Lemont House
This Indenture made the twenty fifth day of February One thousand eight hundred and seventy nine Between William Robert Poole of Sheffield in the County of York and of Totley in the parish of Dronfield in the County of Derby, Builder and Farmer of the one part and Thomas Bown of Totley aforesaid Licensed Victualler (who was married at the parish Church of Bawtry in the said county of York on the eleventh day of July One thousand eight hundred and sixty one) of the other part Whereas by Indenture dated the first day of March One thousand eight hundred and seventy five and made between Thomas Kilner of the one part and said William Robert Poole of the other part certain hereditaments of which the hereditaments expressed to be hereby granted are part were granted unto and to the use of the said William Robert Poole his heirs and assigns, And Whereas the said William Robert Poole has agreed with the said Thomas Bown for the sale to him of the said hereditaments expressed to be hereby granted at the price of Fifty pounds subject nevertheless to the covenants by the said Thomas Bown hereinafter contained Now this Indenture Witnesseth that in pursuance and consideration of the premises and in consideration of the sum of Fifty pounds to the said William Robert Poole upon or before the execution hereof paid by the said Thomas Bown (the receipt of which sum the said William Robert Poole doth hereby acknowledge.) The said William Robert Poole Doth hereby grant unto the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns All that piece of land situate in the Township of Totley aforesaid (formerly part of a close of land called the Upper Breast Barns) bounded on or towards the North by land now or late of Ebenezer Hall and John Roberts on or towards the South by a new Road twenty six feet wide leading into Mickley lane on or towards the East by other hereditaments of the said William Robert Poole agreed to be sold to William Green and on or towards the West by hereditaments now or late of Miss Hill and containing in the whole (exclusive of any part of the said New Road) no part whereof is intended to be hereby granted) Four hundred and thirteen superficial square yards or thereabouts and more particularly delineated on the plan drawn in the margin of these presents and therein coloured pink and numbered six, Together with full right and liberty for the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns and his and their tenants being owners and occupiers of the piece of land hereinbefore described in common with the owners and occupiers of other hereditaments adjoining the said new Road to use as a foot horse and carriage way at all times and for all purposes all or any part of the same new road and to run water and soil from the same hereditaments hereinbefore described in and through all drains and sewers now made or hereafter to be made upon and under the same road, And all other the rights easements and appurtenances to the said hereditaments hereinbefore described belonging or usually held and enjoyed therewith. And all the estate right title interest benefit claim and demand of the said William Robert Poole in to and upon the said hereditaments To have and to hold the said piece of land and hereditaments hereinbefore expressed to be hereby granted Unto and to the use of the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns And the said William Robert Poole for himself his heirs executors and administrators doth hereby covenant with the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns that notwithstanding in anything by him the said William Robert Poole or any person rightfully claiming through or in trust for him done omitted or knowingly suffered the said William Robert Poole now hath full power to grant the said hereditaments herein before expressed to be hereby granted to the use of the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns for free from incumbrance And that the same hereditaments shall be held and enjoyed accordingly And shall at all times hereafter be further assured by the said William Robert Poole and his heirs and every person having or rightfully claiming and estate right title or interest in or to the said hereditaments or any part thereof through or in Trust for him or them to the use of the said Thomas Bown his heirs executors, administrators and assigns doth hereby further covenant with the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns at his or their expense and as by him or them shall be reasonably required. And the said William Robert Poole for himself his heirs executors, administrators and assigns doth hereby further covenant with the said Thomas Bown his heirs and assigns that he the said William Robert Poole his heirs or assigns (unless prevented by fire or other inevitable accident) will upon every reasonable request in writing and at the costs of the said Thomas Bown his heirs or assigns produce and show or cause to be produced and shewn to him them or any of them or to such person or persons as he or they shall require all or any of the Indentures specified in the schedule hereto for the manifestation defence and support of the Estate title and possession of the said Thomas Bown his heirs or assigns And will at all times at the like request and cost make and furnish to him or them such True copies Abstracts or Extracts attested or unattested of and from all or any of the same Indentures as he or they may require And will keep the same Indentures safe whole uncancelled and undefaced And the said Thomas Bown for himself his heirs executors administrators and assigns doth hereby covenant with the said William Robert Poole his heirs and assigns That for the term of Fifty years from the first day of January One thousand eight hundred and seventy nine the following regulations shall be observed with regard to the said hereditaments herebefore described and the erections thereon namely (1) No trade business shall be carried on upon the same hereditaments (2) No building shall be erected nearer to the said road than the building line at a distance of six feet from the same road and shewn on the said plan except boundary walls and bow or bay windows projecting in front of Dwellinghouses built up to the said building line (3) Each Dwellinghouse shall be erected up to and in accordance with the said building line and shall front to the said new road and shall have a stone front and be two stories in height and no more with or without attics And that said Thomas Bown his heirs or assigns will at all times until the said new road shall become repairable by the public pay to the said William Robert Poole his heirs or assigns or other the person or persons in whom the site of the said new road shall for the time being be vested a proportionate part of the expenses of repairing and maintaining the said new road and the sewers and drains thereof such proportionate part in case of dispute to be fixed by the Surveyor for the time being of the roads in the Township of Totley aforesaid. In Witness whereof the said parties to these presents have hereunto set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.
