A history of our ancestors in Liversedge

Our Walker heritage leads back to the Spen Valley in Yorkshire and the town of Liversedge which is located just a few kilometres south west of the city of Leeds in Yorkshire. In 1893 Frank Peel, who lived in Heckmondwike, wrote a book called “Spen Valley, Past and Present”. This book is available to read online and can be found on the Google Books website. When researching his book, Peel was fortunate to find a trove of papers, several centuries old, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. These papers were produced by a lawyer, John Hanson, whose wife was an heiress of the Rayner family and the cousin of James Walker b. c1556). The following article is based largely on Peel’s writings which I consider fairly factually sound. At times Peel’s book is hard to follow, and on at least one occasion in my reading, contradictory. Our Walker connection to those in Peel’s book took me many hours to unravel but there is no doubt that we are intricately related to the family of Liversedge Essolf, descendants of the early Saxons mentioned in the Domesday Book, through Alice Rayner.

The Early Britons

In pre-Roman times the Brigantes, who were a Celtic tribe, controlled the largest section of northern England. Their territory, often referred to as Brigantia, was centred in what was later become Yorkshire. The Brigantian Kingdom of Elmete which encompassed the towns of Cleckheaton, Gomersal, Liversedge, Heckmondwike, etc. was hilly and heavily wooded. The Brigantian settlements were generally found in the hollows of valleys, close to water and out of the wind and these early towns met those requirements.

Roman Invasion

The Roman Emperor, Claudius, invaded England in AD 43 but it was not until AD 71 that the north of England was conquered. The Kingdom of Elmete was among the last parts of England to be controlled by the Romans and effective control of the Spen Valley may not have occurred until many decades later. Despite their long period of occupation of the Romans left few records of this time. Little is known about Roman settlements in the Span Valley although a settlement existed at Cleckheaton and iron was smelted at Low Moor. The Roman road from Tadcaster (Calcaria) to Manchester (Mancunium) passed through Cleckheaton and another road which ran from Dewsbury to Upper Boothroyd passed through Liversedge (a map of the area is on the following page).

The Arrival of the Saxons and Viking Raids

Following the decline of the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, Saxons from northern Germany became the controlling force. There appears to be no Saxon invasion as such. The early Saxons in Britain were “foederati”. The term was used, especially under the Roman Empire for groups of "barbarian" mercenaries, who were typically allowed to settle within the Roman Empire. The “Saxon invasion” can be viewed more as a colonisation over an extended period and they lived and interbred with the original inhabitants. Over the next several centuries Yorkshire remained largely under Saxon control.

From around the beginning of the ninth century there had been waves of Danes (Vikings) raiding the English coast. In 865, instead of raiding, the Danes landed a large army (described as “The Great Heathen Army”) in East Anglia, with the intention of conquering the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. After making peace with the local East Anglian king, the Great Heathen Army moved north. In 867, they captured Northumbria and its capital, York. For much of the next one hundred years much of eastern and northern England was under Danelaw, a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. Viking rule ended when Eric Bloodaxe was driven out of Northumbria in 954. It is not known how the Viking influence affected the village of Liversedge and whether any of the local barons were of Danish heritage.

The Norman Invasion

The Normans invaded England in 1066 led by William the Conquerer, Duke of Normandy. It took some time before the Normans spread their influence to the north and for some time the county of Yorkshire remained, in its main characteristics, a distinct kingdom under the Saxon governor, Morcar. However after some unsettled times, William replaced Morcar with Robert Comyng, a Norman. Robert was a cruel leader and the people rose against him and killed he and his troops. When news of this uprising reached London, a furious William sent an army to destroy all humans, habitation, livestock and means of support. York was utterly destroyed and the chief nobles, their wives and children put to death. Only those who hid in the woods survived. The Conquerer’s vengeance fell with particular ferocity on the Parish of Birstall (of which Liversedge is part) reducing its value from 140/- to 10/-. William of Malmesbury said that no fewer than one hundred thousand perished in Yorkshire at this time, and the whole country was made a desert. “I will not undertake” says a local historian quoted by Lyngard “to describe the misery of this wretched people. It would be a painful task, and the account would be disbelieved”.

The Saxon Manors

In 1086, at the time of the Domesday Book, Liversedge seems to have been the only part of the Spen Valley that was populated. The two Saxon Thanes who held manors at the time the Domesday Book was written were Levenot and Gernebar. Levenot has been supposed, from his name, to have been a Briton; while Gerneber was undoubtedly a Saxon. As Gerneber seems to have managed to retain his possessions in Liversedge and other places when neighbouring Thanes were swept away in the great tornado, there are grounds for suspecting that he was one of those who turned traitor (when the Normans came) to save his possessions.

