HADFIELD

A Derbyshire Family

 

(condensed)

 

 

 

 

by

 

 

 

Roger Hadfield MA, F.R.G.S.

1925 - 2004

 

 

 

 

Introduction

This account of my ancestors in a Derbyshire village was first outlined in the Derbyshire Family History Society Branch News in 1986 (No.39, page 19).

It shows how a whole variety of sources can help in genealogical studies and yet at times there seems to be an excess of information to unravel. An off-shoot of the former was a short history of Peak Forest and Dove Holes - "A Corner of the Derbyshire Peak" (1985) - copies now at Matlock in the Record Office and the County Library.

Recent research is included in the tale of some humble, yet fiercely independent folk of these rugged hills whose lives took some quite amazing twists and turns.

Roger HADFIELD M.A. (Oxon)

1989

Since this account was written corrections and additions are likely to have occured and some have been incorporated.

CHAPTER ONE

ARRIVAL of the FAMILY in PEAK FOREST

 

The name HADFIELD derives from the Saxon, Old English, HETFELD for ‘open country or heathlands’. It has several variants including the letter ‘T’. At Peak Forest many of the family including my grandfather used both versions ‘Hat’ and ‘Had’ and here this is not significant. It does not appear in any of the early seventeenth century records of the Parish or Liberty such as the extensive 1617 Cavendish rental lists, the 1638 Muster Roll, the Peak Manorial records or even the village Hearth Tax accounts of the 1660’s and the 1670’s. It is also absent in a list of 49 men of the Parish of 1692 though the bottom of the sheet is missing. The first reference is in 1684 in the Church Records when the constable, John Hadfield, appears. Usually, the constable was a young man responsible to the Headboroughs or officials of the Manor Court.

By 1700, a John Hadfield is given as a Churchwarden and a Parish Overseer and again in 1706 he was a deputy. In 1702, Anne Hadfield, the daughter of John was baptised. Unfortunately for a crucial period of twenty years from 1704 to 1724 the Registers, especially the baptisms, are missing and it is probable that John may well have had up to nine other children. On further fragmentary records the death of a John appears in 1725 whilst more clearly in 1731 there is the burial of "Ann, wife of John".

In 1716 the inventory of Alice Winterbotham of Peak Forest records a John Hadfield owing her money. A John appears twice in the Lead Records (see list) for 1725 and the Church records of 1727 mentions John paying for candles and powder. On the 20^th April 1732, John bought a pew from William Winterbotham, which he held for another 80 years.

Most helpful however are the Tenancy Records of the Duke of Devonshire in 1754 when for the Heath Farm of Peak Forest there is "John Hadfield tenant above twenty years and succeeded his father John". Several other new families appear at Peak Forest at this time, undoubtedly due to the final extinguishing of the Peak Forest hunting area and the enclosure of its remaining wastes. As well as Hadfields there are also Warhursts, Vernons, Hartles and others.

Research to date (1989) would suggest that John the constable was the son of Thomas of Edale (who died 1671, son of John) but positive proof has yet to be found. Whilst it is likely that he was the churchwarden and farmer the possibility that he came from elsewhere cannot be ruled out entirely. To solve this, papers have been produced on seventeenth century Hadfields of Edale, Hadfields of Chapel-en-le-Frith, Hadfields of Hayfield and in preparation Hadfields of Glossop Dale. In addition the seventeenth century records at Hope and Tideswell have been combed for spare Johns and many wills etc. examined without success. He might even have come from elsewhere in Derbyshire or Yorkshire as Peak Forest lay on an important pack-horse route.

CHAPTER TWO

1725 - 1825

 

The second John at Heath, Peak Forest, married Ann Holdgate of Peak Forest in 1732. She probably died in childbirth for she was buried on 6^th June 1741 and her newly born fifth child, Mathew, went to his grave on 17^th June that year. In 1742 John remarried to Hannah Joule - her family had been at Peak Forest for centuries. John’s inventory on his death in 1764 has survived - his goods and chattels were worth £8.12.0d. He was succeeded at Heath by his remaining eldest son, John (1735-1815).

