Blaydes – Summary
INTRODUCTION
The Blaydes family is little known in Hull today, yet during
the 17th and 18th centuries they were one of the leading
local families. From Joseph (b. c1578) to Benjamin (d.1805) the Blaydes were important local shipbuilders and merchants,
with more apprentices than any of their contemporaries.
The Royal Navy was a major client for the Blaydes, but the best-known ship they built was the infamous “Bounty”,
whose crew, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied in 1789 against its
captain, William Bligh.
The Blaydes were also heavily involved in Hull civic affairs
throughout this period. They supplied two mayors, the afore mentioned Joseph
and Benjamin (who was mayor twice) and many aldermen and chamberlains. This
book is more than a just a history of one family. It is in fact a social
history of Hull covering a period of some 200 years. For example it shows “how
comparatively democratic the organisation of the town was for its time. The
aldermanic bench and the mayor were elected by the burgesses or freeman of the
town.”
This book can also be used as a guide to research a family’s
history as Frances Bibby mentions in great detail how, and where she obtained
her information.
AIMS
The aims of this book were to find out as much as possible
about the Blaydes family of Hull up to the 19th Century, where they
came from and how they were interconnected.
In a broader sense the aim is to give provide a few pointers
for anyone who wants to trace theirs or any other family’s history but doesn’t
know where to start.
SOURCES
The two main sources of information on the Blaydes family
are the East Yorkshire County Record Office in Beverley, and the City Record
Office in Hull.
Beverley houses all parish records for the East Riding area,
including baptisms, marriages and burials. It also stores hearth tax records,
property transfers from 1708 to 1874 and various family papers.
The City Record Office in Hull holds all the town’s records.
These include the Bench Books, the Apprentices Register, a list of the town’s
Freemen dating back to 1396 and various ancient deeds going back to the 14th
century. The majority of wills are kept at the Borthwick institute in York. The
lack of family letters made it difficult to assess the sort of people they
were. However the fact that property was left to daughters as well as sons
shows they had strong family feeling.
WILLS
The Blayde’s wills are major source of information. The 21
wills covered straddle two centuries, from James (w.1590) to Benjamin (d.1805).
Only three of the 21 wills relate to women, and changes in spelling are
frequent and erratic - from Blades (1590) to Blaides (1619) and Blaydes (1717).
BAPTISMS, MARRIAGES AND BURIALS
Although wills indicate the testator’s relatives, there is
no way of knowing their date of birth, the testator’s date of marriage or even
his wife’s maiden name.
Records at St Catherine’s House in London only go as far
back as 1847. To go further than this one must rely on ancient church parish records.
Most of these only give the date of the baptism, often we must assume that the
child was born some 2-3 weeks earlier.
Another problem with records from the 16th and 17th
centuries is that a combination of damage, fading and the illegibility make them
difficult to decipher.
From these
records we find that the Blaydes were numerous and that a small number of
forenames are repeated. They include 12 Jameses, 10 Josephs, 10 Annes and 8
Benjamins, three of whom were born between 1708 and 1709. This causes many
problems for family historians.
MORMON RECORDS
One of the many things that the Mormons are famous for is
the International Genealogical Index (IGI http://www.familysearch.org/
). The 1992 edition contains some 200 million births, marriages and deaths
worldwide from the 1500s to 1875.
Though far from complete, it does indicate something of the
uneven geographic distribution of the Blaydes surname. There are over 1500
entries in Yorkshire, some 350 in Lincolnshire and a large number round Alford
in southern England. In contrast not a single Blaydes, Blades, Blaides or
Bladds is to be found in Sussex, Huntingdon, Hereford, Dorset, Shropshire or
even London.
EARLY BLAYDES
The earliest Blaydes of whom we have note is ‘James Blaides shearman’ (fl.1576),
grandfather of George (w.1637) and Joseph (w.1659). Joseph was
Mayor of Hull in 1636.
Information is more difficult to find for the less affluent
family members who tended to live in the “South End” of Hull, near Mytongate.
Typical wills for this group were e.g. John (w.1654), who left 12 pence
to each of his sisters.
