The Descendants of John Danvers (1770-1803) and Elizabeth Hardy (1735-1815)

[The Editors extended Macnamarra's 1895 descendants of John Danvers and Elizabeth Hardy descendancy chart up until 1995 for the centennial edition of the MDF where details were made available and the digital edition will be dynamic from 2020 on, but it is still reliant on contributors providing details.]

A.D. 1624 - 2020

John Danvers of Battersea 1624 - 1677

Smith Family

In his will, made in 1677, Mr John Danvers, of Battersea, states that his wife, Susan, was daughter of Mr Allyn Smith, of Nether Pillerton, Warwick.  This Mr Allyn Smith was no doubt related to the Mr Alexander Smith who heads the Lay Subsidy Roll of Pillerton, made in the early part of the reign of Charles I,14.1 and to Mr Smith, the sugar-refiner of Battersea, with whom John Danvers was in partnership.  A Mr Allyn Smith was living at Battersea when John Danvers made his will; he calls him ‘his loving brother,’ and nominates him one of his executors—doubtless, therefore, this Mr Allyn Smith was the brother-in-law of John Danvers.

In the Hearth Tax Roll 14.2 of Battersea, we find Sir Walter St John and Mr John Smith heading the list, while in February, 1701-2, we have in the church register the baptism of Allyn, son of Mr John Smith; in the following year Samuel, son of Mr John Smith, and in 1702-3 the baptism of his daughter Anne.

Elizabeth Danvers

The relationship of the Smiths and Danvers of Battersea is also shown by the marriage license of Elizabeth Danvers,14.3 dated October 3, 1686: Samuel Foot, bachelor, twenty-six, and Elizabeth Danvers, spinster, eighteen.  Her father (John) dead, and she at the disposal of her uncles, Mr Smith and Mr Danvers, of Battersea, her guardians, who consent.

Battersea Church Registers

In the Battersea church registers are some Danvers entries: March, 1667, John, son of Mr John Danvers, baptised; January, 1677, Mary, daughter of Mr John Danvers, buried; 1683, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr Samuel Danvers, buried; June, 1709, Mr Samuel Danvers buried.

The connection of the families of Danvers and Smith at Battersea, both in business and by marriage, may partly account for the presence of Mr Daniel Danvers as a sugar-refiner in Liverpool, where Mr Smith, in the year 1667, introduced that industry.  Yet another inducement for Mr Danvers to establish himself at Liverpool may be found in the circumstance that his brother-in-law, Mr Richard Cleaveland, was in business as a merchant in that town.

Liverpool in the Year 1670

Mr Moore in his Rental,14.4 compiled in the year 1667, relates the sale of a price of land north of Dale Street, Liverpool, to Mr Smith ‘the great sugar baker of London, worth £40,000,’ on which Mr Smith was to erect a stately house of hewn stone, and at the back of it to erect a house for boiling and drying sugar; and Moore predicts, and rightly, that this will bring a great trade from the West Indies to Liverpool.  When Mr Smith, of London, began business at Liverpool, the town was a small place of some four or five thousand inhabitants, with a few ships lying in the stream and communicating by means of boats with the open strand which intervened between the houses of the town and the river.  At the north end of the town was the ancient church, or rather chapel, of St Nicholas, for Liverpool was then only a hamlet of the parish of Walton.  A little to the south of the church Water Street continued Dale Street to the Strand Road, and at either corner of the street were, on the north the tower, and on the south the old custom-house.

To the south of Dale Street and Water Street were scattered houses, irregularly grouped, divided by streets or lanes running down to the Strand.  On the southern outskirts of the town, a little back from the river, stood the ancient castle, with gardens and a few houses between it and the river and ‘the pool.’  The pool bounded the town on the south, and beyond it was a far-stretching, open common, traversed by the road, or rather track, which led to London and Manchester.  Wheeled carriages at the time, and even to a much later date (1760), were an unknown method of conveyance from Liverpool to London.  Goods came from London by pack-horses, and, so late as 1753, every Friday morning a gang of horses, for conveyance of passengers and light goods, left the Swan with Two Necks, London, and reached Liverpool on the Monday evening following.

