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Facts and Events
Thomas Mitchell said he had been born around 1737 at Redditch in Worcestershire. At the time Redditch was part of the parish of Tardebigge. When he was about eight or nine years old the parish authorities arranged an apprenticeship for him to Mr Callow, a farmer in Tardebigge. Thomas worked for Mr Callow as a farm servant until he was about 21 years old, then left to go and spend a year working in the neighbouring parish of Ipsley. After a year there he returned to Mr Callow and spent one more year working for him.
Thomas then left Mr Callow’s farm for the final time and spent some years travelling around the area, although apparently after leaving Mr Callow’s for the second time he never again returned to live in Redditch or Tardebigge. During this time he worked in various places, including Alcester and Bromsgrove.
On 11th July 1773, when he was presumably in his mid-thirties, he married Eleanor Medley at Upton Warren in Worcestershire.
By 1776 they had settled in the small town of Alcester in Warwickshire. In 1776 they had a daughter, Sarah, baptised at a Presbyterian chapel in Alcester known as the Old Chapel. She was followed by a son called John in 1779, whose baptism is recorded in the Old Chapel’s registers, but with a note saying that he was baptised at the family’s home “near the bridge” in Alcester. This was presumably the bridge known as Gunnings Bridge over the River Arrow on Henley Street – Alcester’s only other bridge at the time was Oversley Bridge, which was separated from the town itself by the meadows of the flood plain.
On 19th May 1782 Eleanor gave birth to a son, Thomas, but she died either giving birth or shortly afterwards. When young Thomas was baptised on 27th May 1782 a note says “the Mother died and was buried last week”. Young Thomas was also baptised at home near the bridge.
Sometime later Thomas remarried, with his second wife being called Elizabeth. As an old man he said that his second marriage had been at Studley, between Alcester and Redditch. The original marriage register for Studley in this period appears to be lost, and whilst copies of it survive for some years as Bishop’s Transcripts, there are some years where these do not survive either, apparently including 1783, 1785, 1787, 1791 and 1792. It therefore seems likely that Thomas and Elizabeth married at Studley in one of these missing years. As their marriage record appears to be lost, Elizabeth’s surname is also unknown. Elizabeth appears to have been about twenty years Thomas’s junior.
Thomas and Elizabeth went on to have three children together, who were all baptised at Alcester on 26th December 1798. Judging by the ages these three children later quoted for themselves in the censuses, it is likely that Jane was the eldest followed by William then Alice, which is also the order they are listed on the baptism record. This triple baptism was recorded in the registers of Alcester’s parish church of St Nicholas rather than the Old Chapel.
Thomas lived to see the three children baptised in 1798 all married. Between them they produced at least 19 grandchildren for Thomas, 16 of whom were born within his lifetime, although at least four of them died young. It is not clear what happened to any of Thomas’s three children from his first marriage.
From around 1809 or so Thomas’s hearing and eyesight started failing, and he had to be supported by the parish authorities in Alcester.
In 1827 Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died and was buried at Alcester. She was said to be seventy years old.
In 1829 Thomas had some peripheral involvement with a complex series of court cases. The cases concerned a man called John Lawrence, who had emigrated from England to America around 1760, settling in the city of Norfolk in Virginia. He became a wealthy merchant, in particular by trading slaves between Africa and the American plantations and buying goods from Britain to sell in his shop in Norfolk. He also appears to have had some role in the American War of Independence as a “Son of Liberty” (on the side of the colonists who wanted independence from Britain) and he appears to have had some standing in Norfolk after the war, being elected to the council there. He had two business partners, William Bolden and John Sparling, who lived in Liverpool (Sparling was twice mayor of Liverpool).
When John Lawrence died in 1814 he was said to be 80 years old, suggesting he was born around 1734. He had no wife or children and he left no will. His business partners Bolden and Sparling had also died by then, and for the next few years Bolden and Sparling’s executors sold off the assets of the company and took court action against each other several times over how much each party was entitled to. By the late 1820s it had been established that the net proceeds of the liquidated company were about £100,000, most of which could be distributed amongst Bolden and Sparling’s heirs. However, £15,000 (some articles say £17,000 – either way a substantial fortune at the time) was held to be due to John Lawrence’s heirs, whoever they were. Bolden and Sparling’s executors knew very little about who John Lawrence’s heirs might be, with the only snippet of personal information they had about him being that he had had a brother who was a saddler in Birmingham. They placed a notice in “Aris’s Birmingham Gazette” in 1827 seeking next of kin.
