Who are you?

I would dearly like to know more about people reading this website?  What is your interest?  I am particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has a family connection to the Fairfax-Cholmeley’s or the Estate. 

Author: patsyalicemccarthy

Independent researcher and would be writer, currently researching the life and work of Hugh Fairfax-Cholmeley.

12 thoughts on “Who are you?”

  1. Hi Patsy
    I’ve been using the latest lockdown to delve deeper into my family history, in the course of which I came across your very interesting site regarding Brandsby. My 5x gt grandfather, Thomas Maskill, was a farmer in Brandsby at the end of the 18th century (his wife was a Wiley, though I haven’t researched any connection to Samuel Wiley yet). Their son Robert Maskill farmed at Brandsby and also had the Cholmeley Arms for a while. I was interested to read of the moral code enforced by the landowners which saw girls with illegitimate children banished from the village; this appears to have been the fate of my 3x gt grandmother Jane Maskill, who ended up having her baby in Craike. Her brother John Maskill is referred to in HCFC’s text as a slovenly farmer at Warren House in 1890! In his defence, he was nearly 70 at that time.
    Best wishes

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  2. Hi.
    I’ve been researching a Thomas Horsley shotgun that I bought. After a little digging into the records I believe it belonged to Francis Cholmeley. If you have a photo of the gentleman I would really love to see!

    Matt

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  3. Hello Matthew, That would have been Francis Cholmeley (1850-1876). He inherited the estate at the age of 6 years old in 1856.
    He was only active as Squire from 1871. When he came into his majority to 1876, he set to work on the estate improving farm buildings and built two cottages at High Side, in the village. He set his sign in the form of a plaque on all his buildings. They can still be seen in places today.

    He died in Malta in 1876 and the estate then went to Captain Thomas Cholmeley. Captain Thomas is the first one of the Squires for whom we have a photo, I afraid there is no photo of Francis Cholmeley as far as I know, I don’t know what he was doing in Malta!

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    1. Fancy inheriting all that at such a young age. I wonder if my gun was passed down to the Captain at all? I don’t suppose you happen to have any photos of him shooting etc do you?

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  4. Hello
    I do not have a direct connection with Brandsby or the Cholmeley family but many of my ancestors came from other villages nearby, especially Newton on Ouse. I came to the Cholmeleys by finding that several Cholmeley girls from Brandsby Hall attended the Bar Convent school in York, an institution that also involved some of my ancestors and relations. When I looked further, I found a lot more fascinating information, some of it on your excellent website. I am putting my findings onto the website wikitree, where it is freely accessible to anybody who is interested. The information about the Cholmeleys I have put on wikitree so far starts with the marriage of Francis Cholmeley to Mary Berkeley (born Ferrers from Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire). See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cholmeley-89 So far I have got up to the 1861 census. In the last few days, I discovered the connection of the Cholmeley family with the Strickland family of Sizergh Hall near Kendal Westmorland and Loughglinn Co. Roscommon Ireland. The Stricklands were already put on wikitree by other people, but with very little information about their connection with the Cholmeleys and Brandsby. In 1814 Ann Cholmeley daughter of Francis Cholmeley and Teresa Englefield married Jarrard Edward Strickland from Sizergh and went to live at Loughglinn (see: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cholmeley-95). They had a number of children, including Annie Strickland, who married her cousin Henry Philip Cholmeley and went to live at Brandsby. By 1861, her father in law and her husband had died, leaving Annie as head of the household at Brandsby Hall. Several other members of Annie’s Strickland family were also at Brandsby Hall at the time of the 1861 census (See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Strickland-7146). I have just noticed that somebody else has put on wikitree the information that Annie’s brother, Walter Strickland married Maria Aloysia Bonici-Mompalao. There is also a wikitree category: Brandsby, which includes a number of Cholmeleys. See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Brandsby%2C_Yorkshire
    Martin C. Styan

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    1. Thankyou very much for your comments and this information Martin. I did not know the Ann Cholmeley had married into the Strickland family, I shall look at this further. However, this is not the only connection to the Stricklands; Hugh Fairfax-Cholmeley is a direct descendant from the Stricklands, because his mother was Rosalie St. Quentin Stickland, daughter of a second son of the Strickland direct line. She married Captain Thomas Cholmeley, who at the time was not expected to inherit, but inherited on the early death of his nephew Francis Cholmeley in 1875.
      I will comment further when I have looked at some of the info you have given me above.
      I would be very interested to know more about your family name (s) and your connections with the Barr Convent.

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    2. Further reply Martin: Thankyou for the entries you have put on wiki tree, most interesting. I don’t know who your family is, but if you are interested in the Stricklands, there is an excellent family tree on Ancestry.co.uk done by the archivist at the Cotesbach (originally part of the Stickland estate) Educational Trust*. This traces the Sricklands back to William Strickland in the 16th century, who was responsible for bringing turkeys to England, hence the crest of the Stricklands is a turkey. He made a lot of money and built Boynton Hall, not sure how the Sizeburgh Stricklands relate to Boynton ones, but there are a number of connections between the family and the Cholmeleys. Besides Rosalie, mother of the last Squire of Brandsby, William Strickland (1753-1834) married Henrietta Cholmeley (1760-1827).

