Woof. Case solved.
Thanks to crowd sourcing, and the input of others, it turns out that not only was
there a son named Richard, but now – as a result of that earlier post - I also know
the names and christening dates of all of his nineteen siblings. We can credit his first wife, Dorothy Otway,
with doing most of the heavy lifting. Sixteen of the twenty children were hers,
and only one died as a child.
Advancing years may be why there were no more than twenty
children. When Richard’s second wife, Jane Carter, gave birth to Richard’s 20th
child, the aptly named Vigessima (Latin for 20), June was 39 years old. Even
though Rev. Richard would live well into his 80s, he was already 62. In his
first marriage, he had a child virtually every year. In his second marriage,
there was a hitherto unheard of gap of five years between the 18th
and 19th child. Fair enough.
In 1645, the year that Dorothy & Richard’s 16th
child was born, the eldest son, William, was seventeen years old. This was the same
year that Dorothy died, and was also the same year that Oliver Cromwell formed
his New Model Army. This
convergence is significant. Many of the children of Rev. Richard, as well as
many of their relations relocated to post-Cromwellian Ireland after the Civil War.
Further research will likely prove that some members of the extended family settled
in Ireland long before this, quite likely as early as Elizabethan times.
At the time of the birth of Rodger in 1645, the Jackson family
was facing a serious financial crisis. Bear in mind that in the mid-1600s in England,
a succession of rulers had been taking turns seizing power and then getting
whacked down. It was as if the whole country was engaged in a game of Whack-a-Mole. Every
time a ruler was deposed, another one popped up, and the legal and religious lay
of the land underwent a 180 degree shift. Much of the country went from
Catholic to Protestant, Protestant to Catholic, and then back again Those of
the yeoman, clerical and wealthier classes often lost their lands if not their
heads when they were found guilty of being on the losing side.
Rev. Richard had misjudged which side his bread was buttered
on when he backed a £100 loan to a popish
recusant. The man was unable to pay because of all his lands & meanes beinge sequestered. The ricochet effect put Rev. Richard on the
verge of bankruptcy. The Right Honorable Lord Wharton was beseeched to find a:
course
may be taken that Mr. Jackson may have satisfaction, if any be to be had out of
the delinquents estate of lands or woods, otherwise if lawe pceede agaynst Mr. Jackson & compell him to pay it as it
will do, he will be undone, and not able to subsist haveing wife & many
children, 14 children he hath & the 15th (is by this tyme borne for every
houre his wife lookes for it). [NOTE: Rev. Richard’s daughter Maria, who
died in 1642, was not included in this count of 14 children]
This is where having friends in high places helps. Oliver
Cromwell and Lord Wharton were close friends. An indication of their closeness
is in a letter
sent by Oliver Cromwell in 1649 to Wharton, where Cromwell says: If
I know my heart, I love you in truth: and therefore if, from the jealousy of unfeigned
love, I play the fool a little, and say a word or two at guess, I know you will
pardon it. There is much more
to learn about the support of the Jacksons by Lord Wharton, who seems to have
come to their rescue. Clearly, Rev. Jackson dodged a financial bullet, since he
married again within a year, and seemed to have no problem in supporting
another four children.
 |
Jackson Hall, Kirby Lonsdale, now known as The Royal Hotel, a lovingly restored
Georgian town-house hotel providing luxury accommodation and exceptional
hospitality amidst the unspoilt English countryside of the Lake District, the
Yorkshire Dales and the Forest of Bowland. NOTE: I will write about the family connections to this property in a future post - it belonged to the Coleraine Jacksons for generations.
|
When Rev. Richard’s wife Dorothy died, a year after the
Battle of Marston Moor, the region was still in a state of political upheaval
and uncertainty. This meant that the family was on their back foot in more ways
than one. Clearly, they were already financially shaky, but now there were a total
of 15 children to feed and house, most if not all of them dependent on their
family. The six youngest were under the age of six.
The eldest son, William, later known as Capt. William
Jackson, had likely already joined the army, and would be rewarded with land
for his services. There is a William Jackson listed in the Irish Cromwellian
Land Grants, but infuriatingly, there is no mention which County or
Counties his lands were in. Even so, I suspect this is our man. The lands that William
leased in Coleraine in 1663 were in the townland of Killowen, part of the lands
granted under the Plantation grants to members of the Clothworkers’ Corporation.
This is a good fit with the profession of his grandfather, William Jackson, a
merchant and a mercer in Kirby Lonsdale, Westmorland.
Ironically, in spite of the Parliamentary affiliations of
Rev. Richard and his sons, many of his descendants would ascend to become not
only well-heeled gentry, but also supporters of the Royalty no less. Unlike their progenitor, many never wavered when it came to keeping a keen eye
to which side their bread was buttered on.
Still, the social status of Rev. Richard makes it even more surprising
that his son William, at the age of 29, was allowed to marry Elizabeth Staples,
daughter of Sir Alexander Staples and Elizabeth Conyngham of Coleraine. To go
from being the military son of an impoverished vicar to the husband of a knight’s
daughter in one generation was not unheard of, but it was rare. Perhaps there
was more to this than meets the eye. Although knighthoods were often no more
than patronage appointments handed out in reward for services to the ruler, it
is also possible that Rev. Richard came from a family that was much better off
than might appear at first glance.
Regardless of whether the Captain William Jackson who leased
lands in Coleraine in the 1660s was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or
not, he did well by himself. Already by 1663, Killowen, the townland that he
leased, had 18 households with 20 hearths. Compared to Oliver Cromwell, who two
years earlier had been exhumed and posthumously executed, young William Jackson
was doing very well indeed. By 1669, he also won the position of wood ranger,
the better to log 200 tons of timber to build a bridge over the River Bann that
was to his advantage. Never being one to
back down from a good fight, he is also on record for having tangled with the town
of Coleraine in 1673 over taxes. Finally, an agreement was reached for a settlement, and it was agreed that he would
not trouble or molest the town court leets
(taxes), nor hinder any of the
Clothworkers’ tenants from answering these leets.
As a result of the
bridge, and the focussed energies of Capt. William, the town of Killowen soon expanded
to 65 households, mostly tenanted by Presbyterian tradesmen. Capt. William also controlled
the Custom House, the Excise Office, end eventually even the Post Office. By
the time he died in 1688 at age 60, his eldest son, the next Captain William
Jackson was old enough to step into his father’s considerably sized boots.
The story of this second Captain William Jackson, as well as
the stories of the other Jacksons related to those who settled in Coleraine in
post-Cromwellian times, will have to await a later post. There is no shortage
of juice. The family was nothing if not colourful.
 |
| NOTE: This is the only photo that I can find of Jackson Hall
aka Manor House in Coleraine. It is on the web site of “Lord
Belmont” in Northern Ireland. Perhaps someone reading this may know of another? |
CREDITS: There are many people whose fingerprints are all
over the solving of this case, but it is Jan Waugh who deserves to be singled out for special
praise. It was her research which lead me to revisit the earlier versions of
this Jackson family tree, and then to unlink Tomsin Futhergill as a wife of Rev.
Richard. Tomsin had been included as a possibility as Richard’s second wife, after Dorothy and before
Jane. Based on the records to date, this earlier hunch can now be safely
discounted. Tomsin Futhergill must have married another Richard Jackson. This was easily done as there was no
shortage of them in Westmorland in the 1600s.
See Also:
