Thomas (1815-87) and Deborah (1807-77) WILLIAMSON of Allonby
New page 2 April 2017
Links:
Immediate ancestors: William and Ann WILLIAMSON and Joseph and Mary ROBINSON
Immediate descendant: Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON
The Williamson story - WILLIAMSON 1 research notes
index of surnames
Thomas and Deborah are named as the parents of Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON on his birth certificate (GRO Births 1842 Sep Q WILLIAMSON, Joseph Robinson, Wigton 25 162), and Thomas is named on Joseph's marriage certificate (GRO Marriages 1868 December Q TOMLINSON, Sarah Jane and WILLIAMSON, Joseph Robinson, Cockermouth 10b 865).
Joseph appears with Thomas and Deborah in the 1851 and 1861 censuses (I didn't note the reference for 1851 but they're in Allonby, and for 1861 RG9/3929 f25, also Allonby).
Thomas and Deborah are named as Joseph's parents in his family Bible, which is still in the possession of my family and which I have seen and copied information from.
Joseph is named in Thomas's will as 'my late son' and Joseph's children are also named (Carlisle RO reference PROB/1887/W163).
Thomas was born 17 December 1815 at Allonby in the parish of Bromfield, Cumberland, the eldest child of William and Ann WILLIAMSON (recorded in the Quaker birth registers, UK national archives reference RG6/225 p138)
Deborah was born 5 April 1807 at Armaside in the parish of Lorton, Cumberland, to Joseph and Mary ROBINSON, (recorded in the Quaker birth registers, UK national archives reference RG6/223)
Thomas grew up in Allonby on the west Cumberland coast, on a farm at West End. Thomas's mother died when Thomas was just three. Their father did not remarry, but was quite well-off so I suppose Thomas and his sister Mary would have been looked after by a housekeeper or some such. Thomas also had a younger sister Ann Hannah, but she lived with other relatives and died when Thomas was about nine or ten. There are more details at their parents' page.
(Research note: schooling?)
As the son and heir of a substantial yeoman (landowning farmer), Thomas would have been an eligible bachelor in his local Quaker circles, and he married young.
Deborah's family lived at Armaside until she was at least about 17. I have information from a relative (Thomas and Deborah's granddaughter Annie Deborah WILLIAMSON, unpublished typescript 1959) that she went to school, first to the Friends' school at Wigton, and then to a school in Doncaster. While she was at the Doncaster school, Deborah's father bought another farm called the Croft at nearby Pardshaw in the parish of Dean, and sold the Armaside farm, moving the family to Pardshaw. This realised some cash surplus, some of which was invested for Deborah. I don't have positive evidence for where Deborah lived or what she did in the decade or so between reaching adulthood and marrying, but she gave Pardshaw as her address and ROBINSON as her surname when she married, so I guess she may have lived at home as a spinster until then, or may have moved out to work elsewhere as a young woman but moved back in the run-up to her marriage.
Thomas and Deborah grew up some miles apart, but both were members of the religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, and their families very likely knew each other. They married on 24 May 1838, in the Quaker meeting house at Pardshaw Hall, which the Robinsons attended. He was 22 and she 31. (GRO Marriages 1838 Jun Q, ROBINSON, Deborah and WILLIAMSON, Thomas, Cockermouth 25 89)
Thomas was described in the 1851 and 61 censuses as a farmer (of 160 acres in 1851), which implies he did not own the land he worked. It seems from the will of his own father William (Carlisle RO reference PROB/1860/W367)that ownership of the family land passed over him, directly from William senior to the grandsons William, Jonathan and John (I infer that Joseph Robinson either already had the property of his namesake maternal grandfather or was expected to come into it). However, Thomas bought property for himself; in other mid-century records he's described as a yeoman, which does imply land ownership. In fact later records (see below) show that he owned a fair bit of property and he must have made money because I don't think he inherited it. Most of the property looks to have been farmland and houses in the village of Allonby and nearby, but there was also 'the Brewery and Brewery Street Property, the Old Toll Bar'. That last reads rather like he owned a working brewery, but that's a bit surprising - I thought Quakers traditionally didn't hold with alcohol. Perhaps he owned a former brewery or property near a brewery. [research note - check any business directories, check for wills for any of his uncles, inheritance from his grandfather, etc]
In 1877 (on his first wife's death certificate GRO Deaths 1877 Mar Q, Williamson, Deborah, 69, Wigton) and 1887 (in his own will), Thomas is described as a gentleman. I doubt that he was upper-class in his manners and I don't think he quite was in wealth, but a listing of landowners of 1874 states he owned 486 acres, with an estimated rental value of 525 pounds a year. Taking his page of that listing as a sample, which has 162 owners from Whinney to Wilson, Thomas has the fourth-largest acreage, suggesting he was in the top few per cent of Cumberland's landowning classes. So I expect he was comfortably-off and he was able largely to retire from agriculture - in 1871 he gave his occupation as landowner, and occupier of just 55 acres, employing one man (who didn't live in), so it looks that he was scaling back his personal involvement in agriculture. In 1881 he was occupying only 40 acres. I suppose this would make him a gentleman in the sense of being rich enough not to have to work for a living, at that stage in his life.