It is really the detailed tenancy records from Chatsworth House, which have enabled the family pedigree to be made because certain baptisms and burials are missing in the church registers. These records include a fine map of 1772 showing the occupiers of about two-thirds of the fields of the parish. In 1754, 1770’s and 1790’s the Heath Farm was a messuage and two cottages (rent in 1774 was £7.10.0d per year). Its fields were tenanted by John (25 acres at £12 a year in 1790) and lesser holdings by Joseph and Thomas

With small acreages and a harsh climate pastoral farming was hard. Fortunately, the lead veins under the fields could be mined and three-quarters of a mile to the north-west of the Heath Farm were some shafts, one was known as "Hadfield’s Venture" worked by the farmers. (see Hadfields of the Lead records) Girls were sent off into service - for example, Grace, who died at Back Lane Farm, Peak Forest in 1781.

John (1735-1815) had a brother, Samuel (1737-1825), who was at first a cobbler but who in 1766 married Ellen Ely (1749-1825). She was the youngest of the five daughters of Thomas Ely (1704-1779). Thomas apparently had no sons, so shortly after his death Samuel took the tenancy of his farm at Near Ridge Close, half a mile from Heath. Judging by some parts of the present (1989) building that dates from that period, he rebuilt the farmhouse. He paid £28 a year rent and also took over the adjacent Lomas tenancy for which he paid a further £16.10.0.

Ellen Ely’s second sister, Sarah, had married Samuel’s cousin Joseph in 1761 as his second wife.

Of Samuel and Ellen’s eleven children six died in infancy (three in 1774) but two, Thomas (b.1780) and the last child, Rowland (1789-1869) were to follow Samuel’s brother John as tenants at Heath. Samuel left a detailed will and thus a lot is known about him. The tenancy of Ridge Close he hoped would pass to his son Rowland. His eldest adult son John (1775-1822) was already dead and his son, Samuel’s grandson John, b.1805, was not of age. The next son would seem to have been an invalid or mentally handicapped, as provision was made for him namely, Samuel (1777-1872). In addition to monies for Rowland, Thomas and young John, there was some for daughter Nanny (b.1784) who, in 1803, had married Thomas Warhurst (b.1781) of Wormhill. Some of their eleven children were to live at Dukinfield, Cheshire, and a grandchild married Thomas Ely Hadfield (b.1837) - see later. In the late nineteenth century Warhursts were to tenant Ridge Close.

There is obviously a connection here with the mortgage Samuel held on land at Dukinfield. The Peak Forest tramway which passed close to Ridge Close linked with the Peak Forest canal which in turn linked with another canal at Dukinfield. Samuel also had invested in the early nineteenth century turnpike road near Ridge Close and he also had leasehold properties by the side of this road in Dove Holes. Just how did he acquire all this? He certainly mined lead near Ridge Close and was probably connected with the early industrial limestone working hard by. In 1792 he and his brother John of Heath (1735-1815) may have acquired funds when they wound up the estate of George of Tideswell who was probably their uncle. Samuel’s signature appears on several documents and gives the impression of an ability to read and write.

There was Samuel baptising children from ‘The Coppe’ after who Samuel (1737-1825) may well have been called and William who died at Old Dam in 1780. It does seem fairly logical that Joseph (d.1752) and a Thomas were brothers of John (d.1763) when the tenancy of Heath is examined.

This Joseph’s son Joseph (1726-1815) was one of the tenants throughout the second half of the eighteenth century and as mentioned, married an Ely as his second wife. Like ‘Old Samuel’ (1737-1825) he lived to his late eighties and was buried in 1815 "Old Joseph of Smalldale" as that year was his other cousin "John of Heath" (1735-1815). Despite hard lives many of the Hadfields of Peak Forest in this account have lived to great ages. Samuel’s son Samuel (1777-1872) for example, though apparently backwards, was to live on at Heath well into his nineties!

The other tenant at Heath and Smalldale, one Thomas, had married Mary Holdgate in 1762 at Peak Forest, "both of this Parish". The Holdgates however seemed to have lived in Chapel-en-le-Frith. "Mary of Heath" aged 83 was buried in 1818 and then Joseph (1764-1835) their eldest son took over the tenancy. Despite the evidence at his marriage, there is no record of either his baptism or burial of Thomas at Peak Forest. It can only be conjectured that he was the son of a Thomas who married a Dorothy at Peak Forest in 1742 who was in turn the son of Thomas probably to John of Heath (d.1763). Again the only evidence for this first Thomas in the registers is the death in 1749 "Mary wife to Thomas". That there was a Thomas about in Peak Forest is however, shown in the lead records and he probably was at Smalldale. There is also a John who married in 1776 to a Longden and had five children and the Longdens were at Smalldale so this John may be part of this ‘missing’ branch. The succession at Heath down to Joseph and Thomas of the 1950’s and to the present (1989) John of Smalldale will be given later.

