The Lune Valley is a picturesque and historic area in the north of the County of Lancaster, extending between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale and with views which inspired the artist Turner and the poet John Ruskin among many others. From the 1500s Irelands were to be found in several locations across the area but from 1700 they became established primarily in the village of Arkholme with Cawood, some 13 miles or so north east of the county town. The first member of the family to be noted as an Arkholme resident was John Ireland who married Alice Bland on 9 November 1700 in the parish church of Melling St Wilfrid. The children of John & Alice and their descendants were the founding family groups for this branch of Ireland Family History research and were for several generations based in Arkholme and its surrounds, employed primarily in the basket making trade of the Lune Valley. Later generations migrated to settle in the county town and further afield.
The ancient parish of Melling, in the deanery of Tunstall and the archdeaconry of Lancaster, included several separate chapels of ease, notably at Arkholme, Hornby, and Wray and its registers are the primary source of information on the first Arkholme Irelands. The church of St John the Baptist, Arkholme only became a parish church in the 19th Century and its registers date from 1828. So these registers include records of later branches of the family, as do the registers of Lancaster and surrounding parishes. But the nearby ancient parish of Warton, which included Borwick and Priest Hutton, was home to some of the earliest Ireland families in Lonsdale and it is here that we are most likely to find the ancestors of the Arkholme branch.
The origins of John Ireland of Arkholme can most probably be identified from two petitions to the Lancaster County Quarter Sessions around the time of John’s likely birth. The first petition presented at Easter 1674 from a James Ireland of Borwicke concerns the bastard child of James’s son John Ireland whose mother is named as Jane Wilson of Archolme. (Q/S/P/414/13) James stated that his son John had previously been ordered to pay 30 shillings a year* towards the child’s maintenance until the child was 14 years. But John had died since the order had been made and had left no funds. So James was petitioning against having to make these payments on his son’s behalf to the child’s mother. Additionally John had been married and his widow was also pregnant at the time of his death. The second petition at Epiphany 1675/6 (QSP/442/2) is from Jane Willson and concerns “The Bastard of Jane Willson and John Ireland”. Jane is asking for maintenance, which she states to be 40 shillings a year, plus arrears, to be paid by James Ireland, who had entered into a bond with his son. The arrears are alleged to be 51 shillings. Both parties claim poverty and they are both ordered to “come before Mr Cole and make it appeare what is in arrears.” Unfortunately no further records of future proceedings or of the original order seem to have survived.
The parish registers of Warton, containing entries for Borwick, may, however, throw some more light on to possible family relationships. They show a burial on Sep 3rd 1673 of John Ireland of Borwick which is most likely to be John son of James and who features in the two petitions. This death would have prompted James to petition at the Quarter Sessions the following year. It also indicates that Jane Wilson probably gave birth some time before that date as a maintenance order is unlikely to have been given for an unborn child. Unfortunately there is no record of the date or details of the maintenance award or of the birth or baptism of Jane’s child. If, however, Jane is owed 51 shillings in arrears this indicates that the maintenance has not been paid for well over a year. It’s not clear whether John had paid any maintenance before he died or whether the arrears stem from the time of the original order.
Warton registers also have a baptism entry on 18 March 1638 for John son of Ja: of Borwick who is possibly our candidate but there is no preceding marriage recorded of a James Ireland which might provide the name of a mother. And returning to Melling there is a marriage entry on 15 April 1673 for John Ireland of Borwick and a lady named Butterfield from Capen Burrow. The Christian name of the lady concerned is not legible as the page has been damaged. It seems most likely that this is John, son of James of Borwick, who was therefore married and died in the same year, leaving a pregnant widow and a bastard child. One Jane Wilson of Archolme was buried at Melling on 21 September 1719 and she could well be the person who brought the second petition as the child’s mother. Jane’s residence being Arkholme would account for her child being brought up there and subsequently being married “of Archolme.” There is no indication of the bastard child being male or female but it seems probable that Jane would have called a son after his father. There is no other John Ireland in Arkholme or any nearby parish who could be a candidate for the marriage to Alice Bland and the only Irelands in the village in succeeding years are descendants of John & Alice. Melling registers have no record of the burial of a child of Jane Wilson, or of an Ireland child’s burial predating the marriage of 1700.
Warton registers also contain a burial on 29 August 1680 of James Ireland of Borwick and although James left no will there is an administration bond (15 September 1680) and an interesting inventory. Despite James’s claim to great poverty in his petition in 1674 his inventory shows him to have been comfortably off in 1680 terms. His possessions show he was a smallhold farmer with crops and livestock and his worth was calculated for probate purposes as £51 13s 0d (Just under £6,000 in today’s currency) The administration bond relating to the estate names Elizabeth Ireland, widow, and another James Ireland, presumably a son, who both witnessed the document (by mark). Although it appears James was married to Elizabeth at the time of his death and there are a couple of James Ireland marriages to an Elizabeth in the Warton registers they do not precede the possible birth date of John in 1638. James Ierland married Elizabeth Robbinson on Nov 25th 1647 and the younger James Iarland later married Elizabeth Nicholson on 29 April 1684.
I am indebted to Emmeline Garnet, a published local historian with whom I corresponded, for her work on the basket making industry in the Lune Valley, for highlighting the role of the Ireland family in the trade and in Arkholme, and for pointing me in the direction of the two Quarter Sessions records at the Lancashire Record Office.
· Rural Industries of the Lune Valley edited by Michael Winstanley - Centre for North West Regional Studies. University of Lancaster 2000. Chapter 5 Basket Making – Emmeline Garnett.
· Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 1991. Reprinted article – Craft Industry in the Countryside: Arkholme and its Basket Makers – E Garnett
* The exact sum ordered to be paid for maintenance is not clear. In the petition of James Ireland the first figure is crossed out and cannot be read although it could possibly be “fortie” A second figure is written above and is also less than clear. The first letters are “thirt” and then the ink is blotched. However, there appears to be an “i” which would indicate the word “thirtie”. The sum claimed by Jane Wilson is “fortie” shillings a year.
Epiphany - January 6th – Court sessions around that time.
Diane Waters
28 August 2020