
Jack Priestley’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Jack’s as (1)
GEORGE BISHOP and JANE IVESONNE (10)
GEORGE BISHOP. From the date of his marriage, we should expect George to have been born around 1618. No baptism has been found for him within a 20-mile radius of Skipton.
The History of Skipton gives a long list of the old Skipton surnames.[1] Bishop does not appear among them.
His marriage is the first record for Bishop in the Skipton registers, followed by the baptism of his children. No other Bishops were having children baptised there in the mid-17th century.
It would have been interesting to see the Protestation Return for 1641-2, to know the number of Bishop men in Skipton then. Unfortunately, the Skipton return is missing.
There are no Bishop burials in Skipton which could be those of George’s parents, so we assume that he came to Skipton alone.
The History of Skipton also tells us: “During the time of George and Francis, the third and fourth Earls of Cumberland, the former of whom died in 1605, and the latter in 1641, a great number of freehold and leasehold tenancies were created, and Skipton appears to have increased rapidly during the first years of the seventeenth century. As proof of this may be mentioned the fact that while during the year 1599 but twenty-one baptisms and nineteen burials are recorded for Skipton in the parish register, in 1620 there are thirty-seven baptisms and twenty-seven burials.”
George Bishop appears to have come to Skipton as part of this expansion.
JANE IVESONNE. Unlike George, Jane came from an old Skipton family
Baptism. Skipton.
1614 May 8 Jane the daughter of Lancelot Iveson of Skipton.
Jane was the third of five children. Her mother was Isabell Vicars of Bingley, 13 miles SW of Skipton.
Her father ran a dyeing business.
The couple married in the early years of the Civil War.
Skipton became the only royalist stronghold in the North. The castle held out under siege for three years, succumbing only in Dec 1645. The carcases of sheep were said to have been hung from the battlements to deaden the impact of gunfire.
When it fell to the Roundheads, Cromwell slighted it by removing the roofs.
After the war, Lady Anne Clifford, who had tried for years to gain possession of her father’s estates, came to Skipton Castle and lovingly restored it to its original plan.
We do not know which side the Bishops supported in the war, but men were usually obliged to take up arms for the cause their landlords favoured.
Marriage. Skipton.
1643 Jul 28 George Bishopp and Jane Ivesonne
Baptisms. Skipton.
1644 Oct 24 Issabell
1650 Jun 2 Mary
1652 Oct 13 George
1656 Jul 20 Thomas
All these register entries end with the words “of Skipton”. This means that the Bishops lived in the town, and not in one of the outlying parts of the parish.
By the time their family was complete, the Civil War was over, Charles I had been beheaded, and Oliver Cromwell was ruling the Republic as Lord Protector.
We do not have a burial for Jane, but it appears that George married twice. Jane must have died within ten years of Thomas’s birth.
Marriage. Skipton.
1666 Oct 24 George Bishop and Alis Dolphin. Both of Skipton.
This is unlikely to be George and Jane’s eldest son, who would have been only 14.
They had less than six years together.
Burial. Skipton.
1672 May 15 George Bishope of Skipton
1675 Feb 6 Alis Bishope Widdow of Skipton
[1] W, Harbutt Dawson, History of Skipton, 1882
[2] Castles and Fortifications of England and Wales: Skipton Castle
NEXT GENERATION: 9. BISHOP-IVESON
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