The Schedule hereinbefore referred to
20th January 1873 Indenture of this date made between Arthur Burnell and John Cockayne of the first part Elizabeth Hill of the second part Robert Ramsey Swan of the third part and Tedbar Tinker of the fourth part.
29th September 1874 Indenture of this date made between Tedbar Tinker of the one part and Thomas Kilner of the other part.
1st March 1875. Indenture of this date hereinbefore recited.
(signed) William Robert Poole (signed) Thomas Bown
[Reverse]
Signed sealed and delivered by the within named William Robert Poole and Thomas Bown in the presence of (signed) J. Barnes Clerk to Messrs Rodgers Thomas & Co, Sols. Sheffield.
Received the sum of Fifty pounds within expressed to be paid to me
(signed) William Robert Poole. Witness (signed) J. Barnes.
Dated 25 February 1879
Mr William Robert Poole to Mr Thomas Bown
Conveyance of the freehold land and hereditaments situate near Mickley Lane in the Township of Totley in the Parish of Dronfield in the County of Derby.
THOMAS BOWN
Thomas Bown was the second of eleven children born to Henry Bown, a labourer, and his wife Eliza nee Coxon, who had married on 19 October 1835 at St. Oswald Church, Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Their first child, Sarah, was baptised in Hognaston, Derbyshire on 28 February 1836 and the Bown Family must have moved to Totley soon after because Thomas was baptised at Christ Church, Dore on 6 May 1838.
By the time of the 1851 Census Henry had become a banksman in a coal mine. Sarah and Thomas had left home. Thomas, aged 12, was living with the family of Joseph Hancock in Causeway Head and was working as a farm labourer. His parents went on to have seven further children born in Totley: Elizabeth (1840), Charles (1842), William (1845), Henry (1847), George (1850), Mary (1852) and Edward (1854) but they later moved to Abbey Houses, Beauchief, where a fourth daughter Frances was born in 1858 and a seventh son, John, in 1860.
In the next Census on 7 April 1861, Henry Bown was said to be an overlooker in a brick yard. His son Thomas was living in Totley Hall Road and was working as a blacksmith. On 11 July that year Thomas married Jane Wood, the daughter of George Wood, a hostler and his wife Hannah, at St. Nicholas Church, in Bawtry. The couple may have met when Jane was living at the Parsonage in the household of Rev. John Aldred, the Perpetual Curate of Dore. Jane was employed as a Ladies Maid possibly by Mrs. Aldred.
In 1866 Thomas was sworn in as one of Totley's two constables and by 1867 Thomas and had become the publican at the Cross Scythes, an occupation he initially combined with those of farmer and blacksmith. The couple had seven children in all of which five lived into adulthood, Hannah Elizabeth (1861), George Henry (1864), Mary Elizabeth (1865), Margaret Jane, (1870), John Charles (1874), Tom William (1878) whilst two others died in infancy, Tom Edward (1875-1876) and Emily Ethel (1882-1882). The children were all baptised at Christ Church, Dore and records have survived showing that George, Margaret and Thomas attended Totley Church School; perhaps the others did too. Thomas became an Overseer to the Poor around 1884, and in 1886 he gave up farming, selling off all his stock and equipment.