By
contrast, Benjamin (w.1770) left total legacies of £3000. He along with others from the richer side of
the family lived at the North End of High Street, near the family land and
shipyards adjoining the River Hull.
JOSEPH BLAIDES (c. 1578-1660)[1]
THE FIRST SHIPBUILDER
Joseph Blaides is the first member
of the family of whom much is known. As well as being the first shipbuilder
in the family, Joseph Blaides was also the first to be elected Mayor of
Hull (1637). His time as mayor was
overshadowed by a plague epidemic during that summer, which killed over 600
people.
In the year that he was elected
Alderman, 1635, he was the youngest Alderman and was also chosen to be Coroner.
By the next year he was elected mayor, hinting that he had only became an
alderman to be proposed as mayor the following year.
During the plague years the town of
Hull implemented a number of precautionary measures. All ships were vetted by the Town Constable who stated when
embarkation was allowed. Infectious
people were confined to their houses and not allowed to leave until the fever
had gone. There were severe limitations
on movement, for example the North Gate was closed and even alehouses had
restrictions e.g. ‘no inhabitants or
other to sit tippling & drinkage of ship companies at any tyme of
infeccon.’ Joseph Blaide only
lasted a year as Mayor, but soon after a new Mayor was elected, provision was
made for plague victims by the construction of two lodges to harbour infectious
people.
Joseph Blaide dedicated a great deal
of his later life to local affairs, serving as an alderman until his
death. This included a number of acts
of charity for example giving coal money to the North Ward.
By the time he died in 1660. the family’s wealth had increased considerably. His total legacy was over £300 and a large amount of property including sixteen houses, 54 acres of land. This was over six times the £45 left to him by his father sixty years before.
Was Joseph
a generous man by nature? In 1641 he
showed generosity when he made a settlement to his youngest son, also Joseph,
upon his marriage to Margaret Dickinson of Rotherham where he gave two houses,
land and some pasture. However his generosity was not always consistent. There is a story of a set of silver spoons
which he inherited from his mother.
Joseph first wife Ann had died in 1647 so in 1654 he married again, but not altogether happily
as in his will he leaves his second wife five pounds but only on the condition
that she restores the silver spoons to him.
THE FAMILY AT BLAYDES HOUSE
WILLIAM BLAYDES
(1608-1667)
William Blaydes, the only living son of Joseph outlived his father by only seven years. He was the recipient of the major part of his father’s property. Apart from his will little is known about William. He was appointed Chamberlain of the Corporation in 1660 and had a number of apprentices working for him in the ship building business these included his sons. Hearth tax records from 1667 show that he owned a large and luxurious house. This possibly could be the one that his grandson Benjamin later extended to make the Blaydes House which is famous in Hull today
BENJAMIN BLAYDES
(1653-1720)
Benjamin Blaydes snr was William’s youngest son and was
apprenticed to his father as a ‘ship builder’.
He continued to build ships by the Hull beyond the North gates of the
town. However this was not his only
site for building ships as the North Gates site was leased to Charles Hayley
for 17 years before Benjamin retook the land in 1693. Benjamin married Ann Musgrave in 1690 and at the time of his
death he left six living children – a large number for those days. He also left
a fortune totalling some £2580 – to be contrasted with the mere £265 left by
his cousin Joseph some 27 years previously. His house may well have been the
one that his son Benjamin extended to make Blaydes house.
BENJAMIN BLAYDES (1709-1771)
Benjamin Blaydes (1709-1771) seems
to have been the first of the family to belong to the Unitarian Church in Bowl
Alley Lane. Being a non-conformist, he never became mayor. He did, however,
become wealthy, sharing his wealth by supporting the chapel library with, for
example, “tobacco”, “cork scrue
and punch ladle” and “Lemon Strainer
and Waiter.”
Benjamin also dealt in hemp and flax, the profits of which
went into building the fine Blaydes House, near Wilberforce House in the
1760’s. There is no record of Benjamin
ever having a wife or children. His
will was written in private in 1769 without any witnesses, presumably to keep
it secret until after his death which occurred 2 years later. Because there was no witnesses for his will
(of the order of £3000) a deposition was arranged to confirm his
handwrting. He left legacies to
friends, nephew and.