CHAPTER THREE

NINETEENTH and TWENTIETH CENTURIES

 

At Ridge Close after the long continuity of Samuel’s tenancy there were to be many changes - his wife, Ellen (Ely) also died in 1825 (three months after in March that year) and in 1827 the tenancy passed to her grandson John (1805-1830). Rowland, the youngest son (1790-1869) who had run the farm in Samuel’s later years had continued until 1826 but then moved to take the main tenancy at Heath.

John had been a labourer at Upper End when in 1825 he had married Ellen Jackson (1801-1875) at Chapel-en-le-Frith. There were Jacksons at Peak Forest but careful and extensive research has so far failed to link her with them. This is surprising as much is known about her five brothers and a sister. All six between 1824 and 1840 emigrated to the U.S.A. and sent back letters to Ridge Close which were handed down in the Hadfield family to my father. She lived to the 1870’s and on several census reports put different places as her place of origin. It is now established that she came from Dale Head Farm south-east of Fairfield but who her father was is unknown.

In 1827 their first son was baptised and for once a first son of John was not John but Samuel (1827-1902). This Samuel in later years, lived in a cottage at Ridge Close with his wife Kate (1830-1881) and their ten children. He farmed 13 acres and undoubtedly worked in the lime quarries nearby. Very little is known about his children except his son Samuel (b.1869) who was to farm at Martinside, Dove Holes.

Also in 1830 John died only 25 years old and seventeen days later, his wife Ellen gave birth to a son John. Also that year John’s mother Margaret ‘Peggy’ Hartle Hadfield (1781-1830) was to die. Peak Forest was a ‘Peculiar’ which meant that the Church could prove wills without reference to a Bishop and she made a will leaving her pittance to the young widow. It is probable that Peggy’s other three sons had died young. Ellen now became the tenant of 111 acres (albeit including some very rough ground) at a rent of £98 a year. The Duke’s agent noted that the "farm house wants repairing" and also that there was an adjacent cottage and barn - there are still (1989) buildings on their sites.

Peggy Hartle had married John Hadfield (1775-1822) in 1803 and she came from Chapel-en-le-Frith. However, about 1720 a branch of the Hartles had moved to the ancient Chamber Knowl farm at Peak Forest and in 1830 a John Hartle "a bad farmer" according to the Duke’s agent, was its tenant. This was the man who Ellen married in September 1831 and he exchanged the tenancy of Chamber Knowl for that of Ridge Close and he also became a "waggoner on the rails" on the adjacent Peak Forest tramway. By now many men in the Parish, especially the youngsters, took employment in the rapidly developing limestone industry.

Ellen had a further five children by John Hartle but her second son became known as John Hartle (1830-1895) though he was a Hadfield. On the tramway probably working as a ‘nipper’, this boy lost a leg and became a tailor but was to carry on the Hadfield line nevertheless. In 1866 John Hartle married Elizabeth Frogatt (1835-1897) from Calver Sough. She already had a son bearing her maiden name - the father remains a mystery.

For a time John ‘Hartle’ Hadfield set up home at Fairfield but in the 1870’s built ‘Highfield House’ in Dove Holes next to the road and not far from Ridge Close - one wonders if this was on some of ‘Old Samuel’s’ former lands. Here he lived to 1895 with his wife, stepson and own four children as a tailor and smallholder. His eldest son Thomas (1869-1943) and his Frogatt stepson he trained as tailors and they were to remain in partnership as such up to the 1930’s. Thomas was my grandfather who the older inhabitants still called ‘Tailor Hartle’ though he was of course, a Hadfield. Thomas had two sons and a daughter, the eldest being my father John (1900-1980) - he like all John Hadfields was always called ‘Jack’. father (John) left the village in 1940 as did my Uncle George (b.1908) who now lives in Cheshire. Of John Hartle Hadfield's other children, Mary (b.1868) married G.E.Vernon of Old Dam Farm, Peak Forest before emigrating to Canada and George (b.1873) also left the district - he married Fanny who returned to Dove Holes in 1965. There were no children.

