707-68) WILLIAMSON of Allonby, married 1735. Rebecca was previously a WILSON of Graythwaite. More
7. Thomas (1736-1820) and Hannah (abt 1746 - 1813) WILLIAMSON of Allonby, married 1766. Hannah was previously a ROBSON of Thurstonfield. More
6. William (1777-1860) and Ann (1786-1819) WILLIAMSON of Allonby, married 1815. Ann was previously a BEEBY of Allonby. More
5a. Thomas (1815-87) and Deborah (1808-77) WILLIAMSON, married 1838. Deborah was previously a ROBINSON of Pardshaw. More
5b. Thomas and Anna (Anbyor?) WILLIAMSON. Anna was previously a BYDNESEN from Norway.
4. Joseph Robinson (1842-80) and Sarah Jane (1846-88) WILLIAMSON of Pardshaw, married 1868. Sarah Jane was previously a TOMLINSON of Whitehaven. More
3. Thomas Edward (1874-1950) and Sarah (1875-1935) WILLIAMSON of Pardshaw, married 1904. Sarah was previously a PATTINSON of Blennerhasset. More
For research notes, click here.
John was from Newhall or New Hall, Crosthwaite - seemingly to the north of the modern town of Keswick, under Skiddaw, near Great Crosthwaite, Applethwaite (NY2625) and/or Millbeck (NY2526). He and his wife Jane baptised five children in the local parish church:
John (10 July 1569, died young)
Katherine (12 July 1571)
Mabel (22 November 1573)
John (21 December 1575)
Isobel (18 August 1577)
John died on 12 June 1578, leaving the youngest child, Isabel, just a year old. Jane remarried on 13 September 1579 in Crosthwaite John LANCASTER of Dacre (a few miles east of Keswick).
I have some sketchy details about the later lives of the children.
For John see below.
Mabel married William RICHARDSON 1590, aged just 17 or thereabouts.
Isabel died 25 Feb 1607, aged 30.
Katherine married John GRAHAM 22 Mar 1607 - which must have been a somewhat subdued family celebration, given the recent death
of Isabel.
For research notes, click here.
John and Winifred had four children - Humphrey (1601), Francis (1604), John (1606) and Anthony (1608). John died in 1608 aged only about 2. I know nothing of the later lives of Francis or Anthony. See below for Humphrey.
Both parents died while the boys were still young - John in 1610 and Winifred in 1611-2. Humphrey, Francis and Anthony would have been aged about 9, 7 and 3 when they were orphaned - I don't know who brought them up.
For research notes, click here.
Humphrey lived in Crosthwaite parish. He married Dorothy TICKELL in 1620, when he would have been
only about 19 or 20; she was from Thornthwaite, which is not a unique place name in Cumberland
but presumably refers to the Thornthwaite in the parish of Crosthwaite, a few miles to the west of Keswick, Great Crosthwaite,
etc. They had five sons:
John (1623)
Jonathan (1625)
Richard (1627)
Humphrey (1631)
Joseph (1633).
I don't know anything about the later lives of most of these. For Jonathan see below.
Dorothy seems to have died some time between 1633 and 1636, with the boys no older than about 13 and Joseph probably very young.
In 1636 Humphrey remarried, aged about 35, to Bridget SOWERBY of Millbeck (likewise not a unique place name but presumably in this case the Millbeck referred to above). They had three more children - Katherine (1637), Francis (1639) and Dorothy (1643).
For research notes, click here.
Jonathan married Mary BOWES of Tallentire. Tallentire is in the parish of Bridekirk, some distance to the west of Crosthwaite.
Jonathan and Mary set up their home in Tallentire, where they had at least seven children, baptised as follows - Mary (1654), Jane (1656), Thomas (1659?), Agnes (1665), Isabella (1667), William (1669) and John (1670). Possibly also Dorothy, Ann and another John.
For the later life of William, see below. Mary married William THOMPSON of Alwarby in the nearby parish of Aspatria in 1676, aged about 22. Jane married John DODSON. Ann married Thomas CALVERT in 1690.
Their mother Mary died on 16 November 1715 - she would have been at least in her late 60s.
For research notes, click here.
William joined the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers. He also moved to the coastal village of Allonby and married a woman called Mary. I suspect these events may all have been related and Mary may have been from an Allonby Quaker family. Their children were Jonathan (2 January 1699/1700 - see below), Sarah (13 May 1702, married William WILKINSON in 1731) and Mary (19 June 1704). At the later two births he's named in the register as Will - this must have been how he was normally known.
For research notes, click here.