In the 1891 Census, Thomas and Jane were being helped at the Cross Scythes by four of their children: George, Polly (Mary Elizabeth), Maggie and John. Hannah had married Charles Henry Hill, a fruit and vegetable merchant, on 6 October 1880 at Dore Christ Church and the couple had made their home in Sheffield.
Eventually Thomas and Jane left the Cross Scythes and also moved to Sheffield and in 1901 they were running the Hallamshire Hotel on West Street. In September 1903 they sold Cross Grove House, a property adjoining the Cross Scythes which they had built for their own family use.
Jane Bown died on 27 August 1905 and was buried in Dore churchyard two days later. She was aged 65. Perhaps it was at this time that Thomas decided to retire as in 1911 he was living at 46 Hands Road in Sheffield with his daughter Polly who had married Hugh Clynes, a letter cutter and engraver, in Sheffield in 1904. Thomas Bown died on 29 July 1914, aged 77, and was buried with his wife Jane on 4 August.
WILLIAM ROBERT POOLE
William Robert Poole, was born in Harvest Lane, Neepsend, Sheffield on 1 February 1842, the son of Timothy Poole, a joiner and carpenter from Worksop, and his Sheffield born wife Mary, nee Rhodes. William had an older sister, Sarah Ann, who had been born in 1838 but she died two months after William's birth and was buried at St. George's Churchyard on 5 April 1842.
By the time of the 1861 Census, the family were living at nearby Cross Duke Street and Timothy Poole now employed two men and two boys including his son William and his nephew Jabez Poole who lived with them. Shortly afterwards, William's mother died at the age of 54 and was buried on 4 July 1861 at Burngreave Cemetery.
On 22 November 1866 William married Hannah Culley at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Newark on Trent, Nottinghamshire. Hannah was the third daughter of John Culley, a farmer, and his wife Hannah, nee Harpham who had married in 1838. William and Hannah's first child, Albert Preston Poole was born on 28 August 1867 and baptised at Christ Church, Pitsmoor on 3 November the same year. He was known as Preston and named after his uncle, Preston Harpham. A daughter, Mary Hannah was born the following year and a son Timothy Edward in 1869 when the family were living at Pye Bank, Bridgehouses, Sheffield.
The 1871 Census shows that they had moved to Totley and were living at the large detached house then known as Totley Brook House (now the listed building Brook Hall) on Mickley Lane. William's occupation is shown as farmer and contractor and the family were sufficiently well off to employ two live-in servants. This wealth was the result of an inheritance from William's father who had died on 12 December 1869. At the same time William took over his father's builder's business. For a while the business prospered but by 1875, with many of his newly-built houses unsold and untenanted, the Poole Family had downsized to Woodland Villa, (Queen) Victoria Road. Sadly, William and Hannah's son Preston died there aged just 8. He was buried in Burngreave Cemetery in the same plot as his grandparents on 31 May 1875.
In January 1880 William found himself the defendant in a series of five 'interpleader' cases brought before the Sheffield County Court by his creditors, principally John Capel Darlow together with his father Eli Darlow and mother-in-law Mary Charlesworth. Eli Darlow was a builder who had seized William's brickyard in Rutland Road and had begun to sell off its plant and machinery. It was claimed that this action was taken in non-fulfilment of a contract under which William was to sell the brickyard to Eli Darlow in consideration for ten houses at Walkley owned by Mrs Charlesworth. His Honour, Judge T. Ellison decided in favour of the creditors and costs were allowed.
By November 1880, when the Poole Family had moved to Cyprus Mount, (Queen) Victoria Road, their quality furniture was being advertised for auction as well as a quantity of builder's materials. In the Census of the following year, the family were living at 118 Hoole Street, Walkley. Worse was soon to follow when William was forced into an accommodation with his creditors to avoid bankruptcy. Against liabilities of £22,369 there were assets of just £2024 17s. (approx £2,670,000 and £245,000 in today's terms). On 10 June 1882, at a meeting of creditors, the business was liquidated and William was allowed his discharge.