A group of people from Redditch came forward, claiming to be relatives of John Lawrence. It is not clear what evidence they initially put forward to substantiate their claim. However, the court accepted that they were entitled to the money, and it was handed over to them. Two weeks later a lady from Birmingham called Betty Baker lodged proceedings (jointly with her husband John) saying that the money had been fraudulently taken out of court and that she had a stronger claim to be John Lawrence’s next of kin alone, being his niece. The Bakers of Birmingham and the Redditch claimants then spent the next few years suing each other and the court officials who had handed the money over and appealing when decisions went against them. It also emerged that as well as the money the court had given to the Redditch claimants there was another £6,000 invested in John Lawrence’s name alone which was still available to be claimed by whoever could prove they were his rightful heir. Although trade in slaves had been outlawed in the British Empire in 1807, people were clearly not averse to claiming and fighting over the money the trade had accumulated.
Apparently over 200 affidavits were presented as part of this litigation, including one by Thomas Mitchell in May 1829. This affidavit has not been found, but it is reasonable to conclude from what the later documents say about it that it was prepared by the Redditch claimants and was very helpful to their case, setting out memories of Thomas from his youth about how various members of the Lawrence family were related to each other.
The Bakers of Birmingham recognised that Thomas’s affidavit did not help them. Their solicitor, Joseph Parkes of Birmingham, instructed a local solicitor in Alcester, William Ward Prickett, to go and interview Thomas Mitchell again to ascertain how much of what was in the affidavit he could genuinely recall. A transcript of the interview between William Ward Prickett and Thomas Mitchell on 25th October 1829 survives.
In the interview, Thomas said he was “ninety two or better” and worked as “a gardener or anything else”. He also described himself as a pauper, saying that he had received “relief from the parish for pretty nigh twenty years”. He gave the information about his early life described above. He was then asked about his knowledge of various members of the Lawrence family and other people presumably connected to the Redditch claimants and mentioned in the May 1829 affidavit. His answers show that whilst he had known many of the people concerned, he did not have detailed knowledge of how they were related to each other nor what became of their children, suggesting that the affidavit he had put his mark to in May 1829 was a fabrication. When he was asked if he knew what that document had contained, he replied “No I am no Scholard.” When asked if he knew who it was who had brought the papers to him, he said “No I do not I should not know them if I was to see them.”
The interview concluded with Prickett asking “Are you not very deaf?”
“Yes.”
“How is your eyesight?”
“Very bad.”
“How long have you been deaf and your eyesight bad?”
“A good way of twenty years.”
The courts did eventually find that the Redditch claimants’ case was false, but decided against pursuing them for the money on the basis that “there was no chance of recovering a farthing from any of the Redditch recipients” – they’d split it between them all and spent it. The £6,000 that remained to be distributed was contested for nearly thirty years. It appears to have been eventually split in the late 1850s between the heirs of the Bakers of Birmingham (who had both died whilst the cases dragged on) and a widow of a great-nephew of John Lawrence who had been found in Philadelphia several years into the litigation.
Thomas died three years after his interview, having outlived Elizabeth by five years. He was buried at Alcester on 2nd December 1832. His burial record says that he was 95, an exceptionally good age for the time.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Burials register, in Church of England. Parish registers of Alcester, 1560-1959. (Warwick: Warwickshire County Record Office).
| BURIALS in the Parish of Alcester in the County of Warwick in the Year 1832 | | No. | Name | Abode | When buried | Age | By whom the Ceremony was performed | | 767 | Thomas Mitchell | Alcester | Dec[embe]r 2 | 95 | F. Palmer |
- ↑ Warwickshire’s Past Unlocked: Warwickshire Archives Catalogue (Warwickshire County Record Office, Warwick)
CR1596/box 132/11.
