Turtle Bunbury

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HISTORY

FAMILY HISTORY

The Fennells of Burtown House, Athy, Co. Kildare

The following is an updated version of the original extract from "The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Co. Kildare" by Turtle Bunbury (Irish Family Names, 2004). Anyone with further information or questions on the Fennell family is urged to contact the author directly.

Introduction

In the wake of the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland, John Fennell, a young soldier from Wiltshire, was awarded an estate in Cahir, Co. Tipperary. His acquisition of land coincided with his conversion to Quakerism, a religious phenomenon that swept across the British Isles in the late 17th century. Over the next hundred years, his descendants established themselves as prosperous millers and gradually spread across Ireland. An inadvertent wallop of a cricket ball altered everything when Burtown, an old Quaker house in Kildare, passed to Jemima Fennell, great-grandmother to the present owner. The early 18th century house lies close to the Quaker village of Ballitore, home of the illustrious Shackletons. The present head of the family is the inventor William Fennell, father of James Fennell, co-author with Turtle Bunbury of the interiors book, "Living in Sri Lanka", and the best-selling 'Vanishing Ireland'.

Quakers & the 'Inward Light'

To the modern mind, the idea of Quakers conjures up wholesome images of breakfast cereals, cream crackers and milk chocolate. It was, after all, Quaker families who created such household names as Jacob's Biscuits, Bewley's coffee, the chocolate leviathans of Frys, Cadburys and Rowntree Macintosh, the great Lloyds banking house, Clarks shoes, Pimms No. 1 and Persil Automatic. The continuing influence of these Quaker institutions upon the world of commerce stands testament to a courageous determination to succeed in the face of often overwhelming adversity.

The Religious Society of Friends - later known as the Quakers - was founded by George Fox in North West England in the mid 17th century. Setting out to make "a fundamental recovery of the Christian vision", the Society was one of several hundred radical religious movements to arise in an age when all Europe was embroiled in bloody war. What differentiated the Quakers from other religions was their refusal to countenance the hierarchical structure prevalent in both Catholicism and the Church of England. Early Quakers believed each person to be possessed of an "inward light" enabling them to have a direct and personal relationship with God. They stood for non-violence, absolute truth and sexual equality. By 1660 the movement had nearly 40,000 members in England alone.

William Edmundson & the Quakers in Ireland

The first Quaker meeting in Ireland took place at Lurgan, County Armagh, in 1654. It was presided over by William Edmundson, a Westmorland merchant who served with Cromwell's Parliamentarian army during the Civil War and settled in Ireland in 1652. By 1656, there were reports that Quaker ideals were making a negative impact on the morale of the Cromwellian army then in charge of maintaining order in Ireland. Indeed, Cromwell's son and heir Henry Cromwell was so certain Quakers were undermining the discipline of his troops that he launched a purge of the entire army. Quaker pamphlets were seized and burned, preachers from England were arrested and many members of the Society were thrown into prison.

Colonel John Fennell (1626 - 1706)

One of Edmundson's contemporaries was Colonel John Fennell (1626 - 1706), an officer in Cromwell's army awarded a small estate on the banks of the River Suir outside Cahir, Co. Tipperary. His estate at Kilcommonbeg lay adjacent to the present day Swiss Cottage, erected in 1810 by the Regency architect John Nash. John Fennell was born in the winter of 1626 in Steeple Ashton in the West England county of Wiltshire. It seems likely that his father Robert Fennell was involved with the woollen industry, the economic staple of Wiltshire since Norman times. On 22nd November 1649, John married Mary Davies of Cardiff, in which city the first six of their nine children were born. Presumably Mary and the children also moved to Tipperary in the lead up to the Restoration. The Fennells of Burtown House, Athy, Co. Kildare are the Colonel's direct descendents. (1)

Precisely when or why Colonel Fennell came to Ireland is unknown. Wiltshire's proximity to the port at Bristol caused the county untold hardship during the Civil War. Contemporaries talk unceasingly of broken bridges, burning fields, ruined houses and derelict roads awash with homeless civilians, maimed soldiers and destitute widows. The Abbey at Lacock, close to the Fennells home, was one of many buildings in the county alternately occupied by Royalist and Parliamentarian garrisons. In 1649, Cromwell personally took the abbey for the Parliamentarians.

By 1660, the Quakers had established thirty meeting houses in Ireland. Twenty years later, it is estimated that there were 780 Quakers in the country, primarily in Ulster, with 295 in Leinster and 163 in Munster. In 1675, Edmundson's diary recorded a meeting at Colonel Fennell's home. "The wind coming fair we put to sea again [from Tenby] and landed at Cork where Friends were glad of my coming. When I had visited Friends' meetings in that quarter, I went to John Fennell's in company with several Friends, where we had a refreshing, heavenly meeting. Here divers Friends from [the Quaker stronghold of] Mountmellick [Co. Laoise] and thereabouts came to meet me, in whose company I returned home, where I met with my wife and children in the same love of God that had made us willing to part one with another for a season for the Lord's service and truth's sake". (2)

It is not known where Colonel Fennell was living at this time; it may well have been Kilcommonbeg. (3) The Hearth Money Rolls of 1662 state that John Fennell (or rather his tenants) was due to pay an annual tax of ten shillings for his five chimney home at Kilcommonbeg. (4) That he had built such a big house by 1662 suggests Colonel Fennell was a man of some wealth. His religious beliefs were certainly more palatable in the age of Charles II. In the wake of the Restoration, Edmundson and Fox considerably revised the Society's structure, replacing their more radical ideas with a new philosophy encouraging self-censorship and self-discipline. "Plainness in speech, behaviour and appeal" became the Quaker standard. Over time, the Society came under the influence of Quietism, a Spanish form of mysticism, which required the withdrawal of the spirit from all human effort, and complete passivity to God's will.

The Destruction of Kilcommonbeg

It must nonetheless have been difficult for the elderly Colonel Fennell to restrain himself when a Jacobite regiment under Colonel Luttrell laid waste to his lands in the wake of King James II's defeat at the Boyne in 1690. He wrote a scrupulous account of his losses detailing "the best and most or all of our household goods both of woollen and linen, some pewter and brass and all such goods as they could carry away upon horseback's and other way besides silver and brass and some plate that was in the house". He estimated his losses at "not less worth than 300 pounds". He further chronicled several raids by "thieves and rapparee men" - in September 1690, "103 head of black cattle, 24 large oxen, 26 milk cows, 53 steers and heifers all worth 200 pounds then"; in October 1690 "eight cows worth forty shilling" and later on a further "4 cows and 13 yearlings worth 21 pounds". On top of all this personal loss, he stated that he had provided King William's army with 143 pounds worth of corn and hay as well as 44 pounds worth of sheep. In total, he estimated his losses for the year to be approximately 700 pounds, a substantial figure for those times. (5)

The Joshua Fennells

Colonel Fennell died in 1706 and was succeeded by his 51-year-old son Joshua Fennell (1655 - 1736) who, in 1718, increased the family lands with the acquisition of 374 acres in nearby Kilcommonmore. In 1683 Joshua married Mary Phelps in Limerick who begat him sixteen children. (6) He died in June 1736 and was buried at Kilcommonbeg. His eldest son, also Joshua Fennell, was born in September 1689, not long after the battle of the Boyne, married three times and died in 1764. His most influential wife was Elizabeth Cook who traveled with him throughout south west Ireland promoting the spiritual essence of Quakerism in village markets and the homes of other Friends. By 1701, there were 53 Quaker meeting houses in Ireland and about 6000 members. The first house to be registered in Youghal was in Bow Street, now Ashe Street, and was done so on 29th January 1719 by William Fennell and Gabriel Clarke.

Footnote: Margaret Fennell, a sister of Joshua Fennell, was the second wife of Major John Godfrey of Ludlow's Regt of Horse. Major Godfrey's first wife Elizabeth Davies of Wales may have been a sister of Mary Davies of Wales, wife of Colonel John Fennell. It is all quite complicated and obscure but what is certain is that the Godfreys and Fennells of Kilcommonmore remained close until the 1730s. They were also connected to the Clutterbuck and Squill Families of Tipperary, all of Cromwellian origin and Quaker belief.

The Conundrums of Being a Quaker

On account of their refusal to accept the ecclesiastical structure of the now dominant Protestant Church, the Quakers were classified as non-conformists in the 18th century. As such, they were prohibited from involvement with politics and the judiciary. An act of 1715 did allow them to serve in the militia and another in 1723 enabled them to participate in most legal proceedings without taking an oath. But primarily they focused their frugal, clean-living, hard-working minds on education, commerce and keeping a low, if peculiar, profile. They strolled around in plain, drab clothes, eschewing all notions of fashion. They refused to allow any decoration in their homes; even the china cups from which they drank were blank. When they spoke, they insisted on archaic pronouns such as "thou" and "thee", holding that the word "you" be used only when addressing God. The Protestant gentry were baffled by the Quakers refusal to address them by any title such as "Your Honour" or "My Lord". Legal reports from the 18th century are filled with exasperated judges urging a Quaker to remove his hat when seated in court. As church bells rang across the land to celebrate British victories on the battlefields of Europe, Quakers earned themselves considerable scorn by not taking part in the celebration. When the Quakers refused to pay tithes to the Established Church, the Protestant gentry responded with substantial fines and prison sentences. They were not seriously affected by the government ban on non-conformist churches as they believed religious gatherings were dependent on the persons present rather than on any physical building or "minister of God". Meetings were held at random locations monthly and quarterly, as well as at provincial level. Men discussed property; women pondered marriage arrangements and ways of alleviating distress amongst the poor, windows and orphans. It may be assumed the Fennells were regular attendants at these meetings.

Tithes & Textiles

By the 1780s, families like the Fennells were managing to sidestep the tithes issue by providing stocks and farm produce to the Church in lieu of money. Many Quaker families now moved on from their humble agricultural origins to become a more middle class body, prominent in textile manufacture, shipping and railway development. (7) Colonel Fennell's descendents moved into the textile industry and seem to have had considerable influence in the town that emerged around Cahir Castle in the late 17th century.

William Fennell the Good (1730 - 1808)

Joshua died in May 1764 and was succeeded by his sixth son William Fennell (1730 - 1808). The following June, William was married in Limerick City to Mary Lucas of Lough Burke, Co. Clare. In 1770, William established a lucrative wool-combing industry in Cahir, leasing part of the castle from Lord Cahir and providing considerable employment to the locality. The finished product was exported through Waterford port to the Gurneys of Norwich. William was subsequently appointed to the committee of the Farming Society of County Tipperary. (8) In the 1770s, William's cousin Joshua Fennell (d. 1830) established an extensive corn-milling operation in the grounds of Cahir Abbey, as well as establishing a Quaker Meeting House in the town. In 1780, William secured a lease on Lord Cahir's lands and a mill at Rehill, just north of Clogheen, Co. Tipperary. He operated this mill in partnership with the Clonmel Quaker, Samuel Rigg. By 1786, the Fennell mills at Cahir and Rehill were providing Dublin with in excess of eighteen hundred pounds of flour - one of the highest yields in Tipperary.

