The West Family and the Parkinsons

There is an excellent summary of Captain Richard West and some of his descendants on the website The West Family of Ballydugan & Descendants.

Here it is noted that West graves can be located at Killough Parish Church, as well as at Saul Church, from the Quoile and Clogher branches of the family. 

Saul Church from Wikipedia

These graves include a Masonic headstone from 1786 for a John West ‘of ye quol’. I was curious however to see that the author of the blog quotes in full the following poem:

“Within the precincts of this holy place

The ashes of my dead forefathers lie.

Of Irish stock, but came from English race

They rest in peace beneath an Irish sky.

Within these walls, upon this sacred sod

They often raised their voice in praise of God.

A stout and sturdy race of yeomen bold

With reverent hand and heart they tilled the soil

Within the vanished centuries of old

They lived and died beneath the spreading Quoile

Within the western wind that fans my brow

I seem to feel their spirits moving now.”

John ‘Yehya-en-Nasr’ Parkinson, 1908

Given that Edward Parkinson at around the same time was compiling his own history of the West family in Ballydugan, partly in collaboration with a Captain E. E. West, the Parkinson family seemed to merit some further investigation. So too, in fact, did the reference to a 'Masonic' headstone.

The Wests of Clogher

There are no definitive links that show how Godfrey West is related to the main branch of Richard West. Blackwood calls him Godfrey West of Clogher, and we can assume from the age of his wife, Elizabeth Hadzor, that he was born in Clogher some time around 1730. There are records of a number of other Wests in Clogher at this time that may provide some clues however. They include:

• Richard West (1703-1788), who married Elizabeth. He is of an age to be Godfrey's father.
• John West (1745-1822), who married Margaret (died 1833). He is of an age to be a younger brother of Godfrey.

Also extant is the 1726 will of another John West of Clogher, which begins:

Sept 9, 1726 John West of Clogher, Parish of downe, County Down, first did appoint his brother Gadson should be paid forty-one pounds, ten shillings out of a bond of forty-three pounds, eight shillings and sixpence due him by his mother Hanah and brother Francis West, and the remainder of said bond he devises to his sister (Mary) Teale, he further devises to his brother Richard West the half of his house and tenement in Killough forever. 

The Richard West referred to in the will could conceivably be the same Richard West noted by Blackwood, and Godfrey's father. Equally, his father could be the John West, whose will it is, particularly when we recall that Godfrey was to name his first and only son, John.

The details in the will, given the reference to lands in Killough, may link up with the history of the West family of Ballydugan originally published by Edward Parkinson in 1906, where he states that in a: 

lease dated 12 January, 1709, Michael Ward of Castleward leased certain messuages, tenements, a garden, and two acres of land, situated in the town of Killough, to James West of Ballydergan, for the lives of the said James West and his sons, Richard and Francis. 

Killough Harbour - the original harbour was built by the Wards of
Castle Ward, Strangford. Photo from Wikipedia.

Parkinson considers it most likely that this James West was a son or grandson of the original Captain Richard West. A grandson, surely, given the time-spans involved.

The John West who married Margaret does have recorded children however, including Richard West (died 1872) The Reverend James Maxwell West (died 1883), Elizabeth West (died 1871) and Mary West (died 1875). Of these children, James Maxwell West married Annie Norman of Lisburn. Parkinson however refers to James as the Reverend Samuel Maxwell West, confirms the 1883 date of death and further tells us that Samuel was the last West of Clogher (or Clougher). He also mentions that the Thomas West who died in 1900 was the last male West of Quoile.

Putting all this together, this is about the best guess we can make:

1) Captain Richard West had a grandson, James West.
2) James West had a number of children, including, possibly, Gadson, Richard, Francis, John and Mary. He may have been married to Hanah.
3) Godfrey West was a child of one of those brothers, most likely, John.
4) Godfrey was therefore a x2 great-grandson of the original Captain Richard West, who was granted lands in County Down by Thomas Lord Cromwell. 

Godfrey West of Clogher

When, some hundred years after the 1641 rebellion, Dr. Seneca Hadzor married off his daughter Elizabeth Hadzor to a seemingly relatively minor member of the West family, he no doubt hoped that the marriage would nonetheless provide a secure future for his daughter.  

But just as the Hadzors were struggling to maintain their own presence and prestige, the West family must also have struggled to cope with the consequences its own rapid expansion. Laws of primogeniture would tend to dictate that unless a rich family was continually able to generate wealth and find suitable marital alliances then children at the lower end of the family lines would start to fall back down the social scale.  This most likely is what had happened to Godfrey West, and in his marriage to Elizabeth Hadzor, it is hard to avoid the feeling that here we have two families trying to make the best of a diminished lineage in the hope that enough remained for them to work their way back up in the world.

Blackwood's notes about Godfrey West and Elizabeth Hadzor. He records that Godfrey lived near the Shambles (Irish Street) and was a failed tallow chandler, who left his family and emigrated to Liverpool after the failure of his business.