Affidavit of Thomas Mitchell of Alcester, 1829:
Draft affidavit of Thomas Mitchell, aged 92 [1736/7], a gardener & an aged pauper, concerning Chancery case: Richard Wilding & others v. Agnes Bolden & others. Relates to Lawrence family, sometime of Redditch & Yardley [“Yardley” appears to be a mistranscribed “Tardebig” = Tardebigge]
This catalogue reference covers four documents:
• A draft affidavit by William Ward Prickett, the solicitor who interviewed Thomas Mitchell at Alcester on 25 Oct 1829;
• A rough copy of the questions and answers which also appear in the draft affidavit;
• A rough copy of the legal preamble which also appears in the draft affidavit; and
• A letter dated 7 Nov 1829 from Joseph Parkes, solicitor of Birmingham, to William Ward Prickett.
In the interview between William Ward Prickett and Thomas Mitchell on 25th October 1829, Thomas gave various pieces of genealogical information about himself, including that he was ninety two years old "or better", had been born at Redditch and had married twice, firstly at "Upton beyond Bromsgrove" and secondly at Studley. He also recounted his apprenticeship and the areas he had lived in since. It was also noted that for twenty years he had been quite deaf, with bad eyesight, and had been in receipt of poor relief from Alcester parish for twenty years too.
- Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, in United Kingdom. The British Newspaper Archive
Page 3, 13 Aug 1827.
NEXT OF KIN WANTED.
IF the next of Kin to JOHN LAWRENCE, who for several years was settled as a Merchant in Norfolk, in Virginia, where he died in December, 1814, will, by due proof, make their kinship appear, and apply to Messrs. Shackleton, Wright, and Hunter, 35 Brunswick-street, Liverpool, they will hear of something of importance and to their advantage.
N.B. Mr. Lawrence was an Englishman, and it is supposed he left England as early as 1760, and that he had a Brother, - Lawrence, by trade a Saddler, who lived and died in Birmingham, in the county of Warwick.
- Sun (London), in United Kingdom. The British Newspaper Archive
Page 3, 9 Jun 1830.
LAW INTELLIGENCE. – (THIS DAY.)
VICE-CHANCELLOR’S COURT.
JUDGMENT. – WILDING v. BOLDEN.
The VICE-CHANCELLOR gave judgment this morning in this petition, which was argued some time since, and occupied the attention of the Court for several days. The object of the petition was to get back the sum of 17,000l., which was alleged to have been taken out of Court by collusion and fraud. The sum in question had arisen from the property of a person named Lawrence, who died at Virginia, in America. Certain persons residing near Redditch, in Worcestershire, observing an advertisement in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette for the next of kin of Lawrence, set up a claim thereto, several other persons set up like claims to the property in question, and among the rest the present petitioner, John Baker, on the behalf of his wife. After considerable negotiations between the parties, it was ultimately arranged that the fund in Court should be divided in seventeenths among the different claimants. Mr. Creswell, of Redditch, was the solicitor of all parties, and it was stipulated that he was to have a seventeenth of the fund, besides his bill of costs, for his trouble and exertions. The fund was taken out of Court and divided among the Claimants, but in the interim Baker, who had hitherto only supposed himself to be entitled to share equally with other claimants, had been advised that he, in right of his wife as sole next of kin, was entitled to the whole fund, and set up a claim to that effect. After several proceedings the present petition was presented on behalf of Baker, by Mr. J. Parkes, of Birmingham, his solicitor. Between two and three hundred affidavits had been filed by different parties in the matter, and a great deal of contradictory evidence had been adduced. His Honour went through the facts of the case at considerable length, and referred to many of the affidavits; observing, in conclusion that he had considered a good deal what course the Court ought to take with regard to the allegations in the petition that the wife of Baker was the next of kin. It did not appear to his Honour that he was in a situation, on the affidavits now before him, to decide that Betty Baker was the person entitled to this property, neither did the Court mean to say that it was clear the other parties were entitled – that was a question for a Court of Law. The Court also doubted whether the Crown might not be entitled. But upon the whole his Honour was clearly of the opinion that the allegations of fraud contained in the petition were totally unsupported by the facts, and that being the case, the Court found itself bound to dismiss the petition with costs.
- Worcestershire Chronicle, in United Kingdom. The British Newspaper Archive
Page 4, 20 Jun 1855.
REDDITCH.