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
Thomas and Deborah brought up their four boys at Allonby. In 1851 at the census it is just the parents and three of the boys: William, the eldest at 10, is away at boarding school - Brookfield, a Quaker school in Wigton. In 1861, William is back but now young John, who would have been 15, is missing. [research note - check for him at Brookfield] In 1861 there are three workers living with the family: Jacob Howe, 26, born Bothel in Cumberland and John Wilson, 24, born Ireland, both agricultural labourers; and Sarah Wilson, 56, born Great Orton in Cumberland, a house servant. It isn't stated whether Sarah and John Wilson are related to each other. [research note - could maybe look for them in previous census/es]
The three older boys married in 1865-68; each of them appears with his family in the 1871 census. I haven't found John in that census but he wasn't with his parents, and he too married later in 1871. Thomas and Deborah appear to be living in a place called North Lodge. This was a grandish house in Allonby, built as a holiday home by a well-to-do merchant with Allonby roots earlier in the century, and had attached to it half a dozen alms houses for elderly spinsters or widows (information here and here as well as at my Allonby page). I guess therefore that this well-to-do couple must have been living in the holiday home part, rather than in one of the charitable cottages. I can't tell because few house names are given within the village, but perhaps William as the eldest son stayed on in the main family home (which I guess was a working farmhouse) and Thomas and Deborah retired to North Lodge. They had a maidservant (Jane BEATY, 19, born Carlisle).
Deborah died on 21 January 1877 of rheumatic heart disease and bronchitis, aged 69.
As they say, any widower in his early 60s in possession of a solid rental income must be in want of a wife, and by June of the following year Thomas had married again, to Anbjor BJEDNESEN (GRO index Marriages Q2 1878, WILLIAMSON Thomas and BJEDNESEN Anbjor, Wigton 10b 765). I've also seen her name Ambjorg Bjednesddottr Abo, but she was known as Anna. She was from Norway and was 23 years younger than Thomas. They lived in North Lodge, and had a daughter:
Serena Ann, 15 February 1879 (GRO index Births Q2 1879, WILLIAMSON Serena Ann, Wigton 10b 537 and this page about her gravestone) [research note - enter her details in database, plus those for Anna etc.].
They also had a maid (in 1881, Sarah Jane PATTINSON, 16, born Wigton).
When Thomas made his will, in January 1887, he said he occupied a house on the west side of the road in Allonby, so it seems they must have ceased to rent (or sold, if they owned it) North Lodge and moved.
On the tenth anniversary of Deborah's death, 21 January 1887, Thomas himself died, of chronic gastritis, aged 71.
Thomas left what I think would have been quite a substantial estate, with a gross value of nearly £15,000.
To Anbjor he left his household goods, an annuity of a hundred guineas and the rents of three houses on the west side of the road in Allonby (their actual ownership looks to have been shared between Anbjor and his sons William, Jonathan and John as trustees).
To Serena he left the rents of those houses after her mother's death, plus a house called Marina Cottage with outbuildings and land, and a cash bequest of £2,000.
To William he left some town property (the Brewery and Brewery Street Property, the Old Toll Bar) and four properties, farms I guess, in other parishes to the north of Allonby at Wolsty, Peluthomire, Balladoyle and White Park. However, he also required a payment in exchange of £1,500, to help fund his cash legacies.
To Jonathan he left several named fields in Allonby.
To John he left a house which John was already occupying, plus adjoining cottages and outbuildings and a larger number of named fields in Allonby. However in this case it was conditional on a payment of £2,500.
His other son Joseph Robinson had already had an inheritance at Pardshaw from his namesake maternal grandfather, and also had died before Thomas did, passing the old Robinson property to his own eldest son Thomas Edward. Presumably for this reason Thomas Edward is not given any property in Thomas's will, but his younger brothers are. They, William Henry and Joseph John, receive equal shares of houses (occupied by Thomas himself and two others) and some fields in Allonby, plus £300 each. Their sisters Deborah and Mabel receive £500 each.
Each of Thomas's other grandchildren (of which I think there were up to 20 living at this date including Thomas Edward) received £150.
The residue of his estate, whatever that was, was divided between his three surviving sons.
All five of Thomas's children married and had families.
His sons stayed in Cumberland and I think all became yeomen farmers:
William married Rebecca BIGLAND and had seven children, living in Allonby
Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON married Sarah Jane TOMLINSON and had six children, living at Pardshaw
Jonathan married Sarah MANN and had seven children, living in Allonby
John married twice, first to Sarah PEILE, having four children, then to Elizabeth Fallows WALKER, having five more. I think they also lived at Allonby.
Serena married Edward HAREM, said to be a nephew of her step-father, and had (according to the website with her gravestone) nine children in Marshall County, Iowa.
If you are interested in this family I'll be pleased to hear from you. Click this link to email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my name and number @ service provider.
Links:
Immediate ancestors: William and Ann WILLIAMSON and Joseph and Mary ROBINSON
Immediate descendant: Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON
The Williamson story - WILLIAMSON 1 research notes
index of surnames