In the 1891 Census William and Hannah Poole were living at 560 Brightside Lane with their son Timothy who was working as a mason. Hannah Poole died in 1894, aged 50, and was buried at Burngreave Cemetery on 20 June. By the following year both father and son had become coal dealers but that venture also seems to have been short-lived because the Census of 1901 records William as a pauper in Sheffield Union Workhouse, Fir Vale (later the Northern General Hospital). He died there in 1902, aged 60, and was buried in the family grave at Burngreave Cemetery on 31 May.
His son Timothy Poole married Sarah Emma Myers, the daughter of John Myers, a steel roller, at St. Matthews Church, Carver Street, Sheffield on 18 March 1895. The couple went on to have nine children: Edith Hannah (1896), William Henry (1898), Alice Martha (1900), Lily (1902), Albert Robert (1905), Eva (1907), Edward Timothy (1909), Elsie (1911) and John (1914). Timothy was shown as a labourer in the 1901 and 1911 Censuses and again in the 1939 National Register. He died in Sheffield in 1944 at the age of 74.
Daughter Mary Poole married Tom Bartholomew Spink, a blacksmith's striker and widower at St. Bartholomew's Church, Walkley on 22 July 1889. Tom's first marriage to Jane Ellen Shepherd had lasted for less than a year when Jane died in April 1887 at the age of 22. Mary had earlier given birth to a daughter Lillian Gosnay Poole in 1887. Mary and Tom Spink had eight children of their own: Edith Annie (1891), Ethel May (1893), Tom (1894) Florence (1895), Frank (1897), Mary Hannah (1898), Marian (1900) and Gladys (1901). Their youngest child, Gladys, was born on 2 November 1901 and baptised at Attercliffe on 20 November. Mary, however, had died shortly after Gladys's birth, presumably from complications. She was buried at Burngreave on 11 November alongside no fewer than six of her children who had died under the age of eight months. Only Ethel May and Gladys survived until adulthood. Their father married for a third time on 1 June 1909 at Holy Trinity, Darnall to Sarah Jane Overall and went on to have six daughters with her between 1910 and 1921, all of whom survived infancy. Tom Bartholomew Spink died in 1935 at the age of 68.
THOMAS KILNER
Thomas Biggin Kilner was born in 1827 and baptised at Norton St. James on 28 October that year. He was the son of John Kilner, a file cutter of Bradway, and his wife Hannah Biggin who had married at the same church on 6 August 1826. Thomas had a younger sister, Hannah, but she died aged 3 months in August 1829. Their mother died in the same month and they were buried together at St. James Churchyard.
By the time of the 1851 Census, Thomas had become an agricultural labourer and was living at Abbeydale with the family of Thomas Godber, a farmer. Also lodging there was Tedbar Tinker, a chemist, with whom Thomas Kilner would become closely associated for many years.
On 7 May 1854 Thomas Kilner married Elizabeth Mather, a widow, at Norton St. James. She was the daughter of William Barber, a labourer and his wife Hannah. Elizabeth had earlier married John Mather at the Sheffield Parish Church on 29 July 1838. She and John had seven children: Joseph (1841), Anne (1842), William (1844), John junior (1847), Elizabeth I (1848), Elizabeth II (1850), and Hannah (1853). Only Anne, William and the second daughter to be named Elizabeth survived infancy. In the 1851 Census the family of five were living at Bradway Mill and John Mather was employed as a labourer and carter. He died later the same year.
By the time of the 1861 Census, Thomas Kilner was working for Tedbar Tinker as the manager of Totley Chemical Yard which was located at the Bradway end of Back Lane, between Totley Brook and Victoria Road. The principal product appears to have been charcoal but the yard also manufactured pyroligneous acid and naphtha. In April 1868 Thomas took over the business from Tedbar who was then free to concentrate on his numerous other business interests.
Elizabeth Kilner, Thomas's wife, died in 1870. There were no children from the marriage but Thomas's unmarried step-daughter, Elizabeth Mather, continued to live at home. In the Census the following year Thomas was described as a manufacturing chemist employing four men.