It was not till the year 1669 that the people of Liverpool determined to get their town made a distinct parish,14.5 and the case of the Corporation which they presented to Parliament in support of their claims gives an interesting account of the condition of the town.  Very curious to us in the present day seems the line of argument which the worthy Corporation adopt in furtherance of the Bill.  They say that Liverpool ‘was formerly a small fishing town, but many people coming from London in the time of the sickness and after the fire, several ingenious men settled in Liverpool, which encouraged them to trade to the Plantations and other places, which occasioned sundry other Tradesmen to come and settle there, which hath so enlarged their trade that from scarce paying the salary of the officers of the customs, it is now the third part of the trade of England, and pays upwards of £50,000 per annum to the King.  And by reason of such increase of inhabitants many new streets are built, and are still in building, and many gentlemans’ sons of the counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Chester, and North-Wales, are put apprentices in the town.  And there being but one chapel which doth not contain one half of our inhabitants, in the summer, upon pretence of going to the Parish Church, which is two long miles, and there being a village in the way, they drink in the said village, by which and otherwise many youth and sundry families are ruined.  Therefore it is hoped the Bill may pass, being to promote the service of God.’ 14.6

As we learn from Moore’s Rental, the sugar-refining manufacture was commenced by Mr Smith in Dale Street,14.7 and it has continued in the same locality till the present time (1895), the streets leading from Dale Street having always been the principal seat of this industry.

Daniel Danvers of Liverpool 1644 - 1710

When Daniel Danvers arrived there, about the year 1670, Liverpool was rapidly becoming a thriving, prosperous town; new streets were building, and one of them, Red Cross Street, built in Tarleton’s Field about the end of the seventeenth century, contained some large, commodious mansions, the residences of the leading merchants, and here it was that the Danvers family eventually established themselves.  But it is probable that Mr Danvers began life in Liverpool in connection with the business of Mr Smith, and not till the year 1701 do we discover a record of his establishing himself in business on his own account.

Marries Margaret Sorocold 1675

On February 7, 1675, Daniel Danvers was married in St Nicholas Church, Liverpool, to his first wife, Margaret, who was a daughter of Mr Sorocold,14.8 of Barton, which is all that we know regarding her.  On October 20, 1701, at St Nicholas Church, Joseph Shaw married Margaret Danvers, who was daughter of Daniel Danvers by his first wife.14.9

From the town records14.10 we learn that in the year 1683 Mr Daniel Danvers was presented for absenting himself from divine service ‘in the chappelle of Leverpoole,’ and for the same reason he is again presented in October, 1684, and a third time, with thirteen other residents, in April, 1685.

Marries Sarah Pemberton

We do not know the date of the death of Daniel’s first wife, Margaret.  His second wife, Sarah, was daughter of John Pemberton of Liverpool, of the old Lancashire family of that name.  The will of John Pemberton, held in probate registry at Chester, where it was proved October 25, 1705 mentions his daughter, Sarah Danvers, and his son-in-law, Daniel Danvers.  The will was made February 23, 1703 (NS).  When Daniel died in the year 1710, all his children were still under age.

In Business 1701

In the year 1701, when Daniel Danvers appears to have begun business on his own account, the town had made great progress, yet it was still but a small place, with a population not over 6,000, and with a trade which was carried by some hundred vessels with a total tonnage of only a little over 8,000.

The castle, though still standing, was no longer on the outskirts of the town.  Red Cross Street extended from it eastwards to the river, and the fields and gardens in the angle between Red Cross Street and South Castle Street were becoming covered with houses.  Records of the Corporation show that as early as the year 1688 Mr Daniel Danvers was buying land near the castle, and that on November 15, 1682, he and Mr Richard Cleaveland were admitted as freemen of Liverpool.  However, when Mr Daniel Danvers applied to the Corporation for a lease of a portion of this ground, a ship is found building upon it, and orders have to be passed for its removal within one month’s time.  Mr Danvers was to pay a fine of £80, and to build a sugar-house on the land with conveniences good and firm, and to pay such rent and to make such improvements as were demanded of the late occupier, Alderman Sharples.  In the August of 1702 the sugar-house in Red Cross Street was finished, the lease is granted, and the three lives put in it are those of the lessee’s wife, Sarah, and of their two sons, Daniel and John.  Before his death, in the 1709, Daniel Danvers had acquired property across the pool on the common, and probably had commenced building there, for we find, in the 1707, an order from the Corporation that he and others should fill up the holes which they had made in digging on the common for clay, and another reminiscence we have of the open common in the presentment of Daniel’s son, Mr Samuel Danvers, for keeping greyhounds and killing hares, not being qualified by law.