Jonathan married Rebecca WILSON of Graythwaite in 1735. He would have been about 36 and she about 28. I haven't yet found a record of this marriage, despite searching the database of Quaker marriages. If they married in a church, they would have been 'disowned' or expelled from membership of the Society of Friends. If so, they were obviously re-admitted because (most of) their children were registered by the Quakers.
Their children were:
Thomas 16 October 1736
Sarah 27 April 1740
Anne 4 October 1743
Hannah 1746
Jonathan 6 June 1747
William 10 July 1749
Jonathan was a yeoman, at least in 1766. In this year two of his children married - Anne to John STORDY in Kirkbride, Cumberland - and for Thomas see below.
Rebecca died aged about 61 in 1768, with her children all grown up (or nearly so; William was about 19). Jonathan her husband survived her until 1779,
dying aged about 80.
In the same year Sarah died, aged about 39, and William was living in Ireland. In 1810 Jonathan died, aged about 63. In 1819 Hannah died, aged about 73, having never married.
For research notes, click here.
On 6 November 1766 Thomas married Hannah ROBSON of Thurstonfield. He was 30; she was about 20. This was a Quaker marriage at the meeting in Kirkbride.
They had 11 children over the next 21 years, though some of them died young. It is striking here how when a child died young Thomas
and Hannah gave the next of the same gender the same name - see above for John born about 1570.
Jonathan 2 September 1767
Fanny 23 October 1768 (died 2 August 1769)
Fanny 8 April 1770
Rebecca 2 July 1772
Sarah 1 January 1775
Hannah 30 June 1776 (died 31 July the same year)
William 18 October 1777
Joseph 17 November 1779
Hannah 30 April 1782
Thomas 26 November 1783
John 12 February 1787
While having these children, he was described as a husbandman - a livestock farmer. As an old man he's described as a yeoman.
A Thomas WILLIAMSON of Allonby is a witness to the marriage of Thomas STORDY and Sarah WATSON in 1798 at Pardshaw Quaker meeting. Also, he is mentioned in the Memorandums of Mary Beeby (paragraph 44, 1815).
In 1806 their daughter Hannah died aged 24.
Both parents died when their surviving children were grown up - Hannah aged about 73 in 1819 and Thomas aged about 84 the following year.
Of the children who survived their parents, Rebecca died aged about 53 in 1825 and Sarah aged about 72 in 1847. Jonathan and Thomas were living together in Allonby in 1851. Thomas was 68 and Jonathan 85, both unmarried and listed in the census as 'proprietor of land'. They had a live-in servant called Sarah WILSON, an unmarried woman in her 40s. Jonathan died the following year.
I don't know what became of the second Fanny or of Joseph or John. William follows.
For research notes, click here.
William married Ann BEEBY in 1815 at the Quaker meeting at Allonby. He was 37 and described as a husbandman; she was 28.
The Beebys were another prolific Allonby Quaker family. Ann's unmarried sister Mary kept a record of many significant family events and so William and Ann's lives are recorded in these
Memorandums as well as in the usual sources.
Their first child was born just about ten months after their marriage - Thomas, in December 1815. At this time William had moved up in the world, to 'yeoman'. In February 1817 was born Mary. In 1819 Ann gave birth to twins, but one, a boy, was still-born and Ann herself died a few weeks after the birth. The girl twin survived her mother and was called Ann Hannah. However, she too died, in 1825 aged 6. (As noted above, William's mother also died later in 1819)
In 1838 both William's surviving children married - see below for Thomas's May wedding - Mary married Richard HALL of Waverton in October. Their family is described in the Memorandums of Mary Beeby (part 3 of my edition).
So after this William lived without any family. In 1851 aged 74, he was living with a housekeeper, Ann REYNOLDS (unmarried, in her 50s). William is now described as a 'landed proprietor'.
William died of dropsy in 1860, aged 83.
(dropsy - excess fluid causing swelling, probably a symptom of some underlying illness like congestive heart failure)
For research notes, click here.
Thomas married in 1838 Deborah ROBINSON, at Pardshaw, near where she came from. Deborah was a Quaker like Thomas and the marriage took place in the Quaker meeting. He was 22 and she 31.
Thomas and Deborah lived at Allonby and had four sons:
William 29 November 1840
Joseph Robinson 7 September 1842
Jonathan 3 March 1844
John 6 June 1846
The family is in the 1851 census for Allonby and Westnewton (at house number 188 - probably very near Thomas' parents above).
Thomas is 33, a farmer of 160 acres employing 4 labourers (in other records, Thomas is described as a yeoman and/or a farmer, and in one case when he is older, a gentleman; also in this year he owns a quarter share in a house in Allonby formerly belonging to his mother's family, which he sells for £62 10s).
