Weather ◊ Travel ◊ What the Papers Say ◊ TV Guide ◊ Leisure
Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind

Site search Web search
Home What's new History Our Area Photo Gallery Features Memories Genealogy Webshop Links Advertisers Miscellany

Ironmasters

The Spencer Family of Cannon Hall

The Spencer family of Cannon Hall near Barnsley were one of a number of Quaker ironmasters based in South Yorkshire from the mid 17th to the mid 18th century. Around 1650 Walter Spencer inherited Barnby Furnace from his brother-in-law, Sir Charles Barnby, and the role of clerk was taken on by John Spencer (1628-1658), a member of the Welsh branch of the family from Criggion in Montgomeryshire. On his death, John left his interests in the ironworks in trust for his son John.

John (1629–1681), married Margaret Hartley, widow of Robert, of Cannon Hall, and thereby acquired iron and coal estates in Cawthorne.

Their son, John( 1655–1729), married Anne, daughter of John Wilson of Broomhead, and gained interests in the Wortley Forges near Penistone, and other ironworks in the Sheffield district.

Nine groups of forges, furnaces and slitting mills in the area were gradually connected by a series of partnerships over the period to 1750. These were:

The Spencer family acquired interests in each of these groups by purchase and by marriage, and integrated what had been self-contained units, using a common system of accounting. Ironstone ore was taken to the furnaces for smelting. The metal was cast as pig iron and sent to the forges to be wrought into bar and rod iron. This was then sold to agents or passed to the slitting mills which prepared the iron for the nail trade and for wiredrawing. The methods and apparatus used by the Spencer ironworks remained the same over an extended period, despite technical change elsewhere in the industry. After 1720 it became increasingly difficult for them to sell their products, with the exception of the specialised slit iron, and the Spencer family withdrew from the iron trade by the middle of the century. This marked the end of Quaker involvement in South Yorkshire.

Kirkstall Forge passed into the hands of the Butler family and was still operating as Kirkstall Forge Engineering Ltd. in the 1980s.

The Spencer family (per. c.1647-1765), ironmasters, of Cannon Hall, in the parish of Cawthorne, near Barnsley, sat at the heart of the interlocking partnerships which controlled the greater part of iron production in Yorkshire between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. The Spencers ran a string of furnaces, forges, and slitting mills in the West Riding and their interests extended into neighbouring parts of Derbyshire and Lancashire. They also ventured into secondary manufacturing, being heavily involved in the nail trade in the first half of the eighteenth century. The forges in the area south and west of Leeds were first drawn together when Sir Francis Fane, the future earl of Westmorland and son of the Kentish ironmaster Sir Thomas Fane of Badsell, acquired the leases of the new forge at Kirkstall in 1618 and of the ancient bloomery forge at Wortley in 1621. However, it was not until these forges and the associated furnaces were in the hands of the Spencer family that they became of regional significance.

The Spencer family came from Criggion in Montgomeryshire. A connection between this family and South Yorkshire was established in 1605, when Walter Spencer, son of John Spencer (d. 1632), gentleman, married Frances, daughter of Thomas Barnby of Barnby. A younger brother of Walter was the London merchant John Spencer (c.1600-1658), who was involved in the Shrewsbury drapery trade. John mentioned his Yorkshire forges and furnaces in his will and his contact with the iron industry may have arisen from the marriage of his sister Elizabeth to the ironmaster William Fownes in 1625. In turn, it seems possible that the interests of William Fownes in the Yorkshire ironworks arose through his brother-in-law Walter Spencer, especially as one of the partnership's blast furnaces was established at Barnby, on land belonging to Walter's brother-in-law, Sir Charles Barnby.

William Fownes and his brother Gilbert were involved in the Yorkshire ironworks by the 1640s; these comprised Wortley forges, Colne Bridge forge, and Barnby and Bank furnaces, with the lease of Kirkstall forge being agreed in the late 1650s. John Spencer possessed a three-fifths share in these works for about ten or twelve years before his death, so his involvement dated perhaps from the death of William Fownes, whose will was proved in 1647.