William Fennell the Bad (1775 - 1846)

William died on 18th March 1808 aged 78 and was succeeded by his 33-year-old son, also William Fennell (1775 - 1846). On 11th August 1814, William married Susanna Moore in Clonmel with whom he had a large family. Susanna was the eldest of seven daughters born to James Moore of Clonmel, by his wife Susanna (nee Grubb). Little is known of her sisters Hannah (died young), Mary, Elizabeth, Charlotte or Jane Maria, but her third sister Anne married a Charles Wakefield, perhaps setting in motion another strong alliance for the family. Susanna's grandfather Benjamin Moore had married Hannah Fennell the previous century and settled in Waterford; James was their eldest son. (*) This younger William Fennell seems to have been a rather awkward character. In 1844, the benevolent Lord Glengall, successor to the Cahir estates, was obliged to take legal action against William, demanding he "repair the walls" at Rehill and attend to the "wretched state" of the land. William responded with a threat to sub-let the property and fill it with paupers unless Glengall renewed the lease. William died in financial disarray two years later and it seems both his freehold and personal estates were seized to pay his debts. In fairness to William, there was an agricultural recession throughout Europe in the wake of Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. (9)

Footnote: Benjamin and Hannah Moore's second son Thomas Newland Moore maried Elizabeth Malone and was father to Joseph Moore of Clonmel who emigrated to Canada in 1821. Joseph's son Thomas returned for a visit to Ireland in 1868 and called upon the Shackletons of Ballitore.Their third son Benjamin Moore married Sarah Sparrow and lived in Waterford.

James Fennell (1816 - 1890) & the Model Village of Bessbrook

James Fennell (1816 - 1890) was the only one of William and Susanna's many children who married. Although he retained an interest in Tipperary until his death - his eldest son, William, was born at Ardfinnan in 1866 - James became increasingly involved with the Quaker community on Co. Down. He later settled at the Victorian flax-spinning village of Bessbrook, just outside Newry, Co. Down. Based originally on water-power from the little Camlough river, Bessbrook was a planned settlement established between 1845 and 1870 by Quaker industrialist John Grubb Richardson. It was the earliest such model town, serving as a prototype for Cadbury's garden village at Bournville. No pub, pawnshop or police station was deemed necessary and the solid slate-roofed weaver's houses were grouped together around two great open squares with a green in the middle. (10). In 1865, the 48-year-old James Fennell was married at the Friends Meeting House in Lurgan, Co. Armagh - the same building where Edmundson held the first Quaker meeting over 200 years earlier. His bride was Sarah Jemima Wakefield, youngest daughter of Thomas Christy Wakefield by his wife, Jane Goff.

The Wakefield & Christy Families

When James Fennell moved to Co. Down, he would have been aware of the Christy family, founders of one of the most successful Quaker communities in the county, centred upon the charming Moyallon Friends Meeting House near Gilford. The Christy family descended from Alexander Christy, a Scotsman born in Aberdeen in 1642. He moved to Ireland and acquired the townland of Moyallon, near Gilford, Co. Down, in about 1680. He subsequently established a lucrative linen and bleaching enterprise in the locality. The Christy family soon became active members of the Quaker community then predominant in the Lurgan area. In 1736, Alexander's grandson John Christy, also a linen bleacher, provided the site for the Meeting House in Moyallon. Of John's five sons, the three eldest returned to Scotland to teach the art of bleaching linen, including John Christy of Ormiston, the ancestor of the Hat manufacturing branch of the family. John of Moyallon's fifth and youngest son, Thomas Christy (1711-1780), remained in Ireland and inherited Moyallon from his father in 1763. Arthur Chapman mentions another son, James Christy (I think, he was a son) who, in 1786, established a vitriol works in Moyallon (History of the Religious Society of Friends in Lurgan p. 45). In 1780, the year of his death, Thomas increased the size of the Meeting House in Moyallen. His only son John was drowned in 1758 and the Moyallon property passed on his death, to the Wakefield family through the marriage of his elder daughter Hannah to Joseph Wakefield on 18th December 1766. Joseph seems to haev had some connection to the East India Company. They had seven children before Hannah's untimely death in 1779 at the early age of 31. Joseph was married again to Anna Doyle in Dublin, in 1781 and had five further children. (a) Moyallon later passed to the Richardsons who retain the property to this day. The various owners of the property are recorded in the inscriptions on some headstones in the Richardsons' private cemetery within the larger cemetery adjacent to the Meeting-House. The building itself was listed in 1976 as of Special Architectural and Historic Interest.

(a) According to Lurgan Monthly Meeting archives, these children were Anne Wakefield (b. 22 April 1788), Susanna Wakefield (b. 21 March 1784), Henry Wakefield (b. 16 February 1783), John Wakefield (b. 7th Sept 1786) and Joseph Wakefield (b. 21 January 1782).