Thus it was on the 3rd July 1760 in Downpatrick Parish Church that Godfrey West of the 'new' English colonials married Elizabeth Hadzor (1731-1816), daughter of Dr. Seneca Hadzor, of the 'old' Anglo-Normans. 

Godfrey and Elizabeth were to have four children, amongst them, Maria West, the mother of Harriett Wombwell, and x2 great-grandmother of Hetty Jane Owen.

The Persistence of Identity

Wikipedia graphic showing evolution of United Kingdom

It was not until 1801 that Ireland was finally and formally absorbed into the United Kingdom. It had been a long and slow annexation, and as with the other home countries, the annexation was to be dressed up and disguised as an Act of Union, as if the first generation Celtic Irish and the second generation Anglo-Normans were equal and willing partners in the enterprise. As the 1641 rebellion, to take only instance, shows however, this was far from being the case. The treasonous Irish servants who burned down Richard West's house were reacting to what they saw as an invasion.

The terrorist versus freedom fighter dichotomy was to reach a kind of apotheosis many years later with the execution for treason of Sir Roger Casement in 1916. Sir Roger had been a loyal servant of the British Empire, until faced with the choice of whether he was British first, or Irish first, and chose the latter. It was, at the end of the day, and still is, all a question of identity.

When his remains were repatriated to Ireland in 1965, his body lay in state for five days, and his state funeral was attended by some 30,000 mourners. At the time of his execution, Irish independence was just six years away. Casement had chosen rightly, but not necessarily wisely. 

The Persistence of Memory

As for how the New English viewed acts of sabotage such as the burning of Ballydugan House by the hostile locals is captured in the excerpt below, taken from Stuart Blakely’s blog about Ballydugan House. Treason and treachery are the recurring themes, the view of the establishment being very simply that once the lands in question had been formally absorbed by the Crown, resistance was more or less by definition treasonable. For the colonized natives however, such acts were simply part of what they saw as legitimate resistance to foreign invading forces. 

Like Ballydugan Mill, the house has been restored and now provides hotel accommodation

In a strange echo of these events, on 10th February 1973, two members of the Provisional IRA entered the grounds of Castle Ward, one a girl of just seventeen years of age. Both were killed when their bombs went off prematurely, so it is difficult to know what or who exactly they were targeting. It may be presumed however that the attack was conceived with more than a passing nod to its likely symbolic significance. Not much had apparently changed over the centuries. In the views of some, the heritage of families like the Wards, Wests and Cromwells was just what it had always been - the visible and ill-gotten gains of the invading English. 

We may safely presume therefore that whatever members of the Hadzor family were in the County Down area in the seventeenth century, they would not have been partaking of afternoon tea and cakes with their West neighbours.

The Burning of Ballydugan House

Part of the Irish History timeline 

in the Downpatrick museum. 

Ballydugan house was subsequently 

rebuilt by the West family, and has 

been subsequently restored.

There is no sense of any identity crisis with New English families like the Wests, no lingering sentimentality about their Catholic past, and no evidence that the liberal unionizing ideals of groups like the United Irishmen would ever have been seen by them as anything but a threat to the English crown, and the march of English civilization to be quickly and ruthlessly dealt with. 

Not indeed, when we consider again the 1641 rebellion, which provides ample evidence of how warmly welcomed the West family were by certain elements of the local Down population, native Irish and certain old Anglo-Norman families (such as the Hadzors) alike. 

Thomas Cromwell, First Earl of Ardglass and Richard West

Thomas Cromwell (1594-1653),
First Earl of Ardglass
Copied from
Art Prints on Demand. 

In 1605, having got himself into all sorts of political trouble in England, which earned him a stay in the Tower of London, Edward Cromwell (1560-1607) made an agreement with the Irish McCartan family to take over their estates.  

He was then made governor of Lecale and bought the Barony of Lecale outright in 1606. He died in 1607 and was buried in Downpatrick Cathedral, to be succeeded by his son, Thomas Cromwell, who in turn was to be created Earl of Ardglass, and the 1st Viscount Lecale as a reward for his support for Charles I. This royalism was to get him into further hot water once Charles I had met his end. Cromwell was however able to buy himself out of trouble, paying 460 pounds to the English parliament for his sins.

Richard West was a Captain to Thomas Cromwell, and it was through Cromwell that the Wests received their own Irish lands, in both Ballydugan and elsewhere. 

Thomas Cromwell died in 1653 and there are apparently a number of references to the West family in his will.

The Wests of Downpatrick

Most accounts agree that the presence of the West family in Downpatrick dates from the grants of land given by Thomas Lord Cromwell to Captain Richard West in reward for services rendered. 