A manor was a parcel of land, usually around 1000 acres, given to a subject as tenant-in-chief by the king. The lands of the manor of Liversedge Hall (Levenot) appear to have covered the land in the Dewsbury, Liversedge (and Littletown) and Batley districts while the lands of the manor of Liversedge Place (Gerneber) was adjoining on the west side. It should be pointed out here that Liversedge was the name that appears to be given to the district as a whole and that the members of both these families were referred to with the “surname” de Liversedge.

Gerneber seems to have been a man of substance, for he held many broad acres in Ardsley, Thornhill, Whitley, Mirfield and Hartshead, and was probably numbered among the wealthy who occupied, at certain times, the houses left by the wealthy Romans.

Prior to the Norman invasion in 1066 surnames or family names were not used. Hence in the 1379 Poll Tax records for Liversedge we see

Johannes de Leversig, cissor John of Liversedge who was a tailor or clothier

Johannes Walkester, Fullo John Walker who ran a “fulling” or “walking” mill

Wilhelmus del Spen William of the Spen (river)

Johannes Bethbroke John who lived by the brook

Robertus Schephird Robert the shepherd

Thomas fforester Thomas the forrester

Thomas del Halle Thomas of the Hall

It seems that in the late Middle Ages the two manors of Liversedge began to be referred to by the name of the Lords of the respective manors at that time. Hence we have the family of Liversedge Hall being referred to as Liversedge Robert after Robert de Liversedge (possibly Robert Neville) and the family at Liversedge Hall as Liversedge Essolf after Essolf (or Osulf) a Saxon Thane. Tracing specific members of the de Liversedge family becomes difficult because members of either family could be referred to as “de Liversedge”. It is also highly likely that through intermarriage that there would be numerous connections between both families. Although the descendants of the family of William Walker and Alice Rayner (see below) it would appear are more genetically connected with the family of Liversedge Essolph, it is almost certain that William Walker’s land at Rawfold was part of the lands of the manor of Liveresedge Hall and so the Walkers may have genetic connections to the families of Liversedge Hall.

The Liversedges of Liversedge Essolf

The actual descendants of Gerneber are not clear but it is possible that Osulf was a descendant of this family. Around 1170, Thome (or Thomas) makes a deed which grants sundry parcels of the lands at Liversedge to the brethren of the Hospital of St. John. In the deed, Thomas states that he is the son of Hugo (or Hugh) and the grandson of Huctredi (or Ughtred). It is possible that Huctredi is the son of Osulf.

In 1251, “John, son of Dolphin de Liversegge, quit claimed his right in six acres of land to the abbey at Fountains, in the village of Liversegge, and gave one oxgang of land there; and confirmed to the monks all they held in the same place”. As Peel states “we only encounter this unusual name, Dolphin, once previous to this date, and that is in 1198, so it is probably the same person referred to in this deed. It is pretty certain he belonged to the Hightown family, although the proof is not conclusive”’

The first reference that John Hanson makes of the Liversedges of Liversedge Essolf is of one Peter de Liversedge of Hightown. Around 1265 Peter married Isanda the daughter and heiress of Robert de Liversedge. Peter and Isanda had one son named Thomas ("filius Isandi”). Thomas, it seems, after Isanda’s death c1288, inherited the family seat at “Liversedge Place”. Thomas de Liversedge had three children, William, John, and Alice.

After initially bequeathing his lands to John Halle, his chaplain, Thomas de Liversedge relented and in 1353 left all his lands to his eldest son, William. William had no issue so in turn, in 1370, he bequeathed the lands to "Johni Isand, fratri meo" (John Isand, my brother). John held the lands until 1393 when, he too having no issue, “conveyed the estate to Robert Shepherd”. Robert Shepherd is stated as being “the son of Thomas, which Thomas was the son of Richard le Shepherd, who seemeth to be the son of one Roger Underwoode de Batleye”. From this we see that Roger ’s residence stood on a slope at the foot of a wood at Batley. His son, Richard, acquired his surname from his occupation and this became the family name.

Robert Shepherd had three daughters, Maude, Jennet and Alice. Maude married a neighbouring Franklin named Thomas Halle. A reference in an old deed states that his house was “neare unto Liversedge Place”. We find Thomas del Halle, along with John Isand (John de Liversedge) and Robert Shepherd (Robertus Schephird) in the 1379 Poll Tax list. When Robert died the lands of Liversedge Place were left to his three daughters.

Thomas and Maude Halle had a daughter, Jennet. Jennet married John Biltcliffe, a fellow yeoman of Liversedge. John and Jennet Biltcliffe had one daughter named Alice. Alice was wooed and won by Richard de Liversedge, son of Robert de Liversedge, “a descendant of the old stock”.