The Children of Joseph & Hannah Wakefield

Joseph and Hannah Wakefield had seven children of whom Thomas Christy Wakefield (1772 - 1861) of Marino, Co. Down was the fourth - and second son. Thomas's eldest sister Isabella was born on 8th May 1768, married John Nicholson in 1785 and was, I think, grandmother to Brigadier john Nicholson, the Crimean War hero. Thomas's elder brother Edward Wakefield was born in 1769, married Marian Watson about 1790 and died in 1819. His next sister Mary Christy Wakefield was born on 8th March 1770, married Thomas Hancock Strangman on 6th July 1788 in Moyallon and died on 19th November 1835 (or 1825). His younger sister Hannah was born on 6th August 1773 (or 1775), married John Pim on 19th October 1794 at Moyallan and died on 12th June 1847. The fourth sister Huldah was born on 20th November 1775 (or 1779) and married James Pim circa 1794 (or 1789). The youngest sister Elizabeth was born on 11th June 1776 (or 1778), married William Strangman on 20th April 1794 at Moyallan and died on 31st March 1854. These details were obtained from Naomi Lloyd courtesy of Lurgan Monthly Meeting archives.

Thomas Christy Wakefield (1772 - 1861)

Thomas Christy Wakefield was born at Hallswill, now Lawrencetown (Laurencetown) House in County Down in 1772. His mother died when he was seven: 'she was an amiable and sweet-tempered woman, much beloved, and a great loss to the family'. A year later Thomas was sent, with a brother [unnamed] to school in Westmorland for three and a half years. He was to continue his education until the age of 14, when he was apprenticed to Joseph Richardson of Moyallan 'to learn the linen business'. His grandfather Thomas Christy left to him his 'bleaching concern'. By 1808, the Board of Linen Trustees named Thomas as one of the principle buyers of sail cloth, canvas and duck from mill spun yarn in Banbridge. The Board regulated linen affairs from 1711 to 1828. Wakefield, in his account of Ireland from 1808, wrote that Banbridge had twenty bleach-greens on the Bann bleaching on an average 8,000 pieces each.(b)

From 1850, Thomas kept a memoir, published after his death by his daughters, under the title 'A Brief Memoir of Thomas Christy Wakefield, compiled from his own memoranda'. (c) It comprised 27 pages and was published by E Cockrem, 10, Strand [London]. There is no indication of how much material was edited out, but what remains is scanty in terms of information and many passages are devoted to his spiritual life rather than being an account of his life and times. The Memoir begins on 2 October 1850, with a short account of his life; there is little detail about his career or his children.

When Thomas was 22, his father moved to Waterford and Thomas remained in his grandfather's house at Moyallan. He confesses that, at that time, he was an unruly and profligate young man, casting off his Quaker clothing and engaging in activities inconsistent with his religious upbringing. He was indifferent to the advice and strictures of his Quaker brethren until a serious fall from a horse brought him to his senses. This coincided with meeting his future wife Jane Sandwith Goff (1768 - 1836), daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Goff. She is said to have been a direct descendent of General William Goffe (sometimes Goff), one of Oliver Cromwell's leading military commanders and one of Charles I's Regicides. In accordance with the custom of the time, he recounts, he took a friend with him to ask Jane's parents for her hand in marriage. With their consent he proposed to Jane, who took a few days to accept. Therafter 'a better wife no man ever had'. The couple were married in London in 1794. At this point in his narrative Thomas includes a letter to his daughter Charlotte, dated 17 July 1836, in which he recounts the funeral and burial in Gloucester of Jane, who had died on the 6th of that month. There is evidence to suggest Thomas and Jane lived apart as, following her death on 8th July 1836, he had to travel to Gloucester to attend her funeral. Further evidence comes from certain silver spoons in existence defiantly stamped with the initials JSC.

Among those who came to stay at Moyallon during Thomas's time was the travelling minister and former linen worker, John Conran, who died while staying with the Wakefields in 1827. (See 'A Journal of the Life and Gospel Labours of John Conran of Moyallon in Ireland'). Thomas remained in the linen trade until 1828, thereafter devoting himself to the church and to his family. At the time of his first diary entry, his daughter Charlotte and her children were staying with him, leaving two months later on 11 December 1850. His daughter Elizabeth remained to care for him, although she was afflicted by 'much bodily weakness'. A medical diagnosis of her health on 18 January 1851 urged a change of climate.

In 1851, Thomas Christy Wakefield was recorded as living in a house at 7 Higher Terrace Tormorham in Torquay - his daughter Elizabeth and a servant were in the house at the time. On 15 July 1851 Thomas recorded that he had been seized on 2 April by an inflammation of his chest and lungs, and was confined for weeks to his chamber, his youngest daughter Jane coming to help Elizabeth to care for him.

On 5 November 1851 Thomas writes that 'the sudden removal of a dear son, JGW [Jacob Goff Wakefield], in a foreign land, among strangers, where there was no kind friend to administer help in time of sickness, has weighed heavily on me'. Jacob had 'passed the last 25 years of his life in New Orleans'.

In an entry written on 23 May 1854, Thomas records that 'I have derived consolation from reviewing the uninterrupted attachment which lasted between myself and my beloved sister Elizabeth Strangeman, whom it has pleased our Heavenly Father to take'. The date of her death is not given, but is known from independent sources to have occurred on 31 March that year.

The continued delicacy of his daughter Elizabeth's health induced them to leave in 1854 for the warmer climate of Torquay in Devon, 'a new place for her'. They returned to Moyallan on 24 April 1855 but went back again to Torquay on 15 February 1856, where they remained for the rest of Thomas's life.