Arthur Dobbs (1689-1765) became Governor of
Northern Carolina. He was a great-great grandson of
Richard West

In the West family, we therefore have representatives of the New English Protestant colonial class in Ireland. The family seems to have spread quickly, and by the eighteenth century there were branches in Quoile, Ballydugan, and Clogher.  Of the former two branches, quite detailed research is extant. Of the third branch, the Clogher line, less is known.

The luminaries of the West family were powerful people. Richard West was High Sheriff for Down in 1610 and Member of Parliament for Downpatrick in 1613. His son, Major Roger West was also High Sheriff for Down in 1657. 

Roger’s son, Henry was part of William of Orange’s army and died in the assault on Limerick in 1690, part of William’s cleaning-up operation after the Battle of the Boyne. The Wests thus had distinguished careers in the military and in politics and married into other powerful families of the Protestant Ascendancy, whether New English or older Anglo- Norman families, such as the Savages, who had elected to conform to the new order. The 1641 rebellion and indeed the Jacobite resistance to William of Orange would furthermore have very much pitted members of the West Family and the Hadzor family against each other.

Dr. Who?

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/tom-baker.jpg?w=748&h=506&crop=1

The marriage of Richard West's daughter, Anne, into the Ward family set into flow a direct connection into the aristocracy for at least one branch of the West family.

Today's Viscount Bangor, is the eighth holder of the title. His father, Edward, had a distinguished career as war journalist and foreign correspondent. Edward married four times. 

From his final marriage, a daughter, Lalla Ward was born in 1951. Lalla found fame in Dr Who, playing aside Tom Baker, to whom she was also briefly married. 

From 1992 to 2016 she was married to Richard Dawkins, author of the 'God Delusion' and 'The Selfish Gene' amongst other influential publications.   

So what can you say? Lalla Ward provides the link between the Daleks, the atheism of Richard Dawkins, and the West family of Downpatrick. As the Time Lady 'Romana', she connects Hetty Jane Owen and her descendants with the planet of the Time Lords, Gallifrey. You couldn't ask for much more than that.

Castle Ward, July 2016

Castle Ward is located just a few miles away from Quoile Castle on the road to Strangford, and by way of contrast is a genuine stately home set in 820 acres of immaculately kept lands.  The castle and surrounding lands were owned by the Ward family, until they were passed over to the National Trust, with the agreement that the family would continue to make limited use of the property. This, the Viscount of Bangor, as he is now known, apparently continues to do.  

The Ward line traces its lineage back to Bernard Ward, who sometime before 1638, married Anne West, the daughter of Captain Richard West. 

Their eldest son, Nicholas, married Sarah Buckworth, the daughter of the Bishop of Dromore. Sarah was the niece of James Ussher, whose claim to fame was his discovery of the Book of Kells, which he donated to Trinity College, Dublin, where it resides to this day. Nicholas was M.P. for Downpatrick between 1661 and 1666.

Their daughter Mary married her cousin, Tichbourne West. He was a son of Major Roger West, and grandson of the original Richard West.  

Their son, Bernard, was born in 1654, and married Anne Ward. He met his end in a duel in 1690. This duel would seem to have been with a Jocelyn Magennis. An extant letter records that Bernard shot Jocelyn unfairly with his pistol, and that Jocelyn, in response and although weakened, still managed to bury his sword up to the hilt into Bernard, thus ensuring that both disputing parties made their way into the next world at the same time. 

It was the son of Bernard and Anne, a namesake, Bernard Ward (1719-1781) who became the first Viscount Bangor. He married Lady Ann Bligh (died 1789). It was as a result of this confrontational marriage that the extraordinary interior of today's property dates. Unable to agree on anything, and least of all interior architecture and decoration, the couple partitioned the home down the middle, one side to be Classical and the other side Gothic. Thus did issues of identity and opinion playfully confound domestic harmony at even the highest levels of aristocratic engagement.

Such were the circles in which the West family moved in the early seventeenth century.     

Quoile Castle, July 2016

Quoile Castle is within comfortable walking distance of Downpatrick, and situated close to the banks of the Quoile river that runs up from Strangford Lough to Downpatrick. Although it is called a castle, like many other such buildings in the area, it is really a tower-house. It has been restored to some extent and sits beside the Quoile Countryside and Nature Reserve centre.  

For better or worse, the river and riverside have been used as a filming location for the Game of Thrones series, and acquired a certain touristic value as a result. You would not really appreciate this though on a cold and rainy July day however, when you arrive drenched and battered from that so-called comfortable walk from Downpatrick, however.  

What you would appreciate is the coffee, biscuits, help and hospitality provided by the gentleman who devotes his days to protecting the beautiful natural environment of the surrounding area. For him, the adjacent tower house and its origins were of little or no concern. Quite rightly so.

The tower house is unlikely to figure in any future world heritage lists, but it nonetheless, carries a history, summarized on the plaque just outside the tower itself. This records that the tower may have been constructed by Captain Richard West who settled in the area in the early seventeenth century and that members of the family continued to live in the tower well into the following century. And indeed, further beyond and into the nineteenth century if other records are to be believed. 