Horley, London and Liverpool

John Danvers of Battersea, born at Horley in the year 1624, died at Battersea, in 1678, aged fifty-four.  Samuel Danvers of Battersea, born at Horley in the year 1636, died at Battersea, in 1709, aged seventy-three.  Daniel Danvers, born at Horley in the year 1644, died at Liverpool, in 1710, aged sixty-six.  We find the brothers mentioned together in the Horley register, and in their mother’s will; all three followed the same business.  That Daniel of Liverpool was the Daniel in the register and will, is made clear by various considerations.  His sister, whose executor he became, Susanna Cleaveland of Liverpool, was the daughter of Elizabeth Danvers, who made her will at St Andrew’s, Holborn, in the year 1663; sister therefore to John and Samuel.  Then Daniel’s son, Daniel, who made his will in the year 1744, mentions therein the children of his cousin Daniel Danvers of Battersea (Daniel was the only surviving son of John Danvers of Battersea), and makes provision for their maintenance and education.  And it must be remembered that the younger Daniel, in his will, clearly uses the term cousin in the special sense in which it is used nowadays.  Again, the elder Daniel Danvers of Liverpool, as we have already had occasion to insist, calls his children after the names of those of the Horley Register.

Death and Will of Daniel Danvers

In April of the year 1710 Daniel Danvers died, and his burial is recorded, on the 10th of that month, in the register of the parish church of St Nicholas.  His will was made in September, 1709, and proved at Chester in the following May by his executors, John Pemberton and William Basnett.  He mentions therein his property in Tythe Barn Street, Red Cross Street, and Toxteth Park, in Liverpool, and in Church Gate, in Bolton-in-the-Moors.  He appoints his wife Sarah, guardian of his children, and mentions his children, Daniel, John, Anthony, Charles, Sarah, Penelope, and Elizabeth.  Two of his children, Samuel, and Susanna (probably by Daniel’s first wife, Margaret Sorocold), are not mentioned in the will.  It is notable that when giving names to his own children, Daniel repeated those of Anthony Danvers of Horley—evidence in itself almost sufficient to prove the nature of his relationship to the Horley family.  It is, too, a curious coincidence that the names of the two children which are omitted in Daniel’s will, Samuel and Susan, are those of the children regarding whom explanation was needed in the case of the Horley entries.

The impress of the seal attached to the will is that of the old arms of the family, the chevron and mullets, and the signature to the will is as bold and firm as are the initials cut long since in the cloisters at Winchester.

Family of Daniel Danvers

Daniel Danvers was followed in business by his sons Daniel, Samuel, and Anthony, who seem to have enlarged it considerably, for in the year 1726 we find Daniel Danvers adding a piece of ground at the back of Red Cross Street, between it and Harrington Street and Strand Street, and in the year 1737 another piece of ground is added apparently to the business premises behind his dwelling-house.  The lives put in the leases are Daniel Danvers, his brothers, John and Anthony, his wife, Elizabeth, and his son, Daniel.

Samuel Danvers

In the year 1720, Mr Samuel Danvers died.  His will, dated February 24, 1719, was proved at Chester, May 19, 1720.  In it he mentions his wife, Isabel, but not her maiden name; from other sources we know that it was Isabel Crooke14.11 and that they married 17 February 1706.14.12  Samuel mentions his mother, Sarah Danvers, his brothers, Daniel, John, Anthony, and Charles, his sisters, Sarah, Penelope, and Elizabeth Danvers, and his sister Susanna Cunningham, and her husband John Cunningham (married 19 October 1708), 12 his brothers-in-law, John Perceval and Joseph Shaw.  Testator also mentions many friends and his property in Tithebarn Street, Liverpool, and in Bolton Close or Meadow, near Bolton.  Seal bears the chevron and mullets.

Charles and John Danvers

In the year 1729 we find an order of the Corporation that Charles Danvers (October 28) and John Danvers, merchant (October 10), sons of Daniel Danvers, sugar-baker, both free-born, having proved their rights, be admitted on payment of 3s. 4d. each.  The brothers John and Charles are never mentioned in connection with the sugar-refining business, and are merely called ‘merchants.’  Mr John Danvers has in the year 1732 a lease of a garden house in Shoreditch (Liverpool) for twenty-one years, and very probably the lives put in it are those of connections by marriage.  They are Robert, son of Richard and Bridget Muller, and Katherine,14.13 daughter of George and Catherine Leigh.

