The Coke Family & Totley Hall Estate
by Josie Dunsmore
Coke of Trusley arms
Introduction
At the end of the 18th century the Totley Hall Estate roughly consisted of three “parts” or “moieties” – the Hall, two old farms between Totley Hall and Gillfield Wood, which amalgamated into one in 1808 and three farms in Dore. The early history of the Estate is very complex and is still in the process of being untangled. In the 16th and 17th centuries wealthy gentry landowners and yeoman farmers bought up “parcels” (i.e. blocks) of land scattered throughout different parishes. Some of these parcels were passed down through the generations within one family, whilst others were sold off to finance their owners consolidating and enlarging of their central estates. To make matters more complicated some of the parcels and individual fields were owned by several different people who willed these on in various directions.
Documents relating to the early history are few and far between, and take the form mostly of Wills, Deeds and odd references. However, by the 18th and 19th centuries more documentation, maps and accounts are available to give a more complete picture of the Totley Estate’s history.
In Matlock Records Library there is a biography of the “Cokes of Trusley” and enough documentation to build up a history of the family that owned Totley Hall Estate for nearly a century. As there are four “D’Ewes Cokes” involved, to avoid confusion I will refer to them as Rev. D’Ewes, D’Ewes Coke of Poole, D’Ewes Coke and F. L. D’Ewes.
These owners of the Totley Estate were from Pinxton near Alfreton in Nottinghamshire. However they had an early connection with Totley. According to notes on Totley Hall in The Old Halls, Manors and Families of Derbyshire a deed dated 1402 shows that the Manor of Totley had been in the hands of the Milnes of Ashlockton in Nottinghamshire, who were related to the Cokes of Trusley. Four hundred years later descendants from a branch of this family came back to Totley. (See family tree and Coke of Trusley arms.)
Coke Family Tree
1791–1811 Reverend D’Ewes Coke
The first member of the Coke family to inherit the Totley Estate was Reverend D’Ewes Coke, who was born in 1747. His father died when he was 11 years old, and his father’s friends, Mr Lillyman, a lawyer of Brookhill Hall, Pinxton, and his wife, became his guardians. In 1772 D’Ewes married Hannah, the daughter and wealthy heiress of George Heywood of Brimington Hall, Chesterfield. Hannah’s mother had died when she was small and she had been rather spoilt by her father. Fortunately George Heywood seems to have taken a liking to his son-in-law and purchased the Presentation of the Rectorship of Pinxton and South Normanton for him. Rev. D’Ewes and Hannah had three sons D’Ewes, William and John and a daughter Hannah.
Rev. D’Ewes inherited Brookhill Hall from Mrs Lillyman in 1784 as well as Werneth in Cheshire. By his marriage he inherited Brimington Hall on the death in 1784 of Hannah’s father, who favoured his son-in-law over his own son. George Heywood Junior was passed over as heir, and got only an annuity of £100 because he had displeased his father by proposing to marry their servant, Jane Siddall. Estates in Totley, Dore and Swaddale were left to Hannah by her bachelor uncle, Anthony Gallimore of Chesterfield, in 1791.
The Dore part of Hannah’s inheritance consisted of three farms – one around the Gilleyfield area and two around King’s Croft with farmhouses abutting Church Lane. The Totley part was Totley Hall and farm in the tenancy of Peter Flint. The adjacent farm was bought by Rev. D’Ewes in 1796 with a mortgage of £1000 loaned by his uncle, D’Ewes Coke of Poole, completing the Coke’s Dore and Totley Estate and making them one of the largest landowners in both villages. Hannah’s land was administered by her husband.
Rev D’Ewes Coke was not a healthy man. He was deaf in one ear due to a blow to the head from a teacher, and he suffered from asthma. However, he was thought to be a clever artist who enjoyed etching on copper. Sadly while doing this he had an accident and lost his sight. He continued in his role as Rector, learning the Services by heart, and was remembered fondly as a good man by many after his death in Bath on 12 April 1811. He was buried at Pinxton in his own Church, where there is a memorial.