From Hetty Jane Owen to Seneca Hadzor: The Line

Hetty Jane Owen, x4 great-grand-daughter
of Dr. Seneca Hadzor

The direct ancestral line from Hetty Jane Owen back to Seneca Hadzor in Downpatrick is as follows:

Hetty Jane Owen (1883-1953) m. Charles Eldridge (1890-1968)

Parents: 
Maria Rosetta Bradley (1860-1945) m. Edward Owen (1858-1887)

Grandparents: 
Maria Robinson (1829-1879) m. Henry Bradley (1825-1880)

Great-Grandparents: 
Harriett Wombwell (1804-1871) m. Charles Robinson (1790-1868)

x2 Great-Grandparents: 
Maria West (1765-1846) m. Richard Wombwell (1757-1833)

x3 Great-Grandparents: 
Elizabeth Hadzor (1731-1816) m. Godfrey West

x4 Great-Grandparents: 
Seneca Hadzor (1668-1746) m. Ruth Bankes 

Farewell to the Hadzors

Downpatrick Prison on Downpatrick Hill. Members of both the
Potter and West families had addresses on the Hill. The blue plaque to the left
marks the spot where Thomas Russell was hanged.

In a way, the Hadzor family represent the bridge between Hetty Jane Owen and her descendants back to the Normans, or Norsemen, who themselves were descendants of the Vikings and other Scandinavian raiders who settled in North France. 

Making their way through England after the Norman conquest, a branch of these Hadzors settled in Ireland as members of the new ruling class. Almost certainly originally speaking Norman French, over time they began to evolve a distinct Irish identity, which eventually led to the demise of and disappearance of many of the family as they came into conflict with the English establishment. 

Those that remained quietly adopted the Protestant faith, joined The Church of Ireland, and sought to maintain a high standard of life through education, career service, and marriage into well-off families, coming into close contact in the process with both later English Protestant and Scottish Presbyterian families.

Out of these connections, a portfolio of lands in County Down was created and passed down the family line, not to be finally dispensed with until 1881. These lands were the product of a highly successful smuggling enterprise conducted by the son in law of Dr. Seneca Hadzor, John Potter. 

John, in turn, left lands in his portfolio to his children, including Elizabeth Carson. When Elizabeth died in Bristol in 1833, she then bequeathed at least some of her lands to her first cousin, Maria West.

Maria West was the daughter of Elizabeth Hadzor (the daughter of Seneca Hadzor and Ruth Bankes), and her husband, Godfrey West.
She was the x2 great-grandmother of Hetty Jane Owen. 

As the Hadzor name now fades from the line, it is to the West family that this tale will now turn.

Ballydugan Mill

Whilst the politics of Ireland descended into further turmoil, the Nevins, Potters and their business partners did not allow themselves to be distracted too much, and in 1792, they embarked on the building of the Ballydugan Flour Mill.

The history of the mill is summarised on the web-page of its current owners who restored the ruined mill in the 1980s and converted it into a hotel and restaurant. Six storeys high and powered by water, wind and steam, the mill all too briefly brought employment and prosperity to the region. 

Ballydugan Mill before its restoration. Tweeted by Cyril Dobbin

By 1857 however, the mill had been abandoned. And by this time too, Hetty Jane Owen’s Irish ancestors had mostly disappeared from the County Down scene.

The Hanging of Thomas Russell

The Execution of Thomas Russell. From:
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/thomas-russell-united-irishman/

To say that the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 was a failure is something of an understatement. One of its leading lights however, and an extraordinary figure and idealist in his own right was Thomas Russell, oddly enough a predecessor of Reginald Blackwood as Linen Hall Librarian in Belfast. Russell's dream of a United Ireland, free of English interference and sectarian division, and founded on principles that owed their origin to The French Revolution and Thomas Paine was not one however that was shared by the English establishment and Protestant Ascendancy.

In 1803 he was tried for his part in the rebellion, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was moved to Downpatrick prison, and on the 21st October, brought outside the gates and publicly hanged and beheaded. 

Surveying his jury in 1803, Russell is said to have remarked that at least six of them had in the past lent their support to the very cause that he was about to die for. 

Sitting in that very jury listening - not necessarily altogether comfortably - was one Thomas Potter. Another jury member was Arthur Crawford, very possibly a relative of the James Crawford who was a partner in the Ballydugan Mill project. 

Who knows whether any of these Potters, Nevins, Carsons or Crawfords were on Downpatrick Hill that day to see Russell's gruesome end? They certainly had the opportunity should they have wished to witness the spectacle however.

Whatever their inner feelings though, they must have all recognised that the days of Whig Club debates were over. In 1801 the English had passed the Act of Union and abolished the Dublin Parliament, thus creating The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Anglican Church was to be the official church of Ireland, and Catholics were not be allowed to hold public office. The Prime-Minister, William Pitt apparently intended to follow up the Act of Union with some form of Catholic emancipation, but had to resign when George III refused utterly to countenance any such concessions.