The Loss and Recovery of the Lands of Liversedge Essolf

The Liversedge Place estate had been divided into three portions for the three daughters of Robert Shepherd. The marriage of Alice Biltcliffe and Richard de Liversedge had restored one third (her grandmother, Maude’s portion) of the original Liversedge Essolf estate back into the old de Liversedge family. Richard de Liversedge’s uncle (also Richard de Liversedge) was vicar of Birstall in 1409. The Rev. Richard de Liversedge was anxious to restore the honours of his ancient house, and with that in view he purchased the other two portions from the descendants of Jennit and Alice (the current Alice’s great aunts), and had the proud satisfaction of installing his nephew into the family mansion and handing over to him the original estate of John Island de Liversedge, with the addition of the lands of the Shepherd family. Not content with this the uncle went on acquiring property during the remainder of his life, all of which at his death was inherited by his nephew. With these additional lands, the old house had regained more than its ancient honours.

Richard and Alice de Liversedge lived to a moderate old age and then left their lands to a son named William. In his hands the estates appear to have dwindled, probably from his extravagant mode of living. John, his son, who seems during the earlier portion of his life to have also lived recklessly, found when he got into years that his broad acres had shrunk considerably. Much of the property accumulated with such care and self denial by his ancestor, the vicar, had passed into other hands.

Learning wisdom as he grew in years, John de Liversedge, the owner of “Liversedge Place” became careful and calculating when he was an old man. He had one son, William, who came to a tragic end, and it is at the time of this sad event that we must date the change in the old man’s disposition. The manuscript says William “was slain by the windmill of Birstall”. Whether he was killed accidentally in, or by, the windmill, or slain near it in some quarrel, is not clear. John de Liversedge’s interest in bolstering the family’s diminishing estates saw him enter into an agreement with Thomas Goodheire, Esq., of Raistrick (west of Brighouse), who had a daughter named Alice. It was arranged between these two that Alice Goodheire should marry William de Liversedge. John de Liversedge agreed to make over all his lands and tenements; the remaining lands of “Liversedge Place”. William de Liversedge married Alice Goodheire around 1502.

William and Alice had a daughter born after his unfortunate death and hence named Alice Posthuma de Liversedge.

The Rayners of Liversedge

It is through Alice Posthuma that the Rayners and de Liversedges were linked. The Rayner family doubtless came to reside in Liversedge at an early date although their names do not appear in the 1379 Poll Tax returns. They must nevertheless have come to the area before the end of the fourteenth century. They were beyond question descendants of the Flemings, who were brought to England by King Edward III, to teach his subjects a better method of making cloth. The Rayners originally settled in Hartshead. The earliest possessions of the family in Liversedge were at Harepark, and eventually they acquired a considerable slice of that side (west) of Liversedge (around the current village of Hightown ). In 1499 the representative of the Rayner family in Liversedge was referred to emphatically as a “rich man”. It is plain, however that the Rayner’s had not become rich from tilling the soil. Generation after generation they continued the manufacture of cloth for which their ancestors were so famous, and their wealth had gone on continually increasing until they evidently overshadowed the Liversedges. The first mention of “Webstercraft” and “Sheercraft”, by which the trades of weaving and dressing cloth were anciently known, appear in connection with this old mercantile family, and it seems not unlikely that it is to them that we owe improvements in the weaving of cloth into the Liversedge neighbourhood.

John de Liversedge of “Liversedge Place”, grandfather of Alice Posthuma, saw, to his great grief after William’s unfortunate demise, that the de Liversedge name must after all suffer extinction, and the estate he had done so much to build up in his latter days pass into other hands once more. His neighbour, William Rayner, who seemed ever gaining in wealth, had a son and heir named John, who was about the same age as Alice Posthuma, his grand daughter. What an excellent arrangement it would be if these two children could be betrothed and when they were grown up united in marriage. Though the old name would be lost, still the last of the Liversedges would come into possession of almost the whole of Liversedge Essolf, the original patrimony of her forefathers! Thomas Rayner, the father of William and grandfather of John, the youthful heir, is sounded. The elder Rayner is not blind to the honour of the alliance and to the desirability of joining the two estates and as a result a deed is drawn up in 1511 by which “William Rayner made a foeffment of all his lands in Liversedge, Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike, &c., to the use of John, his eldest son, and the heirs of his body in special taille”.

John Rayner married Alice Posthuma around 1526. Peel states that she “was descended from Osulf the Saxon, and had blue blood in her veins”. John and Alice had a son named William and a daughter named Alice. On December 21, 1530 John sickened and died. Alice, the widow, sometime in 1531 married James Dymonde, of Wakefield. Many years later the Dymonds were the owners of land which long ago had been the heritage of their ancestress, Alice Posthuma de Liversedge. Alice Posthuma de Liversedge was the last of the de Liversedges of Liversedge Essolf to own Liversedge Place.