Rev. D’Ewes seldom visited Totley during the twenty years he held the estate – relying on agents and tenant farmers to maintain the land while he took their rental money, though he was a Trustee of the earliest school at Dore. The member of the family who wrote the biography “Coke of Trusley” said that Totley and Dore were “desirable sporting properties, but little visited by the family”. The farm tenants were left to manage as best they could. (See the tale of Peter Flint to see what happened in the absence of his landlords.) In 1809 his son John wrote on behalf of his father to Fairbanks Surveyors and acting agents. He said “his father did not chose to go to the expense of a survey at that time but wanted Fairbanks to put as high a value on Totley as you suppose circumstances will allow”. No wonder the tenants struggled to pay their rents when harvests were poor.
Rev. D'Ewes Coke (standing) with wife Hannah and cousin Daniel Parker Coke, by Joseph Wright of Derby (Derby Museum and Art Gallery)
1811–1818 Hannah Coke
After Rev. D’Ewes Coke died the Totley and Dore Estates reverted to his wife Hannah and were administered by her sons D’Ewes and John. The main family estates were inherited by eldest son D’Ewes, and second son William inherited the small estates of Brimington and Tapton and the rental of Totley and Dore. William was a Barrister-at-Law who was knighted and became Chief Justice of Ceylon. He spent a number of years abroad and died unmarried on 1 September 1818, relatively young aged 43 at Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Three weeks later his mother Hannah Coke also died, leaving her lands in Dore and Totley to her eldest son D’Ewes.
1818–1856 D’Ewes Coke Esq of Brookhill Hall, Notts.
D’Ewes Coke was born on 22 December 1774. He was a Barrister-at-Law, the Recorder for both Newark and Grantham Corporation from 1805, and Land Agent to Duke of Rutland from 1811 to 1839. On 2 November 1797 he married Harriet, daughter of Thomas Wright, Esq. of Mapperley Hall, Notts, and they had ten children, five boys and five girls.
In 1800 D’Ewes Coke bought Langton Hall Farm near Pinxton from his father with part of his wife’s fortune. It was in a ruinous condition but D’Ewes Coke renovated it as a home for his young wife and later his growing family.
Author and personal friend Spencer T Hall in his Biographical Sketches of Remarkable People described D’Ewes Coke as being tall, open, intelligent, a severe critic and faithful friend to many, and reservedly proud on occasions. John Henry, 5th Duke of Rutland, was also a friend of his agent D’Ewes Coke and spoke highly of him. D’Ewes Coke became deaf and retired early from the Law, and he concentrated on his other roles, especially as landowner and agent. Hall says “He had a peculiar theory of tenure and rental, which was that the first persons having a right to live on the produce of the land are they who cultivated; next, the poor who cannot help themselves, the landlords coming last and taking what can be justly spared.” (Coke of Trusley, p.104). One wonders if he didn’t deal too harshly with his Totley tenant, Peter Flint, whom he sacked when he struggled to make a go of it at Totley Hall Farm.
When people die one is often apt to overlook their faults and failings and see them through rose-coloured spectacles. Having read a number of D’Ewes Coke’s business letters I find it hard to accept the above statement. On the contrary he sought to extract every penny he could from the tenants of both himself and his employer, the Duke of Rutland. For example, when he first became the Duke’s land agent, in a letter to Fairbanks Sheffield Surveyors about valuing the land, he wrote “I intend to put the whole on full rent”. In a second letter he commented “The Duke is at present far from rich. I must therefore have it done in the cheapest possible way to be well done.” It is hardly surprising that by 1818 the tenants of both Totley and Dore were begging for a rent reduction, especially as they had all suffered from a poor harvest the previous year. On this occasion D’Ewes Coke responded to his tenants’ appeal and made a small reduction in their rent.
However S. T. Hall goes on to say of D’Ewes Coke that “waste of any kind was decidedly painful to him, from waste land to waste paper whether belonging to himself or others”. This would account for him not tolerating his Totley farm being allowed to go to rack and ruin. However he had a reputation for being a good landlord keeping cottages, drainage and even smoking chimneys in good repair.
Despite all his best efforts it appears that the Totley Estate was run at a loss. Writing to his eldest son F L D’Ewes in Stockholm in April 1830, he says that he has had to have two small timber sales on his Brimington and Langton Estates “… or I could not have paid my way for Totley. This however is now over till it becomes your turn. I believe this has been a grateful little place and has done more for me than I could have conceived considering the wretched state in which my Father (i.e. Rev. D’Ewes Coke) left it – so it will be for you if you have the sense to keep it. With all I have done the state of my affairs is very embarrassing to me after paying away all the rents that come in and having no demands of sort I still have £470 of tradesmen’s bills of which £230 are 3 years old.” Even ten years later the Estate still wasn’t thriving, despite having land from the Commons added in both Dore and Totley.