LAWRENCE v. MAULE. – This extraordinary Chancery cause, which has been continually before the courts ever since 1829, was again in court on Wednesday last, on an interlocutory motion. A Mr. John Lawrence, a junior partner in the United States and Liverpool firm of Sparling, Bolden, Lawrence, and Co., died in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S., in 1814. Soon after that year, his partners, resident in Liverpool, also died. The executors of the latter realised assets of the partnership of upwards of 100,000l.; which partnership estate in 1829 was invested in the Court of Chancery in an amicable family suit for the administration of the assets of Mr. Sparling and Mr. Bolden. The court could not at that time equitably apportion the common partnership fund vested in the Accountant-General, because the heir at law or next of kin of Mr. John Lawrence was unknown. The solicitors of the other two partners in consequence advertised for such representatives in the Birmingham newspapers, Mr. John Lawrence being known to have had a brother George, a saddler, in 1782, occupying a shop in Dale End – deceased in 1784. This advertisement brought forward claimants of the names of Wilkinson and Alcock, of Redditch. These claimants taking out unopposed letters of administration, the administrators made a private agreement with the Liverpool executors of Mr. Lawrence’s partners; and on a consent petition, in 1829, before the late Vice-Chancellor Shadwell, they agreed to accept, and received out of court the large sum of 15,000l., as the compromised proportion of the junior partner in the undivided partnership assets in court.
A fortnight after this order, and which was made without any enquiry into the reality of the assumed kinship, a petition was presented to the court alleging a gross fraud, and that the administration was a false one. The petitioners were the Birmingham children of a Thomas Lawrence, of Stourbridge, asserted to be the brother of John and George. After an unusual mass of conflicting evidence, the late Vice-Chancellor Shadwell refused to order back the large sum thus drawn out of court; and indeed it was well known to have been immediately divided by the Redditch claimants. In the meanwhile the Crown, informed of the strange circumstances, interfered; and in a Doctor’s Commons’ suit the administration of the Redditch parties was called in, and to the crown for want of kin; or in trust to the crown till any next of kin substantiated their claim. The crown, armed with administration subsequently recovered a verdict against the Redditch false administrators, subject to a reference on the sum abstracted. The arbitration was never proceeded with, the solicitor of the crown finding that there was no chance of recovering a farthing from any of the Redditch recipients. One fund, however, remained unabstracted; a sum, in principal and accumulated interest now only about 6,000l. Consols, of Mr. John Lawrence, in his own name, in the British Funds, at the period of his decease in America. This property was transferred to the crown, in virtue of the royal letters of administration, but subject to the claim of any next of kin thereafter establishing their right. The Birmingham claimants, in fact, failing, in 1832, to recover the 15,000l., placed the matter in the hands of the crown, pending their own further proofs. Other claimants, near Worcester, subsequently filed a bill against the crown solicitor, Mr. Maule, for the remaining fund of consols. They failed, but in that suit the original Birmingham claimants renewed their claim before the Master in Chancery, to whom the enquiry of the next of kin was referred, and with accumulative proofs their claim is now pending. The Redditch claimants again brought in their claim, but which the Master has disallowed, and disallowing all claims except that of the Birmingham parties. Pending the Master’s enquiry last year the master directed an advertisement to be published in the American newspapers, for the representative of a son of George Lawrence, settled in the United States, who he deemed not properly accounted for, and whose representative (if any) would be co-entitled with the other Birmingham claimants. This advertisement produced another claimant, Mrs. Ann Lawrence, avowing herself to be the widow of John, the son of Geo. Lawrence. Her proofs were so strong that the master certified the propriety of a commission to Philadelphia to take evidence of her claim. On Wednesday her London solicitor moved in Vice-Chancellor Kindersley’s Court for the appointment of a special examiner, a Philadelphia barrister, to take more evidence. The Crown appeared, and did not oppose. The Redditch parties appeared on their own claim, and moved the court to be allowed to join in the commission. The Vice-Chancellor, after discussion of counsel, informed that the master had disallowed the Redditch claim, and that the 15,000l. had never been replaced in court, refused the motion to join, directing the Redditch parties also to pay the cost of the Crown for their abortive motion. The court ultimately granted the commission to the United States as applied for on behalf of Mrs. Lawrence, and supported by the Birmingham claimants, now the only parties and claimants of the common family, whose claims remain for the master’s adjudication.
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