The Loss of the Rayner’s land at Liversedge Essolf

William Rayner married Margaret Clerckson and inherited all the lands of Liversedge Place. William and Margaret had a daughter Jennet (or Johan) b c1550. Before his death in 1534, William Rayner, the grandfather, had made a deed leaving all the lands of “Liversedge Place” to William. On William Sr.’s deathbed, Marmaduke Rayner, the second son of William Sr., and young William’s Uncle, had convinced his father to alter his will. In the event that the young William (William Sr.’s grandson) left no male heir, the land would revert to Marmaduke (William Sr.’s second son) and his younger brothers in succession in the event of no further male heirs. In this case the lands which the Rayners had acquired would remain under the Rayner name.

In 1550 William Rayner died suddenly when he contracted the “sweating sickness” which was some sort of virulent plague that swept across much of England and killed people in their thousands. William’s only heir was the two month old Jennet and hence the grandfather’s revised will came in to play. At this time a man by the name of Henry Batt, lived in the Rectory House at Birstall. Henry controlled the manors of Birstall, Heckmondwike and Heaton but was, by Frank Peel’s writing “a clever designing knave” who was “a member of a wealthy family, the early heads of which have an unenviable reputation”. On the death of William Rayner, Batt convinced Sir John Neville, the Lord of Liversedge Hall, to seize young Jennet, the infant heiress to Liversedge Place, and take her as his ward. Not only did the widow, Margaret lose her daughter but she was also evicted from Liversedge Place! A long and convoluted legal process with all sorts of skulduggery committed by Henry Batt, it seems with an unwitting Sir John Neville as accomplice, resulted in not only the young Jennet loosing her inheritance but also the land being stolen away from Marmaduke Rayner. Pages 64 through 73 of Peel’s book makes fascinating reading of this tawdry tale.

It was the young heiress, Jennet, who was the wife of John Hanson. It was the papers now held in the Bodleian Library that formed the basis of John Hanson’s legal battle to have the Rayner land returned to his wife’s family. It is thus this fortuitous even that has enabled us to know a considerable amount about a significant number of our ancestors.

The Walkers of Rawfolds

Alice, the daughter of John and Alice Rayner, in the course of time married a substantial yeoman named William Walker, residing at Rawfolds. In 1560 a land review took place by Richard Rayner, who at the time lived at Primrose Hill. This was entitled “A Note of Every Man's Land”. The list gives the name of every holder of land in Liversedge outside the domain of Liversedge Hall and the name of almost every field they held. The “days” refers to the work owed to the landlord as a form of taxation.

William Walker, as one would expect, is mentioned as one of the major holders with land requiring "77 days work”. The full list of lands states

“His house with a Croft 11 days, Capp’s House and Crofte, with his Nether Crofte, 11 days; the Ynge, 7 days; the half balke, 4 days; the close at Bairstowes, 2 days; the close at Hacking, Wykfield, 4 days, the Oldroid, 3 days and a half; the Rawfall and close at Wasduks, 16 days; the …. 6 days; the Middlewheatroid, 4 days; Willanlaye, 2 days, the Cawfell ….., the close next Walker wives and the close under that 5 days; the Yngeat Henry Skacher’s and Caufellynge, 4 days. — 77 days”.

Richard Walker, in his article “Ancient and Very Ancient Walkers”, states that “it is possible that Peel's transcription of the medieval handwriting mistook Rawfold for Rawfall. There is a strong similarity in looks and pronunciation of both names”. This was the largest area of William's land and presumably the one from which his lands were named.

William Walker was indeed a substantial land holder. It would seem that in 1560, only William Brooke, of Scholes with 103 days had more land (or possessions of greater value) than William Walker. Edmond Brooke had land worth 55 days work in Littletown and both John Rayner and Richard Rayner had land worth 65 days work.

Jennet Rayner, and hence also her husband, John Hanson, was the niece of William Walker and his wife, Alice Rayner. In James Walker’s b c1556 Will, he refers to his “cousin, John Hanson”. This connection comes from the fact that his wife’s father, William, was James’ mother’s (Alice), brother.

The Continuation of the Walker Line

William Walker b c1528 was the son of William Walker b c1498 and grandson of William Walker b c1468. The family were tenants of the farm at Rawfolds and most likely the walk (or fulling) mill at Mill Bridge in Littletown (later the Victoria Woolen Mill). Richard Walker of Formby, England has done extensive and meticulous research on the Walker family and written an article, entitled “Ancient and Very Ancient Walkers”. Richard’s article covers the earliest known members of our Walker family and provides additional information on the early members of our Walker family.

Richard, along with Bud Walker (Canada), has compiled a significant number of biographies and link articles that document the Walker family in great detail. There is among these documents a large amount of official records, letters, photographs and other personal details. I have a copies of much of this information and am happy to share it.

Doug Watkins

Mandurang South Victoria Australia

drwatkins@westnet.com.au dougwatkins5351@gmail.com

August 2018