Sarah (Pemberton) Danvers

In the year 1733 Mrs Sarah Danvers, wife of the elder Daniel, died, and her will was proved at Chester on January 7, 1733, by her sons, Daniel and John Danvers.  She mentions her children, Daniel, John, Anthony, Charles, Sarah Danvers, Penelope Green, and Elizabeth Danvers.  The impress of the seal is a horse’s head, bitted and reined, on a wreath.  Her burial—‘Mrs Sarah Danvers, Red Cross Street, widow’—is registered on November 8, 1733, at St Nicholas Church.

Charles Danvers

The next year, 1734, Charles Danvers, son of Daniel and Sarah, died, and the following is a copy of an entry in the Probate Registry Office at Chester, October 14, 1734: ‘Letters of administration of the estate of Charles Danvers, late of Liverpool, merchant, were granted to his (intestate’s) brother, John Danvers, Eunice, intestate’s widow, having previously renounced.’

Marries Eunice Sydall

The marriage license of Charles Danvers of Liverpool and Eunes Sydall of Manchester was granted at Chester January 29, 1729 (NS), and they were married in Warrington Church next day (January 30).14.14  Charles and Eunice were, as we shall show, the parents of John Danvers of Hornsey, and therefore the ancestors of the present Danvers family.  John Danvers, their son, was, as we learn from his tombstone at Hornsey, seventy-two years of age when he died, in February, 1803, and was therefore born in the year 1730.

Slave-trade, Sugar, and Liverpool 1737

In the year 1737 we find amongst the records of Liverpool a new adventure on the part of Mr Daniel Danvers.  The town had vastly extended since his father’s time, and the docks commenced in the year 1709 had greatly increased in area in order to make provision for the extensive trade that had sprung up with Africa, the West Indies, and with America.  Ships sailed from Liverpool, laden with cottons and hardware, for the West Coast of Africa, where the cargoes were bartered for slaves, which in turn were carried to the West Indies to be exchanged for sugar and rum, which were brought across to Liverpool.  We may judge of the extent of the traffic from the fact that in one year Liverpool ships carried no less than 30,000 slaves to the West Indies and America.  To meet the increasing business due to the increased supply of raw material from abroad, Daniel Danvers had to provide additional factories, and he therefore, in 1737, obtained a lease of a sugar-house, cooperage, warehouse, and yard, lately erected on the east side of Hanover Street.  This street was then a new one, which had been built on the site of a rural lane which led from the pool’s mouth across the heath to the open country, and was a street which became, somewhat before the middle of the century, the residence of the mercantile aristocracy of the day, who erected noble mansions, and laid out gardens and orchards along its course.14.15  On the east side was a notable mansion, that of the family of Steer, built in 1730-40, the first architectural stone-fronted dwelling-house built in Liverpool.  Nor was the activity of the Danvers firm confined to Hanover Street, for near the old premises on the north side of Crooked Lane, a sugar-house, warehouse, still-house, cooperage and counting- -house, are in the year 1742 begun, and are to be finished within seven years, on land leased from the Corporation.

Second Daniel Danvers of Liverpool

Will

But, while all this building and extension was going on, Daniel Danvers died, leaving a wife, Elizabeth, and an only son, Daniel.  His wife was the daughter of John Hood, Esq., of Bardon Park, Leicestershire by his wife, Mary Coape.14.16  The will mentions the testator’s brother-in-law, John Hood,14.17 of London, and his wife’s mother, Mary Hood.  Daniel’s will was made in August, 1739, five years after the death of his brother Charles, and he leaves all his houses and business to his nephew, John, the son of his late brother Charles, if no children of his own (the testator’s) should attain to the age of twenty-one.  He also leaves a legacy to his cousin, Daniel Danvers of Battersea, and makes provision for the maintenance and education of his cousin’s children.