John Spencer died in August 1658 and was buried at Wortley. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had one son and two daughters. Himself a younger son, Spencer wished to assure genteel standing for his own children and in his will he charged the Yorkshire works with raising £1500 to fulfil the marriage settlement of his son, Edward, and £1000 as a marriage portion for his daughter Mary. He also directed his brother, another Edward Spencer, and his son-in-law, Russell Alsopp, to administer the works on behalf of his son and heir, who retired to an estate purchased by his father at Huntington in Cheshire and never played an active role in the iron industry. John Spencer was survived by his wife, who by his will was to receive £150 out of the drapery trade and possession of some land. Elizabeth Fownes died before her brother; in her own will (1655) she described herself as of Wortley forge, and it was at Wortley that she too was buried in February 1658. Monuments in the church commemorated both her and her brother.

The third member of this family to establish Yorkshire connections was John Spencer (1629-1681), the son of John Spencer's elder brother Randolph, who in 1650 was sent by his father to join Walter in Yorkshire, where he acted as a clerk in the ironworks. John Spencer's first wife, Sarah, had died in 1657 and through his second wife, Margaret (née Clayton), widow of Robert Hartley of Cannon Hall, who died without male heir in 1656, John Spencer acquired a wooded and iron-bearing estate near Cawthorne and firmly established his family in Yorkshire. Randolph Spencer, having moved to join his son, was buried at Cawthorne in July 1658.

Elizabeth Fownes's share in the ironworks devolved via her son-in-law William Cotton (d. 1675), who was general manager of the works, on John Bancks. The share of Gilbert Fownes had gone to his son, William Fownes, while by buying one of Edward Spencer's shares Russell Alsopp himself became a partner. Until 1667, during the managership of Cotton, the partnership prospered, acquiring a slitting mill near Wigan to supply the Lancashire market. Thereafter, perhaps because Edward Spencer resided in Cheshire and Alsopp, Bancks, and the younger Fownes were London merchants, all remote from the works, mutual suspicion disrupted the partnership. Suit was followed by counter-suit, in both chancery and the Chester exchequer court, and during the 1670s the first Spencer partnership was wound up. The link with the Fownes family had been important for the development of the Spencer interest in the iron industry and rivalry with the Cotton family was a constant theme of its continuation, but the lessons of the 1670s appear to have been learned and the risk of ruin through litigation was henceforth avoided.

Meanwhile, William Cotton and his cousin, Thomas Dickin, had acquired Colne Bridge forge from the former partnership in 1665 and a slitting mill was built there. In 1675 Cotton's son and heir, William Cotton (c.1648–1703), of Haigh Hall, and Thomas Dickin also bought the unexpired leases of Kirkstall forge and Barnby furnace. John Spencer took the first step in retrieving his family's fortunes the following year, when he joined Cotton and Dickin in a one-third share of Kirkstall and Barnby for £836, and they also began to operate a slitting mill at Kirkstall forge. John Spencer died on 19 April 1681, probably at Cannon Hall.

It was mainly due to the energy of Spencer's son, John Spencer (c.1655-1729), that the family was able to re-establish its dominance in South Yorkshire. Thomas Dickin died in 1692 and in 1695 it was to his son of the same name that the new lease of Wortley forges was granted. However, Spencer now acquired a half share at Wortley for £2000. He also extended his influence to the south of Sheffield by acquiring a share in the former Sitwell works (Foxbrooke and Staveley furnaces, Staveley and Carburton forges, and Renishaw slitting mill) which Denis Hayford and partners took over about 1700.

Spencer was provided with a great opportunity by fatalities among his partners. The second Thomas Dickin died childless in 1701, only nine years after his father's death and in 1703 Spencer's main rival, William Cotton of Haigh Hall, died, leaving as heir a minor, William Westby Cotton. Dickin's heirs were his five sisters, so Spencer's half share left him the dominant partner at Wortley. Matthew Woodhead, who was not only the adopted son of Thomas Dickin and manager of Wortley forges and Barnby furnace, but also the husband of one of the Dickin sisters, was persuaded to let Spencer buy half the Dickin share in Colne Bridge. Spencer also induced Robert Wilmott, the husband of another sister, Mary Dickin, to sell him half their share in the Kirkstall partnership, thus gaining a quarter share at Colne Bridge and Bank furnace and increasing his influence at Kirkstall forge and Barnby furnace.