The Chemical Yard was a dangerous place to work or simply to visit, to deliver cordwood and waste hard wood and to collect charcoal, for example. A labourer called William Howe, who worked at the yard, was found dead on 5 June 1871, having suffocated from gas escaping from a pipe that passed through the building he was in. Being so close to the Totley Brook, the yard was liable to flooding and on one occasion in 1880, a horse and cart were swept some distance downstream before they could be extricated. Another accident in 1888 resulted in a youth named Walter Bradshaw being fatally scalded when he accidentally fell into the vat of boiling lime that he had been stirring.
There were a number of workers cottages in the Chemical Yard itself and immediately above it at Cliff Cottages on Victoria Road, but the Kilner Family lived at Woodbine Cottage, a substantial eight-roomed villa with stables, carriage-house, piggery and ornamental gardens. Thomas Kilner died there on 11 December 1890 at the age of 63 and was buried at Norton Cemetery three days later. The chemical business was closed after his death but his step-daughter continued to live at the house on Bradway Bank until her own death in 1908.
TEDBAR TINKER
Tedbar Tinker was the third son of Abel Tinker, a farmer, and his wife Susannah, nee Roberts who had married on 18 September 1817 at Sandal Magna, Wakefield. Tedbar was baptised at Shelley, near Kirkburton in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 7 April 1826.
His forename is a traditional Tinker Family name. His great grandfather was Tedbald Tinker (1711-1792), both names being old Yorkshire variations of the name Theobold. Tedbar had two older brothers Henry Horncastle (1818-1844) and William John (1821-1857). His younger sister Harriet (1828-1884) was baptised at Kirkburton shortly after her father's death.
By the time of the first census in 1841, Tedbar, aged 14, was living at Thunderbridge, Shelley and was a mechanic's apprentice. In 1844 Tedbar's brother Henry died and was buried at All Hallows, Kirkburton, on 26 January. He was aged 25 and left a widow, Anne, and two sons William John and David McNicholl. They went to live with Anne's widowed aunt, Ann Hudson, in Dewsbury.
By 1851 Tedbar Tinker was lodging at Abbeydale with Thomas Godber a farmer, and had become a chemist. We don't know how or when Tedbar met George Siddall, who was a fellow chemist living at Dronfield but the two men became business partners in the firm of Tinker and Siddall, manufacturing chemists of Totley Chemical Yard. The firm probably started in the late 1840s and by the mid 1850s they had extensive works producing a number of chemicals from pyroligneous acid or wood vinegar as it was commonly known. The acid involved the destruction of wood with naphtha, an inflammable gas, and charcoal as by-products.
On 29 November 1854 Tedbar married Sarah Fox at St. Giles Parish Church, Matlock. She appears to have been born in Beauchief around 1832, the eldest of ten children born to John Fox, a farmer, and his wife Rebecca, nee Steel who were married at Beauchief Abbey in 1831.
Tedbar and Sarah Tinker went on to have 14 children over the course of the next 24 years: Harriet (1854), Sarah Emily (1856), Frances (1857), Tedbar John (1859), Alice (1860), Helena Blanche (1862), Florence Annie (1864), Clara (1866), Ellen (1868), Charles William (1871), Mary (1872), Clara May (1873), Kate Adelaide (1875) and Frank Stanley (1878). The oldest seven children were all baptised on 9 August 1865 at Norton St. James, the family having set up home at The Grange, Bradway where Tedbar, freed from running the Totley Chemical Yard in 1868, now combined farming with other diverse business interests which included coal mining, quarrying, woollen mills, and land and property ownership.
Around this time, Tedbar Tinker and George Siddall started the Twentywell Brickworks, adjacent to an old quarry on Bradway Bank. It is probable that their intention was to supply stone and bricks to George Thompson & Co., who was contracted to build the Bradway Tunnel for the Sheffield and Chesterfield Railway. The tunnel was built between 1865 and 1870 but we have yet to see proof that the Twentywell brickyard actually supplied the tunnel with any bricks. The company running the brickworks, the Twenty Well-Sick Stone and Brick Company Ltd., went into voluntary liquidation in 1875, to be replaced by a new company owned by George Siddall, Tedbar Tinker and William Fox. By 1876 it seemed to be prospering, employing around forty men working shifts around the clock and manufacturing an expanded range of products which now included sanitary and drain pipes, chimney tops, grave and headstones.