D’Ewes Coke didn’t like show or parade, but spent liberally on building, endowing and subscribing to schools and libraries. For example, a new school was built at Dore in 1821, and plans were made to build a school at Totley around that time. This was to be built on a four acre site enclosed from the Commons at Moss Road. The land had already been purchased for the purpose in 1720 by a bequest in from Rev Robert Turie, assistant Vicar of Sheffield. It was intended that money for the school was to be raised by subscription, but five years later nothing had happened. This evidently did not suit the go-ahead business-like D’Ewes Coke, who had had enough of waiting and decided to build the school on his own land in Totley Hall Lane and enlist the subscribers himself. The idea was to raise £150 by the generous giving of local landowners. Letters show that he had to chivvy some of them along to get them to pay up. In the end the subscribers paid but D’Ewes Coke himself gave the land, building and furnishings for the school, which opened in 1827 and included a schoolroom and house for the teacher, which still exists on Totley Hall Lane.
One senses that D’Ewes Coke was a real dynamic go-getter. Letters show he was always out and about around his estates, keeping an eye on his property, as well as staying at Castlehill, Bakewell and Longshaw when on business for the Duke of Rutland. Besides being involved with his various Estates he found time to be involved in the local communities, serving as Chairman of the Parish Council between 1835 and 1845 when Totley was being mapped and surveyed by Sanderson of Mansfield (close by Brookhill, Coke’s main seat) for the Tythe Award in 1840, and again through the difficulties and pitfalls of the Inclosure of the Commons in 1841. He had also been involved in the later stages of the lengthy Dore Inclosure 1809 – 1821.
D’Ewes Coke’s skills as a lawyer must have been useful in assisting to engineer the Inclosure of Totley Commons. In 1834 the Parochial Meeting comprising himself and the other four largest landowners discussed a letter from the agent of Lord Middleton, Lord of Totley Manor (i.e. Township not Manor House). Lord Middleton was displeased that “Strangers” were getting stone off the Commons. In this case the outsiders were men repairing the Turnpike Road. The Totley landowners devised a clever reply, saying that though they regretted the damage caused, the Highways Laws prevented them responding, as getting stone to mend roads was legal. They “respectfully submitted to his Lordship that the only method to prevent destruction of the best part of the Commons by Strangers getting stone there is an Inclosure in which this meeting beg to state they will at all times be ready to concur”. Of course they would, the crafty chaps! They would be the ones who would benefit most by getting more land by Inclosure. Lord Middleton agreed to the Inclosure of the Commons on certain terms, namely (i) that he reserved coal and ironstone for himself; (ii) to keep 35 – 40 acres of the Commons lying conveniently for the cottages; and (iii) to be free of any expense in obtaining the Inclosure Act, surveying or fencing his allotment.
D’Ewes Coke seems to have regarded his Totley property as something of a retreat, and spent time and money prettying up the woodland. Soon after retiring as the Duke of Rutland’s agent he obviously considered selling at one point as in a letter a relative wrote “It would be a great pity to give up Totley for you seem to like it and from all accounts it is a much more healthy situation than Brookhill, which never suits you for long.” Brookhill Hall was among the Nottinghamshire coal mines.
Alfred Wolstenholme of Woodseats published a letter in the Daily Telegraph in 1895 remembering Gillfield Wood where D’Ewes Coke “allowed public access, but made some miles of serpentine cross and other walks in the wood, built log cabins and rustic seats, and made it a very pleasant place”. D’Ewes Coke also enjoyed the old 17th century Totley Hall, and appears to have kept it in the original décor. The rambling old house is described in detail by J. D. Leader in 1875 who visited the Hall with members of Sheffield Archaeological Society when it was tenanted by Frederick Hunt. After D’Ewes Coke’s death the House was presumably left as it was – stuffed with antiques and curios collected from all over the neighbourhood. The Hall with its uneven floors had walls hung with pikes, guns, bows and fishing tackle. There was a fine old dining table accompanied by oak chairs of as many patterns as could be found in an old curiosity shop. Leader found the House to be not too large but roomy, comfortable and picturesque. It certainly seemed to be much-loved by D’Ewes Coke but, despite his best efforts, the estate was running at a loss.