In a tailpiece his daughters write: 'After an illness of seven months our precious father peacefully closed his long life on the 8th of 6 month 1861, and was interred (by his own desire) in Friends' burying-ground in Gloucester, on the 26th. In a feeling of confidence in the fathfulness of a loving Saviour, we reverently express our belief that the immortal spirit was made meet for the inheritance which He has prepared for those who follow him'. He died in his ninetieth year, passing away at Torquay on 9th June 1861, and was buried in Gloucester on 17th following.(d)

Thomas is said to have survived a famous sinking. He also collected a considerable amount of armorial porcelain from China. Some had the Wakefield crest quartered with the arms of Christie. There was also a blue bordered armorial service, known as "Fitzhugh" pattern, with the initial 'W' and the image of a bat, the family crest. Curiously, George Washinton had an exact copy of this latter Fitzhugh service, except for the bats.

Footnote
(b) Among those who received bounties from the Board was Wm. Hudson, Ballydown, 1809, for 1,047 yards. The other buyers from Banbridge were James and T. Uprichard, Moyallon ; George Darley, Mount Pleasant; Christy & Dawson, Lowertown, Gilford ; Joseph Law, Corries (? Coose), Banbridge; James Foot, Banford; Thomas Crawford, Milltown; William Hayes, Millmount ; Edw. Clibborn, Banbridge; Wat. Crawford, Ballievy; Phil, Mulligan, Ballievy; Hugh Burns, Banbridge; and Coslet Waddle, New Forge, Moira.
(c) A copy of Thomas Christy Wakefield's memoirs is available in the British Library.
(d) The Times.

image title

Linen merchant and porcelain collector
Thomas Christy Wakefield
(1772 - 1861) was
the father of Jemima Fennell.
(Photo courtesy of Sir Humphrey
Wakefield, Chillingham Castle).

The Children of Thomas & Christy Wakefield

Thomas and Jane Wakefield had eleven children, all born at Moyallon. The eldest was Thomas Christy Wakefield Junior (1795 - 1878), see below. The second, Jacob Goff Wakefield, was born in Dublin on 21st March 1797 and died in New Orleans in 1851. Twin girls Elisa and Mary Anne were born on 8th August 1798 but Elisa died four weeks later. Hannah Christy Wakefield was born on 15th September 1799 and married on 23rd March 1820 to William Bell. Mary Phelps Wakefield arrived on 3rd April 1801. Jane Sandwith Wakefield was born on 21st January 1804 and was married at Moyallon on 16th July 1829 to her cousin, Thomas Christy of the hat manufacturers. (e) The eight child Charlotte Wakefield was born on 18th February 1805 and married James (or John) Greer Richardson (born 20th November 1831 in Lurgan). A third son Charles Francis Wakefield was born in 1807 and is dealt with below. Another daughter Isabella Nicholson Wakefield was born on 27th June 1808 and married Charles Lloyd Harford on 14th July 1839. The eleventh and youngest child, Elisabeth Wakefield, was born on 8th October 1811 and married Charles Prideaux on 20th April 1864 at the Friend's Meeting House in Plymouth, Devon, England.

(e) They were the parents of Wakefield Christy-Miller (1835 - 1898), sportsman, magistrate, bookseller and sometime High Sheriff of Co. Down. In 1889, Wakefield succeeded to the substantial estates in Midlothian and Buckinghamshire of his uncle Samuel Christie-Miller, MP for Newcastle. Wakefield was father to Sir Geoffrey Christie-Miller (1881 - 1969), KCB, DSO, MC, sometime Deputy Lieutenant for Cheshire. Sir Geoffry's great-grandson, Tom Russell, is presently compiling the Christy family tree. Anyone seeking to contact Tom should do so through turtle@turtlebunbury.com

Charles Francis Wakefield

Thomas and Jane Wakefield's third boy was born on 11th June 1807 and christened Charles Francis Wakefield. He became a minister and, on 12th September 1839, married Anne Moore of Clonmel, a fellow minister fourteen years his senior. James Nicholson considered him quite pretentious. He succeeded to Moyallon upon his fathers' death in 1861, at which point his earlier Tory-based opposition to all reform seems to have yielded to a more open-minded soul. He owned a small property near Portadown and was the only landlord of whom his tenants spoke affectionately in the pages of the "Bessborough Commission" of 1880. Charles Street in Portadown is reputedly named after him. Both Charles and Anne Wakefield are buried at Moyallon, along with Thomas Christy Wakefield Jnr. They left no direct descendants.

Thomas Christy Wakefield Junior (1795 - 1878)

Thomas Christy Wakefield was succeeded by his eldest son and namesake, Thomas Christy Wakefield Junior of Marino, elder brother of Jemima Fennell. Thomas was born in Dublin on 17th October 1795. On 16th October 1813, the 18-year-old Thomas was married in Rathfriland, Co. Down, to Mary Anne Wilcocks (sometimes spelt Marianne Wilcox), daughter of Thomas and Deborah Wilcox. (a) James Nicholson Richardson's Reminiscences suggests that Mary Anne came with a large fortune, mainly in land, enabling Thomas to be independent of his father. He duly defied his father, set up house in Dublin and 'went in for all the gaieties'. However, his fun-loving lifestyle was cut short by a severe illness which in turn prompted a change of heart. He returned to live near his father at Moyallon and started "Moyallon Flour Mills". The business was not a success and, during the 1840s, Thomas and Marion moved to Falmouth in England 'for the education of their children'. However, the famine in Ireland meant his wife's income tumbled dramatically and the family were forced to return to Ireland due to non-payment of rents after five years (circa 1851) and settled on one of his wife's farms in Co. Kildare. When his father died in 1861, Thomas 'found himself again in affluence, and he paid off his encumbrances like a man; but the iron had entered into his soul, and he could never be persuaded afterwards that he was not a poor man'. (J.N.R's reminiscences). In later life, he moved back to the Moyallon neighbourhood, becoming a Clerk of the Lurgan Monthly Meeting for a time and an Elder of the Society. He is said to have had a residence in Marino, Co. Down. Thomas died on 22nd November 1878.