This will is of so great importance in proving the identity and parentage of John Danvers of Hornsey, that we shall, before noticing its other provisions, draw attention to the use of the terms which Daniel Danvers applies to his relatives.  He speaks of his ‘brother-in-law,’ of his ‘nephew,’ of his ‘kinsman’ Daniel Cunningham, and of his ‘cousin’ Daniel Danvers.  Now, we must remember that not many years previously all these relations would have been mentioned in a will as ‘cousins;’ thus William Danvers of London, in his will made in the year 1660, calls his niece’s husband, John Pollard, his ‘cousin.’  John Danvers of Battersea, in his will dated 1677, calls his nephew, Edmund Chillenden, his cousin, and from the Danvers wills alone numberless illustrations might be given of the fact that up to the end of the seventeenth century the term cousin was usually applied to any and every relative more remotely connected than a brother or sister.  But, as we have seen, Daniel Danvers of Liverpool, clearly distinguishes the degrees of relationship of his legatees—the boy John Danvers is ‘his nephew,’ and Daniel Danvers, of Battersea, is ‘his cousin,’ because he was the son of the testator’s uncle, John Danvers, while Daniel Cunningham is ‘his kinsman.’

At the time of his death Daniel Danvers was living in his house in Red Cross Street.  He mentions his brother, Anthony, his sisters Elizabeth Danvers and Sarah Cockshutt, his niece Sarah Green, and his friends Sam Ogden and John Bostock.  The latter, with the testator’s wife, and her brother, John Hood, are his executors.  The will14.18 was proved in London on February 15, 1745-46.

Benn’s Gardens Chapel

Amongst the bequests are ‘his seats in Benn’s Gardens Chapel’ to his wife Elizabeth.  As regards this chapel14.19 we learn that the first congregation of Dissenters in Liverpool was a branch from the ancient chapel at the Dingle, in Toxteth Park.  They were ‘English Presbyterians,’ and their chapel, built about the year 1688, in Castle Hey Street, now Harrington Street, was served by the Rev. Christopher Richardson, the ejected minister of Kirkhalton, Yorkshire.  In the year 1727 the congregation removed to the chapel in Benn’s Gardens, a street which led out of Red Cross Street, and adjoined the house and refinery of Daniel Danvers.

Daniel Danvers of Bath

Daniel Danvers was succeeded by his son, a third Daniel Danvers of Liverpool.  Probably the young Daniel came of age in or about the year 1752, when we find him getting a lease from the Corporation of the premises, sugar-house, etc., on the north side of Crooked Lane—the premises, in fact, at the back of his father’s house in Red Cross Street.  The lease is for twenty-one years, and the three lives put in it are, the lessee’s, Mrs Elizabeth Danvers, and John Danvers, merchant, of London.  On the same date Daniel Danvers gets a lease of a house and grounds in Park Lane, bounded by Mr Heywood’s, Mr Ogden’s, and Alderman Rainsford’s grounds—these were all well-known names at the time in Liverpool, and Park Lane was the old road which led from near the lower end of Hanover Street to Toxteth Park.

The lives put in this lease were those of the lessee, of his wife Mary, and of Mrs Elizabeth Danvers, of Bath, widow.  Daniel, therefore, is married, and his mother had left Liverpool for Bath, to which place not long after her son and his wife followed her.

Anthony Danvers

In the year 1762 the sugar-house, counting-house, etc., in Red Cross Street were leased to Isaac Oldham.  The lives in the lease are Daniel Danvers, of Bath, Esq., John Danvers of London, merchant, and Isaac Fairbrother.  The whole of the male descendants of the first Daniel appear to have been at this time dead, or to have left Liverpool.  There is but one more notice of them in records of the town, and that occurs in the lease of Thompson’s Croft, in the year 1771, in which one of the lives is that of Anthony Danvers of Kingston, Jamaica, merchant, who was probably the son or grandson of the first Daniel Danvers of Liverpool.  Anthony Danvers died at Jamaica June 17, 1772.14.20

Danvers Family in Bath

Let us briefly follow the fortunes of the family in Bath.  Elizabeth Danvers, wife of the second Daniel, of Liverpool, died in the year 1757.  Lipscomb, in his History of Bucksinghamshire, tells us that Elizabeth Danvers was killed ‘by the fall of a chimney at Bath 14 March 1757, the day of the death of Admiral Byng; ‘in a storm, called “Byng’s high wind.” ’ 14.16  Her will,14.21 is registered at Somerset House.  She leaves legacies to her sister Elizabeth Danvers, to her grand-daughter Mary Danvers, and to her son Daniel Danvers.  The will was made in the testator’s handwriting, but was not signed.  John Danvers, of St Benet Fink’s, London, and a certain Francis Gregg, were called in, and swear that they well knew the testatrix and her handwriting, and that the will was written by her, whereupon probate was granted.