JAMES BLAIDES (1613-1657) THE SEAMAN
James Blaides (1613-1657), the youngest son of Joseph
Blaides, is remembered most for marrying Anne Marvell, sister of Hull’s MP and
poet, Andrew Marvell. Anne came from a scholarly background and her father
almost brought about the construction of one of the first town libraries in
Hull. Anne outlived her husband by some
forty years and they had a total of sixteen or so children, most dying during
infancy. It is hard to judge exactly
how many children they had as there is another James Blaides also having his
children baptised at the same time.
In his will James
mentions only five children so most of them died young. Anne was a very responsible woman, looking
after the family when James went away on his two month trips to London and
continuing to care for the family as a widow for forty years. She was named as executor to her father in
law’s, Joseph’s, will. This was a prestigious task, as no other woman who was
not the wife of the deceased was named in all the 21 wills that were found for
the Blaydes family.
Although he
was a sailor, James seems to have spent longish periods ashore as he became
town Chamberlain in 1651, a job that entailed collecting rents and revenue from
the town. He was not a wealthy man as in 1654 his father gave him a loan of one
hundred pounds. He was a skilled
shipwright and sailor and became Master
and Pilot of Trinity house which controlled the shipping of the local area. His most responsible task which he undertook
for them was travelling down to London to sell over 1600 ounces (fifty Kilos)
of silver plate, which had been used for surety on a Loan. He aquitted himself well on this task
gaining a penny per ounce of plate more than was expected. James eventually became an elder Brother of
Trinity House (rather like an Alderman for the shipping in Hull.) However he
died only 3 months later.
A FURTHER BLAYDES
SHIPYARD
JOSEPH BLAYDES (1634-1693)
Joseph Blaydes (1634-1693) was one
of only five of James and Anne’s sixteen or so children to survive into
adulthood. In contrast, his son
William had twelve children, of whom then outlived him.
Joseph Blaydes was a shipwright, and between the years of
1674 until 1685 he had twenty apprentices.
He was elected for life as one of the twelve assistants of the ‘Society
or Company of Shipwrights, Ship Builders or Ship Carpenters’. The role of this society was to keep the
craft a closed shop for Hull shipwrights but also to preserve a high standard
of work in ship building.
By the time he died he left debts of around £268 but by
selling all his possessions his family raised £265 a shortfall of less than £3.
WILLIAM BLAYDES
(1672-1717)
William Blaydes (1672-1717) was Joseph’s eldest son. He
expanded his father’s shipyard, building a malt kiln and a horse mill on the
site. He took on 13 apprentices between 1694 and 1714 before his eldest son
Joseph took over. William married in
his mid-twenties and had 12 children, of whom 10 survived him. In his will he made it clear that none of
his children were to receive his share until they were 21. Three of his surviving children did not make
it to 21 so their share was handed out to those who were left.
THE FAMILY OF BENJAMIN
THE UNKNOWN BLAYDES,
HUGH BLAYDES ( c.1686-1759), AND BENJAMIN BLAYDES
( c.1687-1740)
Benjamin and Hugh Blaydes were brothers, apparently
grandsons of James and Anne (Marvell.) Benjamin married Mary Carr in 1710 and
the only one of his children to outlive him was his daughter Mary. Benjamin was described as a ‘ship carpenter’
and not a lot more is known about him. However the descendants of his daughter,
Mary, became wealthy merchants with the
youngest going into the Army and Navy.
Hugh was probably the most ambitious and successful
shipbuilder in the Blaydes dynasty. He married into a family of Hugenot
refugees, and built over eleven ships for the Navy in new yards at Hessle Cliff
(near where the Humber Bridge is today on the site which became ‘Cliff Villa’.) The ships ranged from the Raven at 272 tons
and carrying sixteen guns up to the Tavistock with fifty guns and a tonnage of
over a thousand tuns.
Hugh was one of the biggest shipbuilders in Hull at the time
with 24 apprentices in total after he aquired the town yard. He also tried to
open shipyards in Hull “South End” i.e. near the pier today. However, this
caused him to fall foul of the Corporation.
Later in life he bought large areas of land in Sutton as
well as the Lordship of Sutton Manor.
This included well over a
hundred acres of arable land and a similar amount of meadow and two farmhouses
in the High street.