Russell spent his last days studying the Book of Revelations, and indeed asked for a stay of execution so that he could complete his commentary. With a macabre touch of gallows humour, the judge turned the request down. The time required to reach a complete understanding of the Book of Revelations, he remarked, would mean that Russell would most certainly end up living longer than most of those present in the courtroom. 

So when Elizabeth Carson wrote her final will in 1833 and made her bequest to the poor of Downpatrick to be distributed without regard to religious distinction, she may just have been thinking back to the days of the United Irishmen and their vision of a united Ireland undivided by sectarianism. 

Downpatrick Whigs And Volunteers

The Whig Clubs as explained by a contemporary source in the no-holds-barred historical style of the day, seemed to be intended to allow a forum for discussion of more liberal ideas, and act as a kind of pressure valve that would discourage more radical action. 

From a History Of Ireland from its First Settlement to the Present Time (1845)

Deeply influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution, members of these clubs, whether in Downpatrick, or nationally, could envisage a future in which rights and privileges were not accorded on a sectarian basis, and in which a united Ireland would be able to exercise at least some moderate form of self-government. 

The Irish Volunteers meanwhile were originally founded in 1778, as a voluntary defence and police force, since much of the British Army were needed in America.  The Volunteers however took advantage of the circumstances to exert pressure on London for more independence for the Dublin parliament. 

Out of these groups and out of their various internecine disagreements evolved both the United Irishmen organisation, and also the Yeomanry. The United Irishmen eventually opted for armed rebellion. The Volunteers transformed themselves into the Yeomanry, discarded liberal principles, and as a Protestant militia played a significant part on the crushing of the 1798 rebellion. 

This then was the new territory through which the Potters, Nevins and Haughtons now had to manoeuvre themselves and their Hadzor wives and their children through. Without doubt they began on the side of liberal reform and an end to religious discrimination - at least for the Presbyterians. Where they all finished is not quite so clear.

John Potter and His Associates

This house was built c. 1750 by Mr Thomas Nevin's son William, then owned by
Edward Southwell (Lord de Clifford) in 1777.
It was leased and then bought by James Crawford in 1799
and then by Richard Stitt in 1816 for £1500.
Copied from Ros Davies County Down site

As this review of John Potter's life and family have proceeded, certain names recur. There is, for example, James Crawford. He lived in English Street, Downpatrick, and was a partner in the Ballydugan Mill enterprise. Beyond this, he was also a member of the Downpatrick Whig Club in 1790. He too bought up lands and properties in the area, including Marlborough House, and in 1812 signed a petition for Catholic emancipation.

Then there is John Auchinleck of Strangford, another of the partners in the Ballydugan Mill project. According to the Ros Davies County Down site, in addition to having a distillery, he was in partnership with Thomas Parkinson in another smuggling operation from Quoile and Strangford. None of this prevented him from becoming a county magistrate and deputy lieutenant, and leaving substantial legacies to his sons after his death in 1800.

A common theme, however, running through these families seems to be their membership of the Downpatrick Whig Club in 1790. The French Revolution had taken place the previous year, and it was only six years since the conclusion of the American War of Independence. In both Downpatrick and in Ireland more widely, there were those who not unnaturally turned their minds to enhanced rights and liberties closer to home. Yet another dramatic episode was about to erupt, which would challenge the members of the Downpatrick discussion and debating groups to decide yet again what horse they were going to back as the Irish pot boiled over once more.

A New Presbyterian Church for Kilmore

Kilmore Presbyterian Church from the Church website  
built on lands donated by Elizabeth Carson and Rose Nevin.

For the Hadzors of Downpatrick, members of a distinguished Anglo-Norman family that managed on a serial basis over the centuries to fall foul of the English establishment, the eighteenth century represented an attempt to regroup and prosper by conforming to English imperatives. 

Ironically, as their name faded away, the prosperity they sought came not through the English, but via a Scots-Irish entrepreneur with a taste for transatlantic smuggling, namely, John Potter, the son-in-law of Seneca Hadzor.

The Potters it would appear believed in rendering unto God what was God's but not necessarily rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's. This would have been understandable. Religious taxation and tithes tended to be collected from all, but used only to fund the established church, in other words the Church of Ireland. Furthermore, Presbyterians as well as Catholics still as the eighteenth century drew to a close were deprived of rights, including the right to vote. To suggest therefore to a wealth-creator like John Potter that he might willingly submit his business accounts for the scrutiny of the official customs and excise officers of the day might just have provoked a fairly sharp response. 

The excerpt below is from a chronicle published in the 1830s by the non-subscribing Presbyterian community. It gives something of a flavour of the highly-charged theological disputes of the day, but beyond this tells of the building of a new Presbyterian church in the Parish of Kilmore.