D’Ewes Coke appears to have taken his relative’s advice as he hung on to his Totley and Dore estate until he died on 22 October 1856, and the Totley Estate passed on to his eldest son F. L. D’Ewes..
1856–1873 Francis Lillyman D’Ewes Coke
(Known as “F. L. D’Ewes”)
Francis Lillyman D’Ewes Coke was born in 1804. He was named Lillyman after his grandfather’s guardians, and educated at Shrewsbury School and Christchurch College Oxford.
Strangely there are no biographical notes of him in Coke of Trusley. He is listed as D’Ewes Coke’s eldest child, but his name is omitted from the family tree in the above volume. The Coke’s biographer mentions that in 1873 (the year of Francis’s death) William Sacheverall inherited “from his elder brother D’Ewes”, so we know he owned Totley Hall after the death of his father.
The only information I’ve been able to uncover about the mystery of F. L. D’Ewes is in the family letters. After leaving Oxford he visited several places around Britain, then visited Paris. This appears to have given him a thirst for travel as from 1829 to 1835 he spent several weeks a year staying in hotels in major cities in various parts of Europe. For example in 1830 he visited Stockholm, Bergen and Christiana in Norway as well as St Petersberg and Gotha. He was funded by his Father with whom he carried on an affectionate correspondence. Occasionally his Father mentioned the estate at Totley which F. L. D’Ewes was expected to inherit. In 1834 F. L. D’Ewes appears to have lived at La Grande Carrée Hotel, S Simplonica from September to December. A drawing of this hotel and his passport survive in the Matlock family archive.
Then in June 1835, six weeks after going to France, F. L. D’Ewes brother-in-law George Robinson (husband of sister Sophy), who was holidaying in Brighton with his family, by chance bumped into F. L. D’Ewes, who was looking overweight, ill and dejected – and was penniless. In three letters to his father-in-law D’Ewes, George describes in detail what happened over the next ten days. The story reads like a Victorian melodrama. It seems that something, possibly a broken romance, had occurred in France that had caused F. L. D’Ewes to have a complete mental and physical breakdown. During the ensuing week he was evicted from his hotel, had the police searching for him and threatened suicide, before being located and taken under the wing of the family. He walked around their lodgings all night opening drawers and cupboards, gorging his food and drifting off into trances and he had lost his short term memory. After some days he suddenly hired a post chaise and rushed off home to see his father. Whether he ever recovered from his breakdown is a mystery, but there are no further letters between F. L. D’Ewes and his father and no records of him in the Coke papers being involved with Totley. As his name does not appear much, if at all, in Totley historical documents, it appears that he was another absentee landowner who had tenant farmers running the Totley Estate and an agent to collect the rent.
There were two Coke tenant farmers at Totley Hall Estate during the time F. L. D’Ewes was owner. Charles Alsop was Farm Bailiff from 1857 to 1860. Then from 1861 Frederick Hunt, Esq, who lived at Totley Hall, was tenant for almost 20 years. He was the owner of clay sheds and works in Deep Hollow. He appears to have treated the Estate like his own, using Gillfield Wood for private sport and putting up “Trespassers will be Prosecuted” notices, thus closing off what had been for centuries considered rights of way.
F. L. D’Ewes Coke died childless and unmarried on 19 December 1873, and the Totley Estate passed down to his brother William S. Coke.
William Sacheverall Coke wearing the uniform of Sandhurst Military College, , believed to have been painted circa 1822
1873–1881 William Sacheverall Coke J.P.
Born on 31 August 1805 William Sacheverall Coke was the second son of D’Ewes Coke Esq. His middle name was an old Coke family name.