(a) Ulster Archives of the Friends: LGM5.6A Marriage 16th October 1817: Thomas Christy W. Junior, son of Thomas Christy and Jane, married Mary Ann Wilcocks of Lurgan, daughter of Thomas and Deborah. However, Thomas Christy's own memoirs give the date as 1813.

The Children of Thomas & Mary Anne Wakefield

Thomas and Mary Anne Wakefield had at least five children. The eldest son, Thomas Noughton Wakefield, was born in 1824 and had a connection with Trinity College, Dublin. The eldest daughter was Sophia Wakefield, date of birth unknown. A second daughter, Sarah Wilcocks Wakefield was born on 17th January 1819 and died in about 1833.
The eldest surviving son, Edward Thomas Wakefield (1821-1896), was born on 24th January 1821 in Leeson Street, Dublin, and studied at Trinity College Dublin.(a) The Mormon website claims he married 26-year-old Mary Jane Unett in about 1845. She was born in 1819 or 1825, the daughter of Henry Unett and Mary Lechmere of Marden and Freen's Court, Hereford. Mary Jane died young in 1854, leaving a son, Edward Watson Wakefield born in Bristol on 29th January 1847, and a daughter, Marion Charlotte Wakefield, born in Bristol on 18th December 1850. Edward was due to inherit Burtown House until a cricket ball intervened. According to the British Census of 1881, 57-year-old Edward Thomas Wakefield was born in Harmar, Ireland, and was a retired barrister living in Westhill Hanover Lodge, Harrow On The Hill, Middlesex. There was no mention of the two children from his possible first marriage to Mary Unett (if indeed that was the same Edward T. Wakefield). Instead it proposed that Edward's wife was called Florence and that his four children were Claud (b. 1866), Edward (b. 1875), Florence (born 1870) and Marion (b. 1876, said to have lived in Cloncore, Co. Armagh in a somewhat less affluent home than her cousins). It is all quite complex. Was this the same Edward Wakefield who died in 1896 in Margate, Kent, where he had resided for a considerable time for the benefit of his health and whose remains were interred in the Friends Cemetery in Islesworth? Alas, there seems to be no mention of the cricket ball which, according to Quaker sources, is said to have fatally struck him so that Burtown passed to his younger sister Jemima.
Edward's sister Jane Marion Wakefield was born at Moyallon on either 6th March or 14th June 1831. In time she met John Grubb Richardson, one of seven sons (and three daughters) of James N. Richardson of Richardson, Sons & Owden. John had enjoyed four years of marriage between 1845 and 1849 to his distant cousin, Helena Richardson (nee Grubb), from Cahir Abbey, County Tipperary. Helena was mother to his son, James Nicholson Richardson (born in Belfast 7th February 1846, married Sophia Malcomson, died in 1921) and daughter, Sarah Helena (1850-1929, buried at Bessbrook). Helena died in 1849. John and Jane were married four years later at the Ballitore Meeting House in County Kildare, where her father, Thomas Christy Wakefield Jnr was living. The Richardsons settled at Brookhill, near Lisburn (1853-1858) but moved into Jane's uncle Charles's house at Moyallon in 1858 (probably because Charles, didn't have children) five years later in 1858. Jane Richardson mentions that this move "brought him within driving distance of Bessbrook" (Six Generations). John then enlarged the house at Moyallon and made it residence for part of the year. Jane died in 1909. They had nine children, born between Brookhill, Antrim, and Moyallon. Their only son, Wakefield Richardson (7th Dec 1856 - 1928) married Hilda and had one child John Stephens Wakefield Richardson (1898-1985). The eight daughters were Marion (b. 23 Nov 1854), Sarah A. (1855?-1946), Maria (b. about 1857), Anne Wakefield (18th Sept 1859 -1942), Sarah Edith (born c. 1861), Jean Goff (born 31 May 1861, married George Maynard), Gertrude (b. 21 April 1865, married Mr. Leverton Harris) and Ethel Jasmine/Johanna? (17th Sept 1868 - 1938, married her cousin, R. H. Stephens Richardson.
The youngest of Thomas and Mary Anne's children was Jemima Sarah Wakefield, born on 12th August 1836. She married James Fennell in Dublin in 1858)

(a) Ulster Archives of the Friends: Lurgan Monthly Meeting LGM5.3

The Quakers of Ballitore

It is perhaps a curious twist that the Fennell family, having moved from Tipperary to Down, should now find themselves living at Burtown House outside Ballitore. The south Kildare village was one of Ireland's most prominent Quaker strongholds. The Griese River Valley wherein it lies was purchased at the end of the 17th century by two prominent Quakers, John Barcroft (1664 - 1724) and Abel Strettel (1659 - 1732). These men were contemporaries of Colonel Fennell's son Joshua. It is said they became enchanted by Ballitore's setting while resting their horses on a journey from Dublin to Cork. By 1720, a substantial Quaker community was settled in the valley and, in 1726, the Yorkshire-born Quaker Abraham Shackleton founded the renowned Ballitore Boarding School. The school was run on Quaker principles but open to all denominations. Pupils came from as far away as France, Norway and Jamaica. Perhaps its most illustrious "old boy" was Edmund Burke, the eminent philosopher and statesman who remained friendly with the Shackletons for the remainder of his life and often came back to stay in Ballitore. (11)

