  Ancestor Index
 Thomas Smyth - a
Lord Mayor of Liverpool- Smyth
family of Macclesfield and Cheshire
This branch of the
Smyth family is directly connected to the Smyth family
that was originally from Durham and then of Rosedale
Abbey in Yorkshire from where William Smyth, with most of
his children, moved to Ireland in the early 1600s. His
sons were the progenitors of the majority of the known
Smyth lines of Ireland. Click on the "Rosedale Spot" to access a comprehensive
history of that lineage - written by American cousin, David
Smyth, of the Hutchinson Smyth branch of the
family.
This is also the
lineage of the composer and militant suffragette, Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) -
another celebrated descendant of William Smyth of
Ireland. In this connection, Julie
(Neal) Summers, a
direct descendant of Nina Smyth, who was
a 1st cousin of Ethel Smyth, has contributed the results
of her family history and research.
Follow Julie's name
link or click on the image of Macclesfield adjacent to
access her family information. Her page gives a link to
Dame Ethel Smyth's details. The Smyth/es lived at The
Fence House in Macclesfield.
Writing originally in the Macclesfield
Courier and Herald, before his work was
collected into a book and published in 1883, Isaac
Alan Finney stated:
"Looking round the Green -
save the mark, as it was then - you might have observed
on its eastern side, from what is now the Bank, at the
corner of Sunderland - street to the new Bank at the
northern end, a long range of houses, which at that time
were chiefly occupied by silk weavers, or other private
families; the access to all these houses was by a flight
of steps, protected by iron railing, or palisades;
underneath were steps, leading from the street down to
the cellars, or workshops, or dwellings for poor people.
These have all been transformed into shops. On the site
now occupied by the new Bank stood a few ancient Tudor
houses.
At the south - east corner of Park
- green, on the site now occupied by the Free Methodist
Chapel, there stood. at the time we speak of, a fine old
mansion, of early 18th century erection, built by the Daintry's
family, afterwards the property of J. Ryle,
Esq., who, with the late John Brocklehurst, Esq., of
Hurdsfield House, we recollect as the first members of
Parliament for the borough of Macclesfield. In this
mansion, on Park - green, resided in succession the
Daintrys, after them the Woods, who were at that time
large cotton manufacturers in Sutton; they, the Woods,
were succeeded by the Wards, all families of note in
Macclesfield about this period, but we have now lost
sight of many of our old gentry, with whose faces we were
once familiar, and who formerly occupied prominent
positions in the town as Mayors and Magistrates, in the
early part of this century. We might enumerate a long
list of families that we have now, as it were, lost sight
of, and who have disappeared from the stage of life.
Amongst others we may mention the Daintrys, the Ryles,
the Woods, the Smythes, the Wardles, the Wards, and Goulds,
and many other families who were at one time closely
allied, both by relationship and mutual interest, as one
family."
 Developing
connections -The
Woods (Wode) (and also the
Vernons) appear on other pages in association
with Smyth branches of the northern and midland
counties of England. It may be significant also
that the minister (Baptist) who officiated at the
wedding of James
Francis Smythe
(1858) in Norfolk - when he married his first wife,
Eleanor Cooper of East Dereham - was a Gould,
as was, also, one of the witnesses to the
wedding.
It may be noted
too that the Suttons of Cheshire
were one and the same family as Sir Richard Sutton (d.1524) who was associated with
Bishop William Smyth - link image above - who was firstly a Bishop
of nearby Coventry and Lichfield and then of the
vast see of Lincoln which, in those days,
included the city of Oxford and its surrounding
parishes.
In about 1507, at the close of
Henry VII's reign, Bishop William Smyth and Sir
Richard Sutton founded a new college in Oxford.