Daniel Danvers, Banker of Bath

Daniel Danvers became a banker in Bath, and seems to have been an active man in that city; his portrait is upon the walls of the Bath hospital, of which institution he was for some time treasurer.

Sir John Danvers, Baronet, of Swithland

At Bath, Daniel Danvers became intimately acquainted with Sir John Danvers, Bart., of Swithland, an intimacy which no doubt began in the relationship of their wives, who were first cousins, and in this way.  Sir Edmund Harrison, of Ickford, Bucks, married Mary, daughter of the Nathaniel Fiennes who has been so often mentioned in previous pages.  Sir Edmund and his wife had two daughters, Jane and Sarah, who married respectively Mathias King and Joel Watson.  Mary King, daughter of Mathias, married in 1745,14.12 Daniel Danvers, and Mary Watson, daughter of Joel, married14.22 Sir John Danvers of Swithland.  The intimacy extended to Daniel’s cousin, John Danvers, of New Court, with whom we find Sir John Danvers corresponding in a way which evidenced confidential and friendly relations between them.

The following is one of the letters addressed by Sir John Danvers to Mr John Danvers:

Extract from letter of Sir John Danvers, Bart., of Swithland, to John Danvers, of New Court, December 25, 1782.

‘I do, after very mature deliberation, think it proper to acquaint you that before our friend Mr Danvers, of Bath, dyed, I had, in case my daughter dyed without issue male, given him and the heirs male of his body, my whole fortune, both real and personal; and in case they dyed without issue male, then to you, and your heirs for ever.  Soon after I left Bath, the last time I was there, which was a few months after Mr Danvers dyed, finding how imprudent his widow was, Dan ruined, and the other children very likely to be so by their weak and positive mother, I made a new Will . . .  leaving my whole fortune, both real and personal, a few legacies excepted, not amounting to two thousand pounds, to you and your heirs for ever. . . .

          ‘Your faithful and affectionate relation and friend,

                                                                     ‘(Signed), John Danvers.’

Death

In the year 1779 Daniel Danvers died, leaving his wife, Mary, and six children.  He is called of the city of Bath, banker, and leaves all his goods and estates to his wife.  To his cousin, John Danvers, of New Court, Broad Street, London, he leaves ten guineas for a ring, and constitutes him co-executor with his (the testator’s) wife, Mary.  He speaks of his son Daniel.  In a codicil to his will he leaves a shilling to his eldest son, Daniel, and ten guineas for a ring to Sir John Danvers, Bart., whom he constitutes an executor.  The will14.23 was proved in December, 1779, in London by Mary Danvers, John Danvers, Esq., and Sir John Danvers, Bart., the executors.

Family

He left three sons and three daughters (baptised between 1755 and 176914.12).  The eldest son Daniel died in 1807 leaving no issue; Charles also died without issue; John married and had issue.  Mary, the eldest daughter, died unmarried; Elizabeth married, on 22 August 1786, Samuel Howse of Bath, and left no issue; 14.12 Sarah married the Rev. Robert Jacombe, of St Laurence Pountney Hill, London, and left no issue.  By his second wife Robert Jacombe had children, of whom the eldest son took the name of Jacombe-Hood.14.24

John Danvers of Hornsey

And now we turn to John Danvers, the only link in the long chain of the Danvers pedigree which remains for our consideration.

John Danvers was born at Liverpool in the year 1730.  He was probably baptized in Benn’s Garden Chapel, the existing registers of which do not reach back to that period.  His father, Charles, died when he was a child, and after the administration to her husband’s effects we hear nothing further of his mother, Eunice.

In Liverpool

Probably John was brought up in the house of his uncle, Daniel, in Red Cross Street, together with his cousin Daniel, who was of about the same age.  In the year 1739, when John was eight years of age, we find him treated as a younger son in his uncle Daniel’s will.  Failing his own issue, his nephew John, ‘son of his late brother Charles,’ was to inherit his property.  In the year 1746, when his uncle Daniel died, his cousin Daniel was still under age, and John, whose name remained in his uncle’s will, might yet have become his heir.  However, Daniel the younger came of age, and speedily married, and John, coming of age, received the legacy provided by his uncle, and left Liverpool for London, where he set up in business, with William Cope, in New Court, Broad Street.  Still, we have some further reminiscences of him in Liverpool, for in the years 1752 and 1762 his life is put in the leases of his cousin’s property in that city.