In 1680 John Spencer married Anne (1659–1699), daughter of John Wilson of Wortley; they had two sons. When Matthew Woodhead died in 1704, Spencer had his brother-in-law Matthew Wilson installed as managing partner at Wortley. In 1713, through the Wilmott connection, Spencer obtained a share in Holme Chapel furnace, near Burnley in Lancashire, which Wilmott had established in 1693. He also extended the Spencer iron-bearing estates by purchasing from the Allott family of Bentley half the former estates of Sir Charles Barnby. Spencer's position as the most influential figure in the iron trade of South Yorkshire was consolidated in 1727 by the acquisition of five shares out of thirty-two in the Duke of Norfolk's works; Chapel furnace, Attercliffe and Wadsley forges, and Masborough slitting mill, the only remaining major iron interest in the area. John Spencer died on 13 April 1729.

The markets of the South Yorkshire ironworks had included York itself, Hull, and the east coast as far south as Norfolk, with large sales in London. Rod iron from Colne Bridge slitting mill went chiefly to the Lancashire nail trade, through warehouses in Burnley and Rochdale. The slitting mills at Kirkstall and Wortley supplied the local nail trade, for which some of the ironmasters, including John Spencer's elder son, William Spencer (c.1690-1756), acted as factors. London was the main market for the bulk nail trade, but these distant markets became steadily more difficult to retain. Even in Lancashire, rod iron had to be delivered at Chowbent, in the centre of the nail-making area, in the effort to maintain that market.

Meanwhile, William Westby Cotton (bap. 1689, d. 1749) had laid claim to the Cotton interest in Colne Bridge in 1717. During the 1720s he organized a rival partnership, based on a new furnace at Bretton, Kilnhurst forge on the Don, and a lease of Rockley furnace obtained in 1726. This was unwelcome to the Spencers, because the scarcity of cordwood in south Yorkshire made it difficult to apportion charcoal between the works. Though William Spencer acquired the remainder of the Barnby inheritance, his own estates were insignificant in comparison with those of the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Rockingham, and the Wortley Montagu family, all of which needed to be laid under contribution to satisfy the charcoal needs of the ironworks.

William Spencer was a scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge (1706–7), and about 1715 he married Christiana (d. 1737), daughter and heir of Benjamin Ashton of Hathersage, Derbyshire. They had one son and one daughter. His father, perhaps knowing the uncertain temper of his eldest son, left the Spencer share in the partnership (which included Wortley slitting mill) divided between William and his younger brother, Edward. Edward died in 1729 and he left his share in this partnership not to his brother William, with whom he had been on bad terms, but to their uncle Matthew Wilson. William Spencer challenged the validity of the will, and seized the forges on Wilson's death in 1739. In 1743 the matter went before arbitrators, one of them the hated Westby Cotton. However, by March 1746 Spencer was persuaded to accept the unfavourable arbitration and to relinquish control at Wortley slitting mill to John Cockshutt, Wilson's nephew and heir.

William Spencer was not the only ironmaster in South Yorkshire interested in the nail trade, but he was perhaps the largest, with two-thirds of his Wortley iron going into rod iron for nails. Between 1742 and 1747 he employed 120 nailers and sent some 4465 bags of nails worth £10,000 via Hull to London. However, there were constant difficulties in maintaining quality control, some nails being without points, others without heads, and some having neither, as his clerk complained. Towards the end of the period slitting had to be done for him by John Fell at Masborough and John Cockshutt at Wortley, both of them competitors in the nail trade, so he finally withdrew from it in 1748.

William Spencer's son, John, (1719-1775), had no interest in the iron trade preferring his life as a country gentleman. He was unmarried, the last of his line, and announced his withdrawal from the business in 1765, his father, William, having died on 30 January 1756. His principal heir was his nephew Walter Stanhope of Horsforth and Leeds, who, in honour of his uncle, prefixed the name Spencer to his own. It is through this family that the accounts and documents relating to the various ironworks in which the Spencer family had an interest survived.