      I was interested to know about Annie managing the household in Brandsby, that must have been during the minority of the last Francis Cholmeley to be squire who died in 1875 at about 27 years, leaving his uncle Thomas Cholmeley to inherit the estate. I have been trying to find out some more about this young Francis Cholmeley, to find out what his approach was to estate management during his brief stint as Squire.

      The Eleanor Cholmeley you noted as one of the children of Ann (Cholmeley) Strickland was an artist and lived in Minster Yard in York. Ann, herself, was taught drawing and painting by Cotman, along with her sisters, during his visits to Brandsby.

      There is a large painting of an Ann Cholmeley, still hanging over the staircase in Brandsby Hall, despite the many, many changes of hands the Hall has been through, could be Ann or Annie.

      I would be interested to know more about the family or families you are connected with.

      *The Cotesbach Ed Trust contains the papers of the Marriott family, into which the Stricklands married. There is a lot of info about the Stricklands there, they are just in the process of putting their catalogue up on line at present.

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      1. Hello Patsy
        I intended to write again sooner, but have been busy with other things. The Styans were a farming family in the middle part of Yorkshire, especially at Whixley and Newton on Ouse, a few miles south-west of Brandsby. I appear on wikitree at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Styan-40 I grew up in Scarborough, but now I live in Bratislava, Slovakia. My father’s sister Margaret Styan attended the Bar Convent school in the 1930s. However, we have a rather more substantial connection around 200 – 250 years ago, involving people named Caley, Eastwood, Knight and others related by marriage. A number of girls from these families went to the Bar Convent as pupils and several stayed to become nuns. The Caleys originated in Holderness around Burton Constable, but one of them succeeded in marrying the heiress to Grimoldby Grange near Louth in Lincolnshire. This couple had a very large number of children and sent the girls to the Bar Convent. Two of the girls became nuns and one of the boys became a priest, but enough of the others got married and had children. There must be rather a lot of their descendants around today, and in various countries. These people do not quite make it into Burke, but they appear in several publications of the Catholic Record Society and other places. They can be found on wikitree at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Caley-342 by clicking on “descendants”. I have still not created profiles for all the Caley children.
        In the last days, I have looked up and added to wikitree, more about the Cholmeleys of Brandsby and their relations. I looked into the Fairfaxes of Gilling. I found on findmypast substantial newspaper articles about the sisters Harriet Fairfax / Cholmeley (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fairfax-618) and Lavinia Fairfax / Barnes (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fairfax-620). I have added them to the profiles on wikitree. The 19th century Fairfaxes of Gilling were descended from 18th century people named Pigott. Some of them were already put on wikitree by somebody else. According to Burke, one of the Pigotts married a Fairfax and the Pigott who inherited Gilling changed his name to Fairfax. I have also got up to Thomas Charles Cholmeley and his wife and children (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cholmeley-107). I was able to connect Rosalie St. Quentin Strickland (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Strickland-7165) with other family members already on wikitree. These Stricklands seem to be separate from the others, I mentioned in my first comment. If they are connected, it is probably several centuries earlier. Do you know how Rosalie’s family came to be living near Naples? I have also looked into Roger Edward Cholmeley, his emigration to New Zealand, and Alice Mary Aldworth, who he married in New Zealand. She came from a well off Berkshire family, which had also moved to New Zealand. Information about their graves has been put on findagrave, for example: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/132782753/robert-aldworth for Alice’s father.
        There is plenty more still to do. I also plan to look into the Constables of Everingham and Burton Constable.
        Martin C. Styan

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      2. So sorry it took me so long to approve your comment, I got a password problem didn’t have time to sort it out. Thankyou for all the interesting information, it will remain here in your comment for reference for anyone interested.

        Rosalie St Quentin’s father was a second (Strickland) son, hence did not inherit main estate. He decided to go and live in Naples as it was much cheaper to live a good style life there than in England. Naples was then very fashionable, it still being during the reign of the last King of Naples and Sicily and Court life was quite good. Hugh FC wrote a very amusing account of his recollections of the place and his mother’s life which is on this website in the Journal Blog, under Memories of Italy. url here: https://fairfaxcholmeley.com/2018/10/15/italian-roots/#more-800

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  5. Hi Patsy,
    I had no idea until today – when I stumbled across your site – of the pioneering role played by Hugh in the development of rural telephony.
    I am working with a friend, Mike Fletcher, on his website – https://telephone-exchanges.org.uk – which aims to locate and record surviving (and former) telephone exchanges before they all disappear. In the process, I’m trying to include significant historical details – and the part played by the first Brandsby exchange is very important.
    Have you a photograph of the old Brandsby post office, the site of the manual exchange which hosted Hugh’s ground-breaking rural party lines? If so, we would love to include it in our site, together with a summary of its importance, and, of course, a link to your own research.
    Many thanks for a fascinating site.
    John.

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