Clayton and Gibson
Reference: D/CG 7 Catalogue Title: Clayton and Gibson Area: Catalogue Category: Business and Industry Records (Solicitors) Description: Clavering of Axwell and Greencroft (part 1)
Covering Dates: 1567-1937
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- Clayton and Gibson
Catalogue Description
The Claverings of Axwell and Greencroft(see also D/CG Bell, D/CG 6 Bute D/CG 19 Winlaton)
The Claverings of Axwell and Greencroft were a cadet of the old recusant Northumbrian gentry family of Clavering of Callaly. Their fortune came from commerce in Newcastle (a common source of wealth leading to the establishment of new gentry families).
Axwell was purchased in 1629; Greencroft in 1670. Another branch of the family from the same mercantile root was established at Chopwell. The descent of these properties became increasingly complicated from the early 18th century. The trend is towards accumulation of lands and titles and the increased exploitation of coals. A baronetcy was obtained at the restoration.
The union of the third baronet with Jane Mallabar (Dame Jane Clavering), a formidable woman of business who was heir, in every respect, to a Newcastle merchant fortune, marks the high spot of the Axwell Claverings. The early death in 1726 of Sir James Clavering, 4th baronet, ensured that the Mallabar inheritance passed on through Alice Clavering (Alice, Viscountess Windsor) to the Windsors and the Seymours, thence to the Crichton Stuarts, Marquesses of Bute (see pedigrees and D/CG 6 above).
The core of the Clavering family property reverted, on the death of Sir Francis, 5th baronet, to the Greencroft branch, bringing the baronetcy with it.
Sir James Clavering, 6th baronet (d. 1748) was related by marriage with many a prominent family, his second wife was a Vane of Long Newton, his brother-in-law was a Liddell of Ravensworth. Much can be discovered about his affairs from letters in Durham University Library (many of which were published in The Correspondence of Sir James Clavering, Surtees Society volume 178, 1967). The politics of the reign of Queen Anne form a staple topic in the letters from Anne Clavering [Mrs. Henry Liddell] of the Chopwell branch of the family. Her brother-in-law was Lord Chancellor Cowper.
The Axwell and Greencroft estates having come together in 1738, it seemed sensible to Sir James to split them up again and found a new cadet line at Greencroft. Son George received Greencroft, the Manor of Iveston (and a moiety of the coals under them) and lands at Cornsay, Satley, Stowhouse etc. upon his marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend Edward Browell, D.D., Rector of Romaldkirk. This marriage was childless but Browell properties in and around Bowes, Yorkshire, came into the hands of the Claverings.
Under Sir James' will his youngest son John (Lt. Gen. Sir John Clavering, K.B., ancestor of the last baronet, Sir Henry Augustus) received estates in Northumberland (Dotland, Ridlhamhope etc.).
Sir Thomas Clavering, 7th baronet, the eldest son of Sir James received the core properties at Axwell, Swalwell, Whickham etc. He also received property in Jarrow, which had belonged to the Greencroft branch of the family through descent from a coheiress of the Ellisons of Hebburn. Sir Thomas married Martha, daughter of Joshua Douglas of Newcastle. This match was childless but various Douglas properties at Henshaw, Northumberland, seem to have passed to the Claverings. Sir Thomas died in 1794 leaving everything to his nephew, Sir Thomas John Clavering (son of George Clavering of Greencroft).
There was no love lost between George Clavering and his son. George, who died early in 1794, left a will of a generally malicious sort. His philosophy seems to have been 'don't go abroad its a horrid place'. France and Roman Catholicism were anathema to him; Sir Thomas John's wife was a French catholic. Reference to George's will shows his attempt at domination from the grave seeking to dictate the domicile of his grandchildren and their religious education.
Sir Thomas John had marital difficulties eventually solved by separation. His other difficulty was to be stranded in France during the Napoleonic wars. Some of his children were with him, William Aloyzius, his second surviving son was not. The Greencroft end of the property had been thrown into Chancery in 1800 following the bankruptcy of George Clavering's surviving executor, the refusal of other executors to act and claims and counter-claims as to the validity at law of parts of the will.