In the cruel summer of 1798, Shackleton's granddaughter Mary Leadbetter described in her journal the effects of the United Irishmen's Rebellion on Ballitore. The Quaker community were stunned and shocked by the brutality of the rebellion and its bloody suppression. They refused to take sides, refused to celebrate, refused military protection. Instead they distinguished themselves by taking in the wounded and refugees, irrespective of side. Towards the end of May 1798, a loyalist force, including Orangemen from Tyrone, arrived in Ballitore and launched an unwarranted spate of looting and house-burning. Residents were dragged from their homes and thrashed with whips. Children were mutilated by flying bullets. The local doctor, Dr. Johnston, was taken out and executed. Crops were burned and trees felled. It was nothing short of anarchy. But at length, the soldiers moved on and an uneasy peace returned to the village. The Quaker community was at the forefront when it came to rebuilding the badly damaged village.

The Succession to Burtown House

Half a century earlier, in 1748, an unknown Englishman visited Ballitore and wrote: "Our eyes were charmed with the sweetest bottom where, through lofty trees, we beheld a variety of pleasant dwellings. Through a road that looked like a fine terrace walk, we turn to this lovely vale, where Nature assisted by Art, gave us the utmost contentment. It is a colony of Quakers, called by the name of Ballitore". The village itself was surrounded by large houses, built by descendents of Barcroft, Strettel,and Shackleton. Burtown House (also called Birtown, Berton, Birdtown) was one such house, built in about 1710 by Robert Power. (12) On early maps the house seems to have been called Powers Grove. It later passed to the Houghton or Haughton family and then, in the early 19th century, was passed again by marriage to the Wakefields. (13) In the mid 19th century, the property passed to Edward Thomas Wakefield, son of Thomas Christy Wakefield Junior. Edward was great-great-uncle of Burtown's present incumbent, William Fennell. Edward is said to have been born in 1821 although his parents wedding is sometimes stated as taking place in 1829. In about 1845 Edward was married in Trinity College Dublin to a 20-year-old Engliush girl, Mary Jane Unett. Their daughter, Marion Charlotte Wakefield, was christened in Bristol on 18th December 1850. In anticipation of inheriting Burtown from his from his maternal Grandmother's family, he changed his name to 'Edward Wakefield Haughton'. It is not known when exactly he died but his cause of death was recorded by Quakers as the result of an evil-minded cricket ball. As such, Burtown passed to his sister Jemima, wife of James Fennell. Quite why Marion was left out of the loop is unknown. There are reports of a Marion Wakefield living in somewhat reduced circumstances in Cloncore, Co. Armagh. This Marion had a sister named Florence and is believed to have been the daughter of Edward Thomas Wakefield.

William James Fennell (1866 - 1928) & the Shackletons

James and Jemima Fennell had a son, William James Fennell (1866 - 1928), and five daughters, Marion, Susan Ada, Jane Wakefield, Emma and Jemima Sarah. William, a farmer, was born at Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary, on 15th July 1866. On 13th August 1890, seven weeks before his fathers' death, he married Isabel Shackleton at St Mullins Church, Timolin, Co. Kildare. (14) She was a daughter of Richard Ebenezer Shackleton of Belan Lodge, Moone, Co. Kildare, and first cousin of the great Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Her grandson William, current head of the Burtown branch, recalls her as "deeply religious" and "a noted gardener to the end of her days - my abiding memory is of her kneeling and weeding in her beloved rock garden". William James was appointed a Justice of the Peace in the 1920s, becoming the first member of the Quaker family to participate in a military, political or judicial career in more than 250 years. Family legend has it that William, "a keen horseman, was asked to leave the Quaker persuasion because of his fondness for driving a carriage with uniformed flunkeys on the back". He died aged 62 in 1928; his widow survived him by eighteen years and died in 1946.

Fennells in South Africa & Dorset

William and Isabel Fennell had two sons - William James (Jim) and Richard - and four daughters. The younger son, Richard Fennell, moved from Kildare to South Africa when a young man and settled in the majestic Valley of the 1000 Hills in Natal. In 1927 he married a Durban girl Muriel Patricia (Pat) Williams. His sister May Fennell (Mary) also moved to South Africa and, in 1915, married Captain Thomas Wilfred Reynolds, son of the sugar magnate Charles Partridge Reynolds, owner of the Sezela Sugar Estates and a close friend of Prime Minister Louis Botha. Another sister, Wenda Fennell (Gwendolen), married Major Lionel Peel Yates, Chief Constable of Dorset; their son Larry (Henry Lawrence) Yates married a daughter of Admiral Sir Lumley Lyster, who commanded the raids on the Italian naval bases in Ethiopia in 1940. The eldest sister Eirene Fennell ran an egg enterprise at Burtown during the Great War and died unmarried. The youngest sister, Isabel Fennell, married a decorated hero of the Great War, Brigadier William (Bobby) Robinson, MC.