Hugh died in 1759 at the age of seventy four. Frances was
the eldest surviving child and Hugh the eldest surviving son. He died eight
years after his father.
Benjamin however who was then twenty-three , outlived his
father by nearly fifty years dying in 1805.
At his death Hugh had more than thirty cottages, two rope walks and land
and farms at Sutton, Cottingham and Drimblinton.
BENJAMIN (1736-1805)
THE LAST SHIPBUILDER
Benjamin (1736-1805) was the last of the dynasty, the sixth
child of Hugh and Elizabeth. He married at the age of 39 into a family
prominent in the transatlantic trade. He went into business with his elder
brother Hugh, already known for his work on the Tweed and Mermaid, two smallish
ships for the Navy. They worked
together for only 3 years at Hessle Cliffs and built the largest naval vessel
to built on the Humber: the Ardent a ship of 1,376 tons with seventy guns.
Hugh died in 1765 and Benjamin formed a partnership with
Hodgson at the Charleston yard.
Although naval ships continued to be built in the Hull region right into
the nineteenth century , the ships built at the Charleston Yard were the last
ones to be built by the Blaydes. This
was due in part to the freezing of naval contracts with the shipyard. The Temple, a Blaydes ship, went down and
was lost on a fine summers day in calm seas and the Ardent had to be
extensively repaired owing to rotten timbers.
In conclusion ‘These were reasons to induce the Admiralty to be cautious
how they ventured again to contract with the same yard.’ Despite this set back Benjamin still made
non-naval vessels until 1791 and over a 32 year period employed thirty
apprentices, a greater number than any other of his contemporary ship builders.
Benjamin was not just a ship builder, he became a ropemaker,
using the rope walks which his father had left him. He was also involved in the
Greenland oil industry and sugar boiling, and
did extensive work for the Corporation from repairing sailport rails to
yearly work on the North Bridge.
He became Mayor and Sheriff and just like his earlier
ancestor Joseph Blaide he got himself elected alderman so that he could be
chosen as Mayor within the year.
As Mayor, Benjamin presided over a considerable expansion of
the docks on the River Hull in the period 1789-1809. He also set tolls for the market, standardised measures with
London and removed many encroachments on the narrow streets of Hull.
THE THOMPSONS, HALLS AND HAWORTHS
The Thompsons, Halls and Haworths were three prominent Hull
families who intermarried with Blaydes. They were descended through daughters
of the family so they did not bear the name Blaydes.
The most
notable members of these families include Benjamin Blaydes Thompson (1709-99)
who was twice mayor of Hull, and Benjamin Blaydes Haworth (d.1836) who bought
the lordship of the manor of Cottingham.
Benjamin Blayde Thompson sent his eldest son to school in Germany in the
hope it would help him into the family business. However he gave up the
management of a subsidiary of his father’s business in Nottingham and went to
London to write plays.
SHIPYARDS, SHIPBUILDERS AND SHIPS
SITE OF SHIPYARDS
The first shipyard to be used by the Blaydes was the one
outside the North Gates leased in 1612 by Joseph Blaides (w.1659). It
remained in the family for 150 years except for a 17 year gap when Joseph
Harley took over the lease in 1676. During the 18th century Hugh and
Benjamin unsuccessfully tried to open another yard at the south end of the
town, so they built their larger ships at Hessle Cliffs, near where the
northern end of the Humber Bridge stands today. The advantage of building ships on the Humber was that it had a
good pool of shipbuilders. However the distance from London made inspection
difficult and ships were often late due to transporting equipment and stores
from down south.
APPRENTICES
During the latter period of the 17th century and
the first half of the 18th Century the Blaydes took on more
apprentices than any other shipbuilder in Hull.
The
Apprentice register, established in 1659 kept a record of all people
apprenticed, their master and his trade. It shows that the Blaydes took on over
100 apprentices between 1676 and 1793.
THE BOUNTY
Built in 1784 by Benjamin Blayde, The Bounty was originally
used in the coal trade under the name “Bethia.” She was bought by the Navy for £2,600 and was refitted and
renamed. The Bounty was nearly 215
tons, over 90 feet long and 24 feet wide.