They rebuilt Brasenose Hall, added other existing
halls to it and, having obtained a charter in
1512 - the third year of Henry VIII's reign -
called it The King's Haule and College of
Brasennose. The Suttons also held
property at Over Haddon in Derbyshire - where
further Smyth (as well as Huddleston, Manners and
Neville) interests are found. Because
of his official association with Arthur, the
Prince of Wales, Bishop William Smyth also spent
much of his time at Ludlow in Herefordshire and
Bewdley in Worcestershire. By 1501 he had become
a man of great substance and wealth and bought an
estate at St. John's, Bedwardine, near Worcester.
An indication that the Smyths
of Cheshire and other neighbouring midland
counties remained constantly in touch with the
Smyths of Ireland may be seen in a later era -
suggested by the fact that the celebrated actor, David
Garrick (1717-1779) who was originally a
son of Lichfield, had connections to and
friendships with the local gentry families. It
was, in fact, David Garrick who organised the
first ever festival in honour of William
Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon,
in 1769.
It is stated that Garrick was a
particular favourite of Mary Smyth,
daughter of William Grattan,
a wealthy Dublin goldsmith. Mary Grattan married William
Smyth - nephew of Arthur Smyth the
Archbishop of Dublin (b.1707 d.1772).
Mary Smyth travelled from
Dublin to London for Garrick's last appearances
on stage and events so conspired during her stay
there that she precipitated one of the biggest
public religious rifts between members of any
Smyth family establishment. Mary Smyth's
brother-in-law, the Reverend Edward Smyth, became the centre of this controversy.
It created
something of a sensation when he was expelled
from his living as a Church of Ireland minister
for his espousal of the Methodist cause and his
subsequent support of the non-conformist, Wesley,
with whom he also worked for a time in London. Full details via the
link above.
Eventually, and after a stormy (and yet fruitful)
life, Edward Smyth died at Chorlton Hall,
(Salford) Manchester, on February 6th, 1825. He
would, no doubt, have been more than familiar
with his "local" Smyth cousins.
Other 'sons of Lichfield' were
Elias Ashmole (1617-92) who was
the founder of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum in 1677
and the essayist, critic and compiler of a
pioneering dictionary in 1755, Dr. Samuel Johnson
(1709-84).
Further
Site Notes
Question
- Why, in 1850,
would Charles
Piazzi Smyth -
celebtated Astronomer and member of the "Baden Powell
Smyth" family
line have been found relaxed enough to sketch
Macclesfield church? Was he staying with cousins?
This information may be found by searching the
records of the British Public Records Office via
its extraordinarily comprehensive A2A database.
Here, too, may be found the
following snippets of information - contained in
the records of the law firm Hand, Morgan
and Owen of Lichfileld - which point to
Smyth association with the area dating back as
far as the fourteenth century.
FILE [no
title] - ref. D1798/HM4 -
date: 1369-1399
\_ [from
Scope and Content] John ate Wode
to Wm. Wymor to Thomas le Smyth
If Thomas "le Smyth"
was simply a 'smith" in general terms (which
he may well have been at that time) it seems
unlikely that records such as this would have
survived into the 21st century unless handed down
within a family context at a status level on a
par with landowners in need of law services for
the settlement of property within a 'gentry'
class, especially as the name is linked with
Wode/Wood - both of which families are noted as
local "class" by Finney, at the head of
this article.
These references from the same
source also cast light on some of the history of
the area and its families in the Tudor and Stuart
eras:
- HM 1-615
LITTLETON
BOX
TITLE
FILE
[no title] - ref. D1798/4
- date: 14th - 19th century
\_ [from
Scope and Content] Pilaton.
Smyth, Amyse, Littleton. 36
Hen.VIII[1544-5]
\_ [from
Scope and Content] Chebsey
Rectory. Byrch, Smyth. 7 Chas.I[1631-2]
- Further consideration of
this "Smyth" area may be
accessed in the context of Julie
Summers' research and family
information about the Smyth family of The
Fence House, Macclesfield. Click on the
image of Macclesfield at the head of this
page.
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