Where did the land for this new church come from? 

From none other, it would appear than Elizabeth Carson, and Rose Nevin, the daughters of the smuggler, John Potter.

Harriett Wombwell's Downpatrick Lawyers

Thomas Nevin, the husband of Rose Potter, and son-in-law of John Potter had a younger brother, William Nevin. This William married one Abbey Wiley. 

Their daughter, Elizabeth Nevin (died 1830) married Hugh Wallace (died 1855), and had a son William Nevin Wallace (1818-1895). This William was to go on to become a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Downpatrick.

Plaque to William Nevin Wallace in Downpatrick Cathedral. 

As well as being Harriett Wombwell’s lawyer, 

William Nevin Wallace was a Justice of the Peace 

and Deputy Lieutenant of Downpatrick.

It was the legal firm of Hugh and William Nevin Wallace that oversaw the lands of Harriett Wombwell all the way through to their 1881 sale. Harriett had not acquired her top team of representatives by accident. They were family connections. 

Thomas Nevin and Rose Potter

Rose Potter married Thomas Nevin in 1799, and it is in this marriage that the merging of the Anglo-Norman Hadzors with the Scottish Presbyterian settlers comes into a rather more distinct focus.

Thomas Nevin was a grandson of The Reverend Thomas Nevin

Original members of the Northern Whig Club in 1790, including Rose
Potter's husband, Thomas Nevin.

(1686-1744), who was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire. On 20 Nov. 1711, this Thomas became minister of Downpatrick at Down presbytery. In 1724, he was brought before the general synod and charged with Arianism. The case rumbled on into the Downpatrick Assizes, and the charges, which were effectively for heresy, were eventually dismissed. 

When the dust settled, and putting aside the theological details and disputes, the elder Thomas proceeded on his way as the head of the non-subscribing division of the Downpatrick Presbyterian Church, to be succeeded by his son, and then grandson, both named William Nevin. 

The Thomas Nevin who married Rose Potter was the elder brother of the latter William, and hence a member of a very well-known and influential Downpatrick Presbyterian family.

Thomas was also a member of  Irish Northern Whigs, as well as being one of the partners in the Ballydugan flour mill enterprise. On 21st November 1792, he is also known to have chaired a meeting of the Down Volunteers. 

Thomas Nevin died in 1818, aged around 70. Rose lived on to 1835, and died in Downpatrick, aged 79.

Joseph Haughton and Catherine Potter

The second daughter of John Potter was Catherine Potter (1752-1813). She married Joseph Haughton in 1799. 

Of Joseph Haughton, the County Down site of Ros Davies records that he was a sailing master who arrived in Downpatrick in 1778 from the West Indies. According to Blackwood he died on 'The Hill' in 1827 and was buried in Downpatrick Church.

As a sailing master with Caribbean connections, there is naturally a possibility that he too was part of the smuggling consortium with sugar being an obvious possible product. 

Ballydugan Mill today. Copied from:
http://www.top100attractions.com/attractions/item/the-mill-at-ballydugan

John, like his father-in-law, was a member of the Downpatrick Whig Club in 1790, and a member in the partnership along with John Auchinleck, Thomas Nevin, John Potter and James Crawford that built and then operated the Ballydugan Flour Mill.

In 1795, Joseph was listed as one of the executors of the will of John Dun of Downpatrick; the other executors were Thomas Nevin and Alexander Gracey. This was probably an ancestor of the Thomas Gracey named in Harriett Wombwell's will as owing her one thousand pounds.

Catherine Potter died in 1813, aged sixty-one.

Elizabeth Carson Makes a Bequest

How and why Elizabeth Carson ended up living out her last days in Bristol is not known. She certainly did not emigrate because of poverty however. She was able to afford grand gestures in her final will, notable enough that the following record made its way into English parliamentary records:

http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/11900/page/279406

It would have been in this will that Elizabeth passed along the lands that ended up in the 1881 Belfast auction to her first cousin, Maria West, who by this time was also in England, had married, and was known as Maria Wombwell. 

There is a little political sting in this bequest however that should not pass by unnoticed. Elizabeth felt it necessary to state that her bequest should operate without any religious distinction, a condition that might just help provide some insight into the political outlook and activities of her wider family. 

The Lands of Elizabeth Carson

When John Potter died in 1802, aged 85, he must have left quite an empire of real estate. Sorting out these lands, and deciding who owned or who would own what seems to have taken quite some time if the 1881 Auction Lot details are interpreted correctly. 

And here in the auction documentation, a full cast of characters emerges. Elizabeth Carson, her sister Rose Nevin, her first cousin Maria West (Wombwell) to whom Elizabeth Carson was to leave the lands described in the 1881 auction, and Maria's daughter, Harriett Wombwell (Robinson), who was to inherit the lands in her turn in around 1846.