Jim Fennell (1897 - 1963) & Cynthia Allen

The eldest son William James (Jim) Fennell was born at Rathside, a dower house near Ballitore, on 18th June 1897. Educated at Charterhouse, he joined the Royal Artillery at the outbreak of First World War in August 1914 when he was 17 years old. Alas, this most brutal of wars was all about artillery. It was the bombs and mortars that terrified and terrorized the soldiers and citizens of Europe, the exploding shrapnel that caused the greatest injury and loss of life. Jim survived the war and returned to Ireland. On 24th February 1936, he was married in Hong Kong to Cynthia Maud Allen, daughter of Charles Turner (C.T.) Allen of Kidborough Farm in Sussex, a property later owned by the Beegees guitarist Maurice Gibb. Jim continued his service in the Royal Artillery as a Lieutenant Colonel during the Second World War, he had a son William, and two daughters, Cecilia and Frances. He died at Burtown in February 1963 and was succeeded by his only son William, then 21 years old. His widow, Cynthia passed away at Curragh Lawn in November 1994.

image title

James Fennell, heir apparent to
Burtown House, is one of Ireland's
leading photographers and a frequent
collaborator with Turtle Bunbury.

Modern Times

William Fennell, the present head of the family, was born in Ireland and educated at Charterhouse and Cirencester. On 22nd June 1968, he married the artist Lesley Walsh at Trinity College Chapel. Lesley is a daughter of the late Lieutenant Colonel John (Mainwaring) Walsh and his wife, the well-known botanical artist Wendy Walsh. William and Lesley have three children - Harriet, James and Becky. Harriet is married to Piers Landseer and lives between Prague, London and Ireland. They have a daughter, Phoebe. Becky is married to the writer Nick Wilkinson and lives in Wicklow with their son Jasper.

James Fennell

James Fennell, the heir apparent, is one of Ireland's foremost photographers. He studied at Ireland's College of Marketing and Design before working as an apprentice to leading international fashion photographer Perry Ogden. James set up on his own as a freelance photographer in 1996. He specializes in interiors, portraits and travel photography, working with leading publications worldwide. His knowledge of locations in Ireland is highly prized by many in the Irish media. He has published four books, 'The Irish Pub', 'Vanishing Ireland', 'Living in Sri Lanka', and 'Irish Furniture'. He lives at Burtown with his wife Joanna and two daughters Bella and Mimi. See the James Fennell Website for more.

With thanks to William Fennell, Harriet Landseer, James Fennell, Peter Must, Sir Humphry Wakefield, Naomi Lloyd, Hillary Lamb, Andrew Bunbury, Jeff Record, Robert Moore, Ron Knight, John Knightly and Tom Russell.

FOOTNOTES

1. It would be interesting to establish a connection between Colonel Fennell, the Parliamentarian, and Major Fennell, the Confederate officer arrested for treason in 1650. On April 27th 1650, Cromwell arrived at Clonmel with a view to eliminating the town's 12,000 strong Confederate garrison. Major Fennell accepted £500 Sterling from Cromwell and opened the gates to a force of 500 parliamentarians. However, Black Hugh O'Neill, the Confederate leader, discovered the plot, shut the gate and arrested Fennell. The 500 soldiers were slaughtered while Fennell confessed on promise of a pardon. Over the next two weeks, Cromwell failed to capture Clonmel, losing 2500 men - more than he had lost at all his other battles in Ireland combined.
2. A Journal of the Life of William Edmundson: A Servant of the Living God and a Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ.
3. There is also mention in this period of a Robert Fennell, possibly the Colonel's brother, overseeing the construction of the original Charleville Castle at Rathuirc, Co. Cork, in 1661. This Robert appears to have served in the Parliamentarian army of Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, an eminent statesman and playwright whose brother Robert Boyle was the famous physicist who established Boyle's Law. One wonders is this the same Robert Fennell, merchant, of the North Abbey, Shandon, County Cork, who reported financial losses in the aftermath of the 1641 Rising. (Cork County Depositions, Trinity College Dublin).
4. "Quakers in Ireland", Isabel Grubb (London, 1926), pp. 65-66.
5. In 1662 the Irish Parliament declared that every dwelling in Ireland be subject to a tax of two shillings per hearth. This tax was to be paid by the tenants, not the landlords. As such, Colonel Fennell need not have worried unnecessarily that his residence at Kilcommonbeg boasted five hearths.
6. "Tipperary Families: Being the Hearth Money Records for 1665-1667", Thomas Laffan. (Dublin, 1911).
7. As there are now over one hundred Fennells in Ireland, it may be assumed the other sons settled elsewhere and sired families of their own. Colonel Fennell's descendents seem to have had considerable influence in the town that emerged around Cahir Castle in the late 17th century.
8. In 1831, Quaker businessmen continued to show their commercial mettle by launching such profitable enterprises as the Dublin & Kingstown Railway Line and the St George Steam Packet Company. Others became active in promoting prison reform and the abolition of slavery and warfare.
9. Clonmel Gazette, 2 - 6 April 1803.
10. For this and many other references, I am indebted to Michael Ahern's article, "The Fennells of Cahir".
11. Another Quaker prominent in Bessbrook in 1869 was Henry Barcroft of the Bessbrook Spinning Company who in 1869 patented the Bessbrook self-twilling machine which greatly aided the process of damask weaving. It proved enormously popular and Bessbrook's linen damasks made a great impact at the international exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876. "The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland", WA McCutcheon (Associated University Presses, 1984), p. 307.
12. Shackleton's school closed down in 1836 but the local economy picked up again with the construction of the Crookstown Mill by John Bonham in the 1840s. The population of the village was 441 in 1841 (as compared to 290 in 1986).
13. Power is buried in a small graveyard across the road from Burtown.
14. The Haughtons were a Quaker family in Kildare and may have had a connection to the Haughton Mills in Celbridge. There may also be a connection to Samuel Haughton, President of the Royal Irish Academy from 1886 to 1891, and twenty years secretary of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland.
15. James and Jemima Fennell are buried in the Friend's Meeting House graveyard in Bessbrook


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