Apart from the interlude of Cotton dominance between 1675 and 1703 the Spencer family played the leading role in establishing the charcoal iron industry in the area between Leeds and Sheffield and continuing it for 120 years. John Spencer (3), was clearly the ablest of his line and it is sad that the survival of diaries and letter-book give a better insight into the life and character of William Spencer than into that of his father. However, William Spencer saw the concern through until within two years of the establishment of the Walker ironworks at Masborough; and the decision to withdraw made by John Spencer (4), was probably a judicious one, because a quite special talent for innovation and change would have been needed to survive in the era of coke-smelted iron.

Cannon Hall

At one time in the possession of the Boswells, by 1618, Richard Hartley, previously of Harley Hall, chapelry of Wentworth, Yorks, descendant of Robert Hartley of Austerfield, was at Cannon Hall.

in 1634 a letter of attorney stated 'Sir William Hewett of London, knight, appoints George Hewett of Rawroids, Yorks., to enter upon a dole or parcel of meadow lying in a close called Milneokes at Cannonhall, occupied by Robert Hartley, and gain peaceful possession of it, as specified in a deed of 20 Nov 1612, by which the land was sold to Hewett. . It is believed this W Hewett was son of Sir Edward Hewet, of St. Martin's- in-the-Fields, London.

in 1637, another letter of attorney, Sir William Hewytt of the par. of St. Martins in the Field, co. Middlesex, knight, appoints William Swift of Cawthorne, Yorks., yeoman, attorney, to enter into Wilkinroid Close, and gain peaceable possession of the same, as specified in a deed of 24 May 1636, by which George Hewytt, of Rawroide within Cawthorne, Yorks., yeoman, and William Hewytt, his son, sold the above land, together with tithes of corn, grain, hay wool and lamb, to Sir William Hewytt and his son, William.

By an indenture dated Nov. 1650, this William Hewet conveyed to Robert Hartley - Cannon Hall and other properties.

This Robert Hartley was married to Margaret, the daughter of John Clayton of Oakenshaw; Robert died in 1656 and by his will bequeathed his property to a trustee with trusts to provide for his wife and daughters, although,his son Michael, was not mentioned. By 1658 Margaret had married John Spencer.

After the death, in April, 1681, this John Spencer, was succeeded by his son John, born to him by a former wife, who was buried at Cawthorne Oct. 29th, 1657.

This John Spencer the younger married one of the Wilsons of Broomhead Hall, and died April 13th, 1729, aged 74. Their son and heir William Spencer married Christiana, daughter and heir of Benjamin Ashton of Hathersage.

The Spencer family resided at Cannon Hall until the death of the last John Spencer in 1775. During that period they acquired various estates in the locality, and in Derbyshire, by purchase, marriage and trusteeship. These acquisitions brought to Cannon Hall deeds and papers relating to Ashton of Hathersage, Barnby of Barnby Hall, Cudworth of Eastfield, Copley of Skelbrook and Hall of Stumperlowe Hall.

John Spencer was succeeded by his nephew, Walter Spencer Stanhope, son and heir of Walter Stanhope of Horsforth, and the family made Cannon Hall their chief residence.

The Stanhope family came into Yorkshire in the 16th century and lived at Horsforth until the late 18th century, when Walter Stanhope heir to both his uncles John Stanhope and John Spencer, took the name of Spencer Stanhope and made Cannon Hall, Cawthorne, his chief residence. During this period the Stanhopes acquired many other estates, by purchase, marriage and trusteeship.

Sheffield Archives: Oakes Deeds Reference: OD/747
Copy of will of Benjamin Ashton of Hathersage. - All his property, including lead mines, in Derbyshire to trustees, Edward Downes of Shrigley (co. Chester). Edward Downes his son, William Spencer of Cannon Hall, Babtist Trott of Mappleton and Robert Charlesworth of Castleton: one moiety to his nephew Thomas Bagshaw of Ridge, son of his late sister Alicia Maria, late wife of Charles Bagshaw; and the other moiety to his sister Christiana Spencer, wife of William Spencer and her issue male in order, with remainder to her heirs and to the right heirs of testator. 7 September, 1725.

Source:Reference Sheffield Archives:Cannon Hall muniments;Oxford DNB

Cannon Hall was bought by Barnsley Council in 1951, it is now a Country House and Museum.

Ironmasters

William Hewett

History