John (1871-1944) (Hartle’s third child) remained at Dove Holes and had three children. The youngest Alexander George (‘Alec’) (1909-1978) also lived at Wormhill and at Dove Holes. He had three children, the eldest John (b.1938), unmarried now (1981) lives in Cheshire - the last John of this line of Hadfields. He was also christened Samuel though many of his close friends do not know this.

One might have thought that to traced the other Hadfields of Peak Forest at Heath and Smalldale and elsewhere using census data and so on from 1825 to 1980 would have been easy. In fact, it became even more complex owing to the arrival in the Parish of three other groups of Hadfields all with their Johns, Thomases, Samuels, Sarahs and so on. To complicate matters Hadfields marry Hadfields, which they had never done before at Peak Forest. At one stage seven of the eighteen major farms at Peak Forest had the family as tenants! Much of the following unravelling was completed by Mr. Tony Rye of Sheffield descended from some of the Heath Hadfields and I am greatly indebted to him. In Peak Forest churchyard thirty monumental inscriptions (MIs) to Hadfields have been found so far, many are to these ‘new families’ and three are as yet unidentified including Francis (1903-1978).

About 1830 Thomas Hadfield (1785-1865) became the tenant of Dam Hall (the old Dam House) and 52 acres. He was the grandson of the Rev. Charles Hadfield (1709-1789), vicar of Heathersage, who came from Macclesfield. Thomas’s eldest son Charles (1809-1875) was merely a labourer when he had a son Charles Camm (b.1858) and what became of these two last Charleses is unknown. However, Thomas’s youngest son John (b.1825) was to marry Ann Hill of Peak Forest and his descendants came to Peak Forest in recent times as will be detailed towards the end of this account.

In the 1870’s William Hadfield (1827-1898) took over at Damside Farm. His family came from Elton, near Winster, and as far as is known there is no direct relationship with the early Peak Forest Hadfields, though the lead lists at Winster for 1725 record a miner John from Peak Forest. His (William’s) son Walter (1858-1938) became tenant of Perry Foot Farm in the 1880’s and remained there for fifty years. Another son John (1863-1923) took over the Cop Farm where Hadfields had last been seen in the 1720’s, as far as is known. John’s wife Martha (1873-1945) continued this tenancy into the 1940’s. After William’s death, his wife Elizabeth, took over at the Damside but was succeeded there in 1908 by Walter’s son James Grimshaw Hadfield (1885-1966) where he remained for over fifty years.

About 1900 Joseph Hadfield (1859-1912) took over at Lower Barmoor Farm. There were three farms at Barmoor and the chief family there from 1600 to 1960 was the Mellors. (Not yet traced is Elizabeth Hadfield, buried 1793, daughter of Thomas Mellor). Yet again here a Hadfield was to marry the daughter of the tenant, namely Lucy Critchlow (1866-1926). This group of Hadfields came from Wormhill and before that Tideswell where yet another Samuel died, making a will in 1825, probate being granted to Joseph, labourer of Dove Holes. Although it has not yet been traced, this Samuel might descend from the Edale Hadfields or from the Samuel the probable son of John, died 1725. There were Hadfields recorded at Wormhill in 1640 and 1670 but there is no evidence of a John there at that time, though again this cannot be ruled out. A further link was in 1864 when Samuel Hadfield of Wormhill married Mary Hannah Hadfield from Smalldale - see later. After 1912 Lower Barmoor reverted to the Critchlows for a while.

Meanwhile at Heath Farm, Rowland (1789-1869) had taken over the main tenancy. In 1813 he had married Hannah Potts (1794-1870). The Potts were to be found chiefly at Wormhill and Chapel-en-le-Frith. They had ten children, six of them to Sarah (1826) at Ridge Close and the last four at Heath.

The eldest son was Samuel (1851-1888) like his grandfather and by 1851 this Samuel had taken over the Thomas tenancy of 1830 together with part of Rowland’s acres to make a total of 150 acres. Rowland, now over 70 years old was left with some 30 acres at any rate in name. Samuel is believed to have married twice and his second wife Sarah (1833-1916) was to continue as tenant of some of these lands from about 1890 to 1916. Samuel’s (1815-1888) eldest son Samuel (1859-1923) had moved away to the place Hadfield, near Glossop as a police constable - he had five children the eldest one being of course, Samuel (b.1885).

