8. WARDALE-BEATMAINE

Bray Tree

WILLIAM WARDALE and MARY BEATMAINE (8)

 

WILLIAM WARDALE. Thomas Harland married Esther Wardale in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast in 1782. Neither of them was born in Whitby. Thomas came from the village of Hawkser, 4 miles S of Whitby, and Esther from Brotton, 14 miles north of Whitby. We would normally be suspicious about a baptism so far from the wedding place, but this is supported by the Wardale Genealogy Group.[1]

Baptism. Brotton.
1760 Apr 13  Esther daughter of Wm and Mary Wardale.

 This leads us to the following wedding:

Marriage. Skelton in Cleveland.
1742 Nov 23?  William Wardale and Mary Beatmaine.

From this, we would expect William and Mary to have been born around 1717. This fits with the following:

Baptism. Skelton in Cleveland.
1715 May 29  Will: son of John Wardell

 There was, however, another William Wardale raising a family in Skelton about the same time, so this may be his baptism.

Skelton in Cleveland is a market town at the foot of the Cleveland Hills. It is two miles from the coast at Saltburn by the sea, and two miles east of the village of Brotton, where Esther was baptised.

Research into the Wardale family is hampered by the multiple spellings of the surname, Wardall, Wardell, Wardil, etc.

We have found no other baptisms in Skelton for children of John Wardell. Nor have we found John’s marriage. The Skelton register does not tell us the name of John’s wife. We Have not found a burial in Skelton that could be either William’s mother or father, to explain the absence of further baptisms.

There were Wardales in Skelton in Cleveland at least as early as 1588, but we have found no baptism for John Wardale earlier than 1703.

On 29 June 1714 there was a wedding at the Guisborough Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends between “John Wardall of Cowlby in the County of York Yeoman and Anne Jowsey of Gisborough the daughter of Richard Jowsey of Gisborough aforesd in the sd County of York Spinster”. The certificate was signed by everyone present at the meeting, including 5 Jowseys, as well as William Wardall and Jane Wardall.

If John came from a Quaker family, that would explain why there is no baptism for him, though the Society of Friends usually keeps a register of births.
This is followed, however, by the births of successive children of John Wardall of Cowlby and Ann his wife recorded at the Quaker Meeting. Since William was baptised at the parish church of Skelton, we assume these were not his parents.

 

MARY BEATMAINE. We have found no other instances of the surname Beatmaine, though there are a few for Beadmaine. We have been unable to trace Mary’s parentage.

 Their marriage in 1742 is followed by baptisms in Loftus, a village four miles west of Skelton. This register does not give the mother’s name, only the father William, so we cannot be sure that this is the same family. But the start date of 1743 suggests that it is.

Baptisms. Loftus.
1743 May 11  William
1745 Sep 15  Ann
There is then a lengthy gap, with baptism in Skelton for children of William and Elizabeth Wardale, but none for William and Mary, or William alone. They may have had children in a parish whose registers for this period have been lost.
It is not until 1753 that the baptisms in Esther’s birthplace of Brotton begin. In these both William and Mary are named as the parents.

Baptisms. Brotton.
1753 May 2  Sarah
There is a copy of this which has the date as 1754 May 2.
1755 Dec 7  Matthew
1757 Nov 27  Thomas
1760 Apr 13  Esther
1763 Jan 5  John

In 1764, there was the marriage of Ann Wardale to George Stephenson. This is probably William and Mary’s eldest daughter.

In 1766 there is a burial for Hannah daughter of William Wardale. She must have been born in the gap between 1745 and 1753. We have not found her baptism.

The parish of Brotton lies on the sea coast of Cleveland, with townships at Brotton, Kilton and Skinningrove and the hamlet of Carlin How. The chief crops are wheat, beans, barley and oats, and the soil is a strong clay.

Brotton is a large village built on the western slope of the hill, the High Street, which runs east and west, being the continuation of the road from Loftus.

In the centre of the village is now the new church of St. Margaret of Antioch, but this was not built until 1892. In the Wardales’ time, they used St Peter’s, an old chapel of ease on higher ground south-east of the village. At the baptisms of the Wardale children it is called Brotton Chapel. The building has since been demolished.

What happened after these baptisms is unclear. We have not found burials for William or Mary in Brotton. There is a burial for William Wardale, labourer, in Skelton in Cleveland in 1809, but this is probably the husband of Elizabeth, who raised his family there.

Esther was of the parish of Whitby when she married there in 1782. It is possible that the whole family moved to Whitby. There are marriages in Whitby for Sarah and Thomas Wardale, which fit two of Esther’s siblings, but these are common names. Thomas Wardale of Whitby was a butcher.

We have been unable to find what happened to her brother Matthew, who has a more distinctive name.

There is a burial in Whitby in 1781 for William Wardale, labourer. His age is given as 70, making his birth date around 1711. This is four years older than our William, if we are right about his birth in Skelton, but ages given for older people were often only approximate.

Then there is a burial in 1804 for Mary, widow of Willam Wardale, farmer. At 86 years, this would give a reasonable estimate for Mary’s birth, but the details of William’s occupation do not match those for the previous burial.

Much of this generation is clouded in uncertainty. The part we can be most confident about is the years they spent in Brotton.

[1] https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/WARDALE