In London

The first entry that we have in London of John Danvers’ name is in the parish records of St Benet Fink’s, where, in March, 1753, appears the name of John Danvers having a house of business in New Court, with William Cope as his partner, and from that time onwards till near the end of the century his name appears regularly in the parish books.  And it may be remarked that John Danvers was the first of the name who, after the lapse of very many years, can be discovered in London or other records as a resident in the City.  The name of Danvers is absent in all the early directories and poll-books till the year 1759, when John Danvers appears in the directory as of 1 New Court, Broad Street, and as of New Court he appears in witnessing to his aunt Elizabeth’s handwriting in the year 1757, and he is of the same place when we find him acting as executor to his cousin Daniel’s will in the year 1777.  Of New Court, too, he is in the letters of Sir John Danvers, which are in the possession of his descendants.  The marriages of two of his children in the years 1787 and 1789 are registered in the books of the parish church, that of St Benet Fink’s.

Marries Elizabeth Hardy

On August 28, 1756, John Danvers married, at the Church of All Hallows, Barking, Elizabeth Hardy.  He is described in the register as bachelor, of the parish of St Benet Fink, and she as ‘spinster of this parish.’  They were married by licence, the record of which is at Lambeth Palace, and is dated August 18, 1756.  John Danvers is aged twenty-five and upwards, and Elizabeth Hardy is twenty-one and upwards, and as she was of age, no mention is made of her parents.

The family tradition is that Elizabeth Hardy belonged to the Jersey family of that name, and the late Mr Frederick Dawes Danvers always spoke of the late Sir William Hardy as a relative.  A descendant of the Hardy family, Miss Sophia Neave, who died in the year 1843, bequeathed a considerable legacy to ‘her cousin, Mr Frederick Danvers,’ and his sisters.  We have not, however, been able to place, with certainty, Mrs Elizabeth Danvers in the Hardy pedigree.

Family of John Danvers

John and Elizabeth had three sons, John, Charles, and William (the latter died young), and two daughters, Elizabeth and Frances.  In their later years Mr John Danvers and his wife had a country house at Hornsey.  The house has been pulled down and its site built over, for the country village of A.D. 1800 is now a London suburb, but the house was well known to the grand-children, two of whom were still living in 1893.

Death of John Danvers

John Danvers died in the year 1803, and was buried in a raised tomb in Hornsey Churchyard on the south side of the old church.  His wife survived him many years, and, dying in the year 1815, was buried in her husband’s grave.  The following is the inscription upon their tomb:

‘To the Memory of
John Danvers.
Who died February 18th, 1803,
Aged 72 years.
Also of Elizabeth Danvers,
Wife of the above,
Who died January 11th, 1815,
Aged 82 years.
Also of John Danvers,
Son of the above,
Who died August 8th, 1835,
Aged 74 years.
Also of Henrietta, his wife,
Who died May 31, 1836,
Aged 71 years.
Also of Charles Danvers,
Who died June 10th, 1844,
Aged 77 years.’

Will of John Danvers

The will of John Danvers was proved by his sons, John and Charles, in May, 1803.  His wife, Elizabeth, and his four children, John, Charles, Elizabeth, Frances, are mentioned in the will.

John, the eldest son, married, on 19 November 1787, at St Nicholas Church, Rochester, Henrietta, daughter of John Fennell and his wife Frances Brady.  They had a large family of sons and daughters (refer Appendix Two to this chapter).  Charles, the second son of John and Elizabeth, married, at St Benet Fink’s, City of London, on 11 January 1789, Mary Teush, and had by her a large family.  Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, married on 4 February 1787, at St Benet Fink’s, William Hamilton, M.D., and had sons and daughters.  Frances, the youngest daughter, married on 23 October 1790, Thomas Flower Ellis, by whom she had a large family.

We follow no further the history of the members of this, the only surviving branch in the male line of the Danvers family.  We have traced their ancestors from Auvers to Northampton, Dorney and Marlow, thence to Bourton, Tetsworth, Epwell and Banbury, from Banbury to Prestcote and Dauntsey, thence to Culworth and Horley, and finally to Liverpool and Hornsey.

APPENDIX ONE TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Descendants of John Danvers (1770-1803) and Elizabeth Hardy (1735-1815)

[The Editors extended Macnamarra's 1895 descendancy chart up until 1995 for the centennial edition of the MDF, when details were made available.]