The operation was not without its share of fatal accidents. In August 1871 John Frost was killed in the quarry when he was crushed by a fall of stone. In July 1876 one man, Isaac Wain, was killed and two others injured when a boiler in the brickyard exploded with such force that the front of the boiler was blown through the brick wall of the shed and landed in a field 150 yards away. Considerable damage was done to the buildings and equipment causing all work at the brickyard to cease until repairs could be effected.
On 12 February 1884 Tedbar Tinker died at the Grange, Bradway, aged 58. He was buried on 15 February at Norton Cemetery. Many of his business interests, including the brickworks were taken on by his oldest son, Tedbar John Tinker. In 1898 there was an auction of 18 lots of the Tinker Family's land and property in Bradway, Dronfield and Sheffield which included the Castle Inn and the Twentywell Brickyard. The sale yielded more than £15,000, the equivalent of £2 million in today's terms. A further sale in 1902 included the land formerly occupied by the Totley Chemical Yard and the three properties at the top of Bricky Row, then occupied by James Boot, Colin Thompson and Leonard Thompson together with their various outbuildings adjoining Back Lane. The sale also included houses, building land and a farm in Dronfield. In total it yielded £5,215 or £635,000 in today's terms.
Sarah Tinker continued to live at The Grange with her son Tedbar John for the rest of her life. She died on 11 August 1928, aged 96, and was buried in the same grave as her husband three days later. She had survived him by 44 years and was one of the oldest women in Derbyshire when she died. Tedbar John Tinker died at The Grange on 18 March 1932 and was buried in the same grave as his parents on 22 March.
ROBERT RAMSEY SWAN
Robert Ramsey Swan was born in Longhorsley, Northumberland in 1826 the son of James Swan, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Mary. Robert's early life included a time in Ireland where he graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. He became a schoolteacher in Liverpool and on 1 January 1857 married Emily Penn Cockerton, the only daughter of Rev. John Cockerton and his wife Mary.
In 1834 John Cockerton became the Headmaster of Dronfield Grammar School and in 1850 was appointed also as the incumbent of the Abbey Church at Beauchief. Emily's mother died in 1852 and her father married again to Susan Tasker in 1857. The following year he became insolvent and arrangements were made to repay his creditors from deductions of £52 a year from his stipend. There was much sympathy for him as his annual salary from the grammar school was £120 and the incumbency brought in about a further £30 pounds. Before his debts could be fully repaid, Rev. John Cockerton died on 13 June 1862, aged 57. George Siddall, auctioneer and business partner of Tedbar Tinker, handled the sale of Rev. Cockerton's entire household furniture and effects, including a library of over 400 learned books.
In the 1861 Census Robert and Emily were living at Church Road, West Derby, Liverpool and he was shown to be a mathematics teacher. By the mid 1860s, however, Robert was advertising himself as the Principal of the Stanley College, Church Road, a school to "prepare Young Gentlemen for the universities, learned professions or commercial pursuits".
By 1869 Robert Swan had formed a partnership with Sheffield merchant Harry Leonard Mort to be joint Principals of the Boarding and Day School, The Thorns, Southport Road, Lydiate. Harry's mother was the sister of Rev. Cockerton's second wife who was also living with them at The Thorns in the 1871 Census. Both Robert and Harry are recorded as having secondary occupations as landowners.
Robert and Harry's partnership did not last long, however, and was dissolved in October 1873. It would appear there had been some family fall-out. Whilst Emily, Harry and Susan Cockerton remained at The Thorns where Harry turned his hand to farming and market gardening, Robert returned to Liverpool and a career in teaching. In 1889 Harry Mort was declared bankrupt and by the time of the 1891 Census, Emily, Harry and Susan were recorded at Moorlands, Froggatt, Derbyshire "living on their own means". Robert Swan had retired by this time and was living with his widowed sister Sarah in Sunderland.
On 4 August 1893, Emily Swan, who had being running a florists business, was declared bankrupt. Later the same year Robert Ramsey Swan died in Sunderland, aged 67. In 1895 Susan Cockerton died and was buried at Bradwell on 6 November. in the 1901 Census Emily and Harry were living at Smalldale Head, Bradwell where they continued as florists. They were still there in 1911. Emily Penn Swan died in 1916 aged 79. Harry Leonard Mort died in 1922 aged 81.