John and Joseph Richardson were also involved. This would have been the John Richardson who is recorded with his brother Joseph as operating the Down and Saul Office and Corn Merchants in Irish Street, as well as acting for agents for emigrants to Canada (1832) and operating the Saul Distillery (1846 and 1850). A John Richardson was also Director of the County Down and Liverpool Steamboat Company in 1836. (See: Ros Davies County Down website).

Catherine West meanwhile, was Maria West's sister, and hence another first cousin of Elizabeth Carson. The auction descriptions seem to suggest that she too was alive and involved in 1834.

Problems and disputes over these lands were to continue all the way to the Robinson v Neale case referred to, which was to be conducted in the High Court of London in 1863. For now however, what can be definitely concluded is that the Irish lands that were sold off in 1881 were inherited by Maria West from her first cousin, Elizabeth Carson, the daughter of John Potter and Maria Hadzor.

George Gordon Carson and Elizabeth Potter

George Gordon Carson was a lawyer, and probably the son of Robert Carson, himself a Downpatrick lawyer, resident in the Downpatrick suburb of Vianstown. 

George married Elizabeth Potter, daughter of John Potter, and granddaughter of Seneca Hadzor in 1785. According to Blackwood, the couple separated around 1794, and George died on the 14th June, 1802, aged 55. 

Elizabeth  lived on, and at some point moved across the Irish Sea to Bristol, England, where she died in 1833. 

Obituary for Elizabeth Carson from the 1833 Gentleman's Magazine, 

and Historical Chronicle, Vol. 103. Available on Google books.

Elizabeth Carson is the next key figure in the saga of the 1881 land auction, and is clearly identified in the auction documentation.

The Children of John Potter and Maria Hadzor

The children of John Potter (1717-1802) and Maria Hadzor (????-1763) were:

i. Elizabeth Potter (1751-1833)
ii. Catherine Potter (1752-1813)
iii. Rose Potter (1756-1835)

These three Downpatrick daughters are the first cousins of Maria West, and the first cousins four times removed of Hetty Jane Owen. 

Downpatrick. Copied from: http://www.saintpatrickcentre.com/news/downpatrick/

Seneca Hadzor Disapproves

Central high pulpit originally built for Thomas Nevin in
the first non-subscribing Presbyterian church in Downpatrick
(Down Museum photograph). See: VelvetHummingBee for
more. One of John Potter's daughters was to marry into the
family of Thomas Nevin.

Blackwood notes that Dr. Seneca Hadzor, despite leaving Maria a legacy of 500 pounds, disapproved of her marriage to John Potter. 

It may be that Dr. Seneca was well aware of John’s unorthodox business practices and felt obliged to make some kind of formal statement of censure on this count, without entirely standing in the way of what must have been a highly lucrative marital catch. 

It may also be that as a descendant of the old Anglo-Norman Catholic establishment, albeit realigned to the Church of Ireland, that he felt uncomfortable about marrying off a daughter into what was probably a Scots Presbyterian family. 

Regardless, the marriage went ahead, and whilst so many of John’s contemporaries made a new life for themselves in America, a land in which their religious beliefs would not present an obstacle to progression, John used the earnings from his smuggling operation to venture into the real estate business. John and Maria's children were to reap handsome benefits, as indeed were the succeeding generations.

John Potter Gets Rich

The Burning Bush. Symbol of the Presbyterian Church
From: http://www.presbyterianireland.org/

Whilst Lieutenants John and Seneca Hadzor had carved out military careers and served King and God and country (more or less the same thing since Henry VIII), John Potter seemed to have a finely-honed sense of the business opportunities and investments that the times provided, and made himself an extremely rich man. 

The eighteenth century saw mass emigration of some quarter of a million Irish to America. For the most part, these were not the native Irish Catholics, but the Scots-Irish Presbyterian settlers, who had come to Ireland as part of the English plantation policy. Like the Anglo-Normans, the Presbyterians, although Protestant, were somewhat resistant to efforts to make them assimilate into the Anglican paradigm, and they too thereby incurred the wrath of the establishment.  The 1704 Sacramental Test Act, for example, required Presbyterians to take the Sacrament 'according to the rites of the Church of Ireland as a condition of holding any office, civil or military, under the Crown.' It was not to be until 1782 that Presbyterian ministers were to be allowed to marry their own members.

Compared to the Irish Catholics however, these Scots-Irish were better resourced and in a better position to respond. With the British economy of the time very much based on encouraging exports and discouraging imports through taxation and regulation, opportunities for enrichment by importing popular products through more informal means presented themselves. 

Alert to these possibilities, and with contacts in the USA and the Caribbean, John Potter set to work smuggling his tobacco, sugar and brandy up through Strangford Lough no doubt, past the carefully averted eyes of the customs houses and into Downpatrick. 

Maria Hadzor can have wanted for very little.

John Potter

John Potter in the 1881 auction lot details.

Maria Hadzor, the second daughter of Seneca Hadzor died around 1763 in Downpatrick. She married John Potter and they were to have three daughters. 