This list descendants can been seen at Chap 14, Appendix 1 in the printed editions.
Appendix 1 has  been moved to the Family Tree in this digital edition so it can be updated when contributors provide details).

APPENDIX TWO TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE FENNELL FAMILY

As three generations of members of the Fennell and Danvers families have intermarried, a brief notice of the former family is appended.  About 1720-30, Hannah Barber or Barbour married . . . Fennell.  Hannah had three brothers, William, John, and Edward.  Edward Barber was a Captain in the navy (Post Captain, June, 1756); he died in the year 1762, when his will, now at Somerset House, was proved.  The will was made at Hornsey, in the year 1755, and in it he mentions his sister, Hannah Fennell, and her children, Samuel, John, William Barber, George, Ann, and Frances.  He has nieces, Carter and Curtis, and a cousin, Horabin.  His brothers, William and John, are his executors.  William Barber died at Exeter in the year 1777.  His will was proved January 27, 1777.  He desires that he may be buried in the grave of his brother John, in the churchyard of St David’s, Exeter.  His burial, January 5, 1777, is in the register of the church.  No monument to him can be found in the church or churchyard; but there is in the latter a large flat stone to the memory of a James Barber, who died at Bedminster, Bristol, in August, 1828, aged sixty-one.  William Barber’s will mentions his nephews, Samuel, John, George, William Barber, and nieces, Frances Barton, Penelope (who married (1) Thomas Redstone, died 1757, aet. forty; (2) . . . Garratt), and Elizabeth Curtis.  He leaves legacies to Anne (Redstone), wife of Captain Robert Linzie, R.N., and to her spinster sister, Elizabeth Bowles Redstone.  (Elizabeth subsequently married Jacob Warner, Esq., from whom Sir Joseph Warner descended, and had a large family.)

This list descendants can been seen at Chap 14, Appendix 2.14.26

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

14.1    Warwick Lay Subsidy Roll 194/310.

14.2    Surrey Lay Subsidy Roll 188/481 and 188/504.

14.3    Faculty Office of Archbishop of Canterbury.

14.4    Moore’s Rental, p. 76; Chetham Society’s edition.

14.5    Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, vol. i, p. 40.

14.6    Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, vol. i, p. 50.

14.7    Picton’s Memorials of Liverpool, vol. i, p. 111.

14.8    Sorocold Family, Chetham Society’s vol. lxxxviii, p. 276; also Harleian Society’s vol. xvii, p. 253.

14.9    Joseph Shaw, page 14–3.

14.10  For this, and for many other notices of members of the Danvers family, existing in the Liverpool records, we are greatly indebted to the courtesy of George James Atkinson, Esq., Town Clerk of Liverpool.

14.11  See Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, vol. ii, pp. 237 and 240.  Isabel, in 1729, married the Rev. Thomas Hayes of Rainhill.

14.12  The dates for various baptisms and marriages are drawn from the 1992 LDS International Genealogical Index. -Ed.

14.13  Additional MSS. B.M. 24458 pedigree of Leigh of Oughterington.

14.14  For some account of the Sydalls see Chetham Society’s Publications, vol. 47, p. 136.

14.15  Cf. Picton’s History of Liverpool.

14.16  Lipscomb’s History of Buckinghamshire.

14.17  For pedigree of Hood of Bardon Park, see Lipscomb’s Bucks, vol. i, p. 280.

14.18  Will of Daniel Danvers; Edmunds, 43.

14.19  Cf. Picton’s History of Liverpool; and Halley’s Lancashire Puritanism.  London 1869.

14.20  London Magazine.

14.21  Will: Herring, 118.

14.22  Cf. Lipscomb’s Bucks, vol. i, p. 280.

14.23  Will: Warburton, 492.

14.24  Lipscomb’s Bucks vol. i, p. 280; and Additional MS., British Museum, No. 24458, p. 511.

14.25  Various details of the Macnamara family from Visitation of England and Wales (Vol. 3, p. 92) edited by Joseph Jackson Howard LLD, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary, and Frederick Arthur Crisp (printed privately 1895).

14.26  The editors are indebted to Patrick Carroll Macnamara for his help in the search for the descendants of Francis Nottidge Macnamara. -Ed.

Top

Digital edition first published: 1 Mar 2020             Updated: 12 Jul 2023                garydanvers@gmail.com