Deborah is 43. William is not with them (I think I've found him aged 10 at
the Quaker boarding school at Brookfield, Wigton, Cumberland, perhaps along with two of his HALL cousins and Quaker and other boys and girls
from all over northern England and as far as Virginia, USA). Joseph R, 8, Jonathan, 7, and John, 4, are at home. Also at
the house are house servant Martha OSBORN (unmarried, 21) and farm servants Thomas PEACOCK (unmarried, 28) and James CURRA
(unmarried, 19) who were both born in Ireland.
The four boys all grew up, married at least once and had children.
William married Rebecca BIGLAND in 1865. They lived at Allonby and had seven daughters.
Joseph Robinson is described below.
Jonathan married Sarah MANN in 1868. They lived at Allonby and later Wigton. They had seven children.
John lived at Allonby but retired to Cockermouth. He married twice - first to Sarah PEILE, with whom he had four children -
second to Elizabeth Fallows WALKER, with whom he had five.
In 1877, aged 69, their mother Deborah died of rheumatic heart disease and bronchitis.
Thomas at some point remarried, to a Norwegian woman called Anbjor - Anna, to her English neighbours I think. Her surname was BYDNESEN or certainly something beginning with B.
Thomas died in 1887, of chronic gastritis aged 71. Anna herself later remarried, later the same year to a countryman of hers called Gorgen ENGE also resident in Allonby.
For research notes, click here.
Named after his mother's father, Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON went to live in the area where she came from, at Pardshaw on the fringe of the Lake District in Cumberland. He was already living there, aged 26, a yeoman farmer, when he married, in Whitehaven, a woman from that port - Sarah Jane TOMLINSON. She, 22, was also a Quaker and they married in the meeting house at Whitehaven.
Joseph and Sarah had six children:
Deborah, 7 December 1869
Sarah Edith, 19 January 1871 (died 3 August 1872)
Mabel, 10 January 1873
Thomas Edward, 12 November 1874
William Henry, 18 November 1876
Joseph John, 23 May 1879
Joseph John was only a year old when Joseph Robinson fell ill with pneumonia and, after six days, died aged 38. In the 1881 census for Pardshaw, Sarah Jane was living with her five surviving children (aged between 20 months and 11 years) and a governess, Emily CLARKE, and a servant, Annie GILL (both unmarried women of 19). Sarah Jane was aged 34 and listed as an annuitant.
By about 1885, Sarah Jane had developed cancer, of which she would die in 1888, aged 41, at her mother's house in Moresby, leaving her children orphaned aged between 18 and 8. I understand from family tradition that some of them, at least Thomas Edward, went to live with their uncle William at Allonby.
For research notes, click here.
Thomas Edward WILLIAMSON was about 14 when he was orphaned and went to live with his uncle William at Allonby in about 1888. He appears in the 1891 census at the Friends' Boys School in York, aged 16. Family tradition has it that he went back to Pardshaw 'when he was old enough to take over the farm'. It seems that in 1898 he added a porch to the house there called The Croft (the house was there in the 1870s at least). In 1901 the census lists him aged 26 with his cousin of the same age, Beeby WILLIAMSON (son of another uncle, Jonathan) a housekeeper (Jessie DEMPTSTER, a single Scottish woman of 31) and a maid (Elizabeth HOGG, 14), and two farm hands (Robert and Thomas MOORE, 22 and 16)
The Croft, Pardshaw, with inscription dating the porch.
In 1904, aged 29, he married Sarah PATTINSON, also 29, of Blennerhasset. That small village is in the parish of Torpenhow, and the marriage took place in the parish church there. This would have resulted in Thomas' being 'disowned' (suspended from membership) by the Quakers as they did not believe in the practice of couples being married by a priest.
Thomas and Sarah had four children in their first three years of marriage - a boy, two girls in the same year (twins I think), and another boy. I'm not posting any personal details of this generation because some people from it in my family are still alive. I don't have any early death dates for any of them and at least two outlived both their parents.
Sarah died of a heart attack on Christmas Day 1935 aged 60, at the Croft. After this Thomas retired to a nearby cottage known as the Borrans or Borrans Villa, while his son took over the farm. He died in 1957 of a gastric ulcer, at Roseacre in Allonby where he was then living with his unmarried grown-up daughter. He is buried in the ground of the Quaker meeting house at Pardshaw Hall.
Roseacre, Allonby
In loving memory of
Sarah wife of Thomas E Williamson who died Dec 25th 1935 Aged 60 years
T. E. Williamson died Jan. 13th 1957 aged 82 years
For research notes, click here.
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