Sir Thomas John had four children surviving to adulthood. His eldest son, James, died in 1824 having fathered a son, John Clavering, by Maria Debritto, a Portuguese lady. His second, but only surviving son was Sir William Aloyzius Clavering, 9th baronet, who succeeded him and died unmarried in 1872. The bastard John had much more appeal for Sir Thomas John (who also seems to have fathered various children out of wedlock) than son William Aloyzius, a man of narrow and mean spirit. John was living at Greencroft by 1840; he was also living there at his death in 1880. Otherwise he resided in Newcastle upon Tyne where he carried on an occasional practice as an attorney.
Sir Thomas John's daughters, Clara and Agatha, had both married French/Franco-Belgian noblemen, the Barons de Knyff and de Montfaucon. These gentlemen would not have appealed to George.
Sir Thomas John died in 1853, his estranged wife in 1854. He attempted to leave Greencroft to William for life, then to John for life, then to the issue of William (who was unmarried) in tail male, then to the issue of John similarly (the latter's only legitimate son died in infancy), thence to the testator's daughter in moieties. Sir Thomas John had previously charged Greencroft with his daughters marriage portions and for his wife's separation. The position of the estate, his interest in it under George Clavering's will and the 1800s action Clavering v Clavering in Chancery, and its ability to bear the charges thrust upon it quite escaped him. The chancery action blossomed forth as Clavering v Ellison in Chancery with Clavering v Clavering revived. The antagonists were the ever-lovable Sir William Aloyzius versus his late father's executors (Ellison and John Clavering). Sir William wanted to prove the disqualification of his sisters from any benefit under the will of George (money had been accumulating in Chancery for 50 years) they being degenerate, foreign papists. To all intents and purposes he lost. He appealed and lost the appeal. He appealed to the House of Lords, lost this appeal and gained considerable legal bills for his trouble.
The outcome was to declare Sir William, the Knyffs and the Montfaucons entitled each to one third of the Greencroft estate and that they plus Ellison and John Clavering, as legal representatives of James Clavering deceased, were entitled to quarter shares of the accumulated funds derived from George Clavering's personal estate. Perhaps shrewdly, the bastard John Clavering had been trained in the law.
In the Axwell settled estates Sir William was succeeded by his distant cousin Sir Henry Augustus, descendant of Sir John Clavering, K.B. (from whom Sir Henry inherited various Northumberland properties). Originally included were quantities of ancient freeholds, copyholds and allotments at Whickham. Some time after the death of Sir William it was discovered that the settlement had, as to various of these properties, been faulty. They passed to Sir Henry Augustus, not for a life interest as heir under the entail but absolutely as customary heir (the nearest heir male) leaving him free to dispose of them as he wished. It was necessary to arrange in due course an arbitration to work out which properties were covered by the settlement and which not. Sir Henry died without surviving male issue in 1893. The baronetcy expired.
The Axwell core estates along with various interests in the Greencroft/Lanchester area and lands in Northumberland passed to the Napier family. The entire legitimate family of Clavering was extinct.
Provision existed, under Sir William's resettlement of the estates, for the inheritance of the property by the Claverings of Callaly, the Northumbrian gentry family from which our Claverings had sprung in the 16th century. Alas this line also died out, in 1877. Thus the Napiers became Napier Claverings. Their connections with the area were slim. In 1919 Axwell house and park, and many of the contents were sold. Much of the Northumberland estate was sold soon after. The rest passed to an estate company (a tax avoidance device popular in the 1930s) which sold off more real estate and invested the proceeds in securities. The nationalisation of coal royalties and wartime changes on taxation law produced the liquidation of the estate company. The family continue to own certain properties in the county. Also attached to this branch were the 27/96 parts of the Lordship of Winlaton which Sir William bought from Lord Ravensworth in the 1860s and 1870s (see D/CG 19 below).
The Whickham copyholds which vested in Sir Henry passed to his executors (included in whom were some of the Napier Claverings) in trust for his three daughters. Mrs. Campbell alone of these left issue. The trust property was finally sold off in the 1950s.
The Greencroft estate was left in the 1850s with three tenants in common. Certain shares of the French barons in the property were bought out by Sir William Aloyzius. By the 1930s the Greencroft Estates Company acted as a front for the absentee owners, the du Quesnoy family (descended from the Montfaucons and devisees of the Knyffs)
From the above the difficulties in organising the Clavering papers can clearly be seen. Less apparent is the fact that certain properties which were attached at one time to the Axwell branch, at another were attached to the Greencroft and could also be independent. The pattern is of divisions, amalgamations, sub-divisions and recombinations in giddy confusion.
Catalogue Contents
THE ESTATES ACQUIRED
Purchase of Axwell by the Claverings