Blackwood records that John Potter (1717-1802) spent time in America and that he smuggled brandy and tobacco from France, America and the West Indies earning in the process, £30,000. He also states that he was a linen weaver and bought and sold yarns.

With this not inconsiderable sum of money, John bought up lands in the Lecale, Kilmore and Portaferry districts of County Down. John also seems to have had a Downpatrick grocery business (1747) on Scotch Street, opposite Market House, and to have leased out part of the Upper Ballymote Townland from the Southwell Estate in 1752.

There is a further reference to John Potter in the Vestry Books for the County of Down, as reproduced below:

It is not, however, until the year 1777 that there is any reference to the cleansing and lighting of the streets of Downpatrick. In the years 1759,1765, and 1773 acts were passed by the Irish parliament providing for the lighting and cleansing of cities and market towns, the administration of such acts being, as a rule, vested in the vestries. On 15 Sep., 1777, a meeting of the vestry was held in the parish church of Down, "in order to cleanse the streets and light the town of Downe, pursuant to an act of parliament in that case made and provided." This meeting was adjourned for a week. At the adjourned meeting it was resolved "That William Trotter, Richard Caddell, James Crawford, escjrs., and Mr. John Potter shall be directors, and survey the town in order to range the inhabitants into four classes: that the first class, in order to the cleansing and enlightening the town of Downe, should pay the sum of six shills. and sixpence; the 2nd, four shills. and fourpence : the 3rd, two shills, and twopence; and the fourth according to an applotment made thereof." This meeting was adjourned to 29 Sep., 1777, when it was resolved "that twenty-five lamps shall be hung in the most convenient parts of the town of Downe; that the streets of said tcnvn, where paved, shall be swept twice a week, and where not paved shall be gathered with a shovel…

See: www.jstor.org/stable/20566341

In 1791, John went into partnership to build Ballydugan Flour mill with his son-in-law, Thomas Nevin, along with James Crawford (see excerpt above) and John Auchinleck. John is also listed as a member of the Downpatrick Whig club in 1790.

With these small details, we at least glean some insight into the life of John Potter and his immediate circle, a life in which the politics of the day, religious observance, civic engagement, and a free-flowing entrepreneurial spirit merged into a unique but not always entirely legal set of configurations.  

This is the John Potter who makes an appearance in the 1881 Belfast auction lot details, and it is beyond doubt that the Irish lands of Maria West and Harriett Wombwell were a direct product of John's highly lucrative smuggling enterprise. 

John was buried in a vault at the Downpatrick Meeting House Yard, confirmation that this was a Presbyterian family.

The Children of Seneca Hadzor and Ruth Bankes

Lisburn Cathedral, where Seneca Hadzor married Ruth Bankes. The church was
reconstructed after being destroyed by fire in 1707, just five years after Seneca
married Ruth.
Photo from: http://www.lisburncathedral.org/history

As far as the children of Seneca Hadzor and Ruth Bankes are concerned, they were as follows:

1. Susanna (Juana) Hadzor married Thomas Potter. However, there is a slight complication in the records in that a Thomas Potter also married Rose Hadzor, one of the daughters of Lieutenant John Hadzor. Rose died in 1816 and so it may be possible that Susanna died young, and that Thomas Potter simply remarried into the same family. In either case, we know nothing more of Susanna Hadzor. 

2. Maria Hadzor died in 1763. She married John Potter. There is every chance that John Potter and Thomas Potter were brothers. We can assume they were close relatives in any case.

3. Elizabeth Hadzor (1731-1816) married Godfrey West in Downpatrick on the 3rd July 1760 at Downpatrick Parish Church. 

Elizabeth Hadzor and Godfrey West were the grandparents of Harriett Wombwell, and hence the x3 great grandparents of Hetty Jane Owen.   

The Choices of Seneca Hadzor

English army lists and commission registers, 1661-1714

Dr. Seneca Hadzor has already been noted for his service in the Downpatrick Church in 1704. Just one other record has been located, listing his promotion to lieutenant in 1710 in Nicholas Price's Regiment of Foot. This regiment went to Spain in 1711, and most probably therefore also to Gibraltar. The regiment was disbanded in 1712, and perhaps Seneca Hadzor returned home at this point. He would have been forty-four years old at this time. For just a very brief period, his service may have overlapped with that of Lieutenant John Hadzor. Whether John was his son or his brother, it must have been Seneca who was responsible for setting John up for his long career in the British army. Seneca lived on to 1746, and was around seventy-eight years old when he died. He was old enough to have seen and understood the fall-out from the Battle of the Boyne. Doubtless, he had also absorbed the implications of the Hadzor deaths in battle, the confiscations of property, and the accusations of treason they had faced. His conclusion was that the days of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland were over, and that it was time to bow down and integrate into the new order. And there can hardly have been a better way of doing this than by becoming loyal servants of the British military establishment.