In 1851 there was still a third tenant with 30 acres at Smalldale, this was yet another Thomas (1812-1865) the son of the 1830 tenant Joseph (1764-1835). This Thomas married Hannah Hoatley (1818-1888) and they had twelve children. When he died in 1865 Hannah remarried to the bachelor son of Rowland, namely one Robert (1828-1902). Robert not only took over Hannah’s younger children (thereby creating great confusion in genealogical research!) but the acres farmed by Thomas. After Rowland’s death in 1869, Robert took charge of his remaining acres also. Robert may well have been in effective charge of Thomas’s land even earlier for when in 1864 Thomas’s eldest daughter, Mary Hannah, married a Samuel Hadfield at Wormhill the marriage entry was father, Thomas labourer.

The youngest son of Rowland (1789-1869) was Thomas Ely and there was to be yet another Warhurst-Hadfield link when he married Mary Warhurst (b.1841). Obviously, there was no land for him at Smalldale so eventually he was to farm at nearby Fairfield where he later lived with his three sons and a daughter. His second son was another Thomas Ely Hadfield (1868- ) who, as a child, was to meet my grandfather Thomas (1869-1943) living there. I doubt if my grandfather ever knew exactly how they were related. The present day Hadfields of Peak Forest have very little knowledge of their ancestors or their kin and fifty years ago, this surprisingly was just the same, apart from the nineteenth century entries to be found in family Bibles and some garbled stories of former family tragedies.

Mr. Tony Rye who has helped in sorting all this out is connected with these Hadfields through the second Thomas Ely’s sister, another Mary Hannah.

Back at Heath what was to happen to the other children of Thomas (1812-1865) now the step-children of Robert (1828-1902) Joseph (1838-1881), later buried at Peak Forest, had left the district and worked on the railway at Manchester. Rowland (1844-1917) became a tailor - at one stage he was apprenticed to John ‘Hartle’ Hadfield and lived at Ridge Close. Thomas (b.1847) was working in the adjacent lime kilns in 11861, Isaac (b.1857) was merely a farm labourer unmarried at Heath in 1881 and Robert (1865-1866) died in infancy. This left John (1853-1934). He succeeded to the tenancy of Robert in 1903 and later took over Mrs. Sarah’s (1833-1916) acres. He was to be the last John at Heath and by the 1940’s his son Thomas (1886-1956) was the tenant of Heath and Joseph (1881-1953) tenant of other acres at Smalldale.

In the 1950’s owing to two deaths and the accompanying death duties, the Duke of Devonshire sold his western Derbyshire lands and Thomas became the first and last Hadfield to own Heath, which was sold after his death as he only had two daughters. In the 1980’s it was virtually rebuilt.

However, the lands are still to be farmed by Hadfields as they are today (2001) by Joseph’s descendants. One of his sons was John Robert (1915-1994) of Oak House Farm, Smalldale and these are the very fields won from the waste as ‘intakes’ by John Hadfield (d.1725) about three hundred years ago.

This account has shown how earlier this century the Hadfields at Peak Forest decline as families gradually die out or leave. However, about 1970 newcomers bought the Chamber Farm - Leslie Hadfield and his brother Malcolm the adjacent Ivy House Farm. As far as is known neither of these farms particularly the ancient Chamber have ever before been in Hadfield hands. These new men however do descend from previous Peak Forest Hadfields and are the great grandsons of John Hadfield (b. Hathersage, 1825) whose father Thomas (1785-1865) and brother Charles (1809-1875) were as previously explained, tenants of Dam Hall. John’s sons and grandsons were to farm on Tideswell Moor at Wheston House farm (not far from The Copp, Peak Forest) and Bushey Heath Farm where these great grandsons came from. Also today (1989) two other of John’s great grandchildren - sons of Ernest (1914-1956) live not far away in Peak Dale.

SUMMARY

of

HADFIELDS of HEATH and SMALLDALE, PEAK FOREST, DERBYSHIRE.

To 1725 John

 

 

HADFIELDS of PEAK FOREST in the BARMASTER BOOKS - The LEAD RECORDS