At the age of 19 he obtained a commission in the 39th Regiment which was granted at the request of the Duke of Rutland, his father’s friend and employer. He rose to the rank of Colonel, but in 1830 he left the army and spent some time at the Cape of Good Hope. He returned there in 1835 when he sailed from England in a small yacht and became the first person to reach the Cape without touching land – an amazing feat. William liked the Cape so much that he sold his yacht and bought land at Elsey’s Kraal outside Capetown. There he met his first wife Sarah Kitt, daughter of John Deane Esq of the Cape of Good Hope, and they married in 1837 before returning to England to live at Langton Hall, one of the Coke Family properties. Here Sarah bore 17 children and (unsurprisingly) died in 1870. Six months after her death, William, by now a J.P., remarried Susan Annie, daughter of R. Miller Esq. (deceased) of Seaton, Devon. Together they had three more children, making William the father of twenty.
On the death of his brother F. L. D’Ewes in 1873, William S. succeeded to Brookhill, Totley and Dore and other properties. William S. appears to have had a similar character to his father – orderly and businesslike. He adopted a policy of selling off the smaller family estates to have funding to consolidate Brookhill. He began in 1874 by selling Brimington and also Dore, which was bought by the Duke of Rutland.
At this time he also sold off timber and coppice wood from Gillfield Wood and sold the small Trickett Wood to Thomas Andrew, carter and farmer. Frederick Hunt, Esq continued as his tenant farmer at Totley Hall until 1880.
On 25 Mar 1881, after 90 years of Coke family ownership William S. Coke sold Totley Hall Estate on a 60 year lease at a rent of £145 p.a. including sporting rights to John Unwin Wing, who had previously rented Brinkburn Grange. Mr Wing was a self-made man who was an accountant, investor and debt collector, and who had written a book on double entry book- keeping. He immediately set about extending and “modernizing” the old 17th century Totley Hall, replacing small mullion windows with large Victorian bays. He added a new wing with an internal balcony leading to new bedrooms with a billiard room below. John, his wife Jemima and four children moved into the incompleted Hall in September 1881. However, before the alterations were finished, he got into financial difficulties and borrowed £5,500 from the Union Bank using the Hall and Estate as surety. Then on 12 May 1882, only a few months after moving into Totley Hall, John Unwin Wing was arrested for embezzlement and fraud, and, bail being denied, was sent to Wakefield Jail. Within days his creditors put the Hall and contents of the house, farm and outbuildings up for sale to recoup their loan without waiting to see if Wing was guilty or not.
The Hall was next bought by William Kent Marples of Totley Grove for £2,250 and the annual rent on the 60 year lease. By the time he moved into the Hall William Marples and his wife Jane had five children aged between 2 and 12 years, four sons and a daughter. Mr Marples was employed in his family’s business as an Edge Tool Merchant and Manufacturer in Hibernia Works in Westfield Terrace, Sheffield. He was universally respected, kindly and a supporter of good causes, churches and chapels, as well as being active and interested in local affairs and being a keen and knowledgeable botanist. His special interest was in Totley Orphanage “Cherrytree” and called the children his “other family”. He organised treats and country outings for them and often visited the Home.
As the alterations begun by John Wing were incomplete Mr Marples employed an architect, J. D. Webster, to continue with the work, which is why the central gable of the present Hall is embellished with a small shield bearing W. K. Marples’ monogram and the date 1883 and not John Wing’s. A total of £2000 on improvements to the buildings and driveways was said to have been spent by Mr Marples.
Although he was actively involved with the family business and served on the Sheffield Council in the Chamber of Commerce as well as being involved in local events and charities, William Marples suffered from ill health. This deteriorated so badly that he was advised by his doctor to spend the winter months in a warmer climate. Consequentially he and his wife and the two youngest children set off in late October 1883 for the Grand Iles D’Or, Hyeres, France. He was ill on the journey and then contracted a severe infection to his lungs. He sadly died on 25 November, aged only 44, just over a year after purchasing Totley Hall. Mrs Marples and her five children moved out of Totley Hall a few months after her husband’s death, and once again Totley Hall was up for sale – for the third time in four years.
On 16 February 1884 the Hall was purchased for £2,850 and the annual rental by William Pashley Milner of Meersbrook Hall for his son William Aldam Milner and his wife Sarah Elizabeth (nee Roberts). New owner William A. Milner was finally able to buy the Hall outright in 1893 from Wm S Coke for £4,500, a sum which merged and extinguished the rental term of 60 years. This transaction ended the Cokes one hundred year association with Totley Hall.
Josie Dunsmore
Updated September 2021