they have long survived. Nor is this curiosity diminished when one of
the correspondents has achieved a world-wide fame, so that there is no
portion of the globe where his name is not known. For then one desires
to know who were the people whom he honoured with his friendship, and to
scan the letters closely to see if they throw any new light upon the
character of the writer. There are in existence seventeen letters
written by John Wesley to a member of a family once well-known in the
county of Durham. Originally there were thirty letters, as appears from
the numbering of those which remain, but where the other letters are the
writer does not know.[19] These seventeen letters, two of them being
only copies of the originals, came into the possession of the Rev.
Thomas Dale, Canon of St. Paul’s from 1843-70, and from him passed to
his eldest son, the Rev. Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-92), at one time
well-known as the Rector of St. Vedast in the city of London.[20] They
were written to Miss Margaret Dale, second daughter of Edward Dale[21]
of Tunstall, who, owing to the extinction (as it seems) of the elder
branch of the family in the male line, was head of the family of Dale,
first of Dalton le Dale, and then of Tunstall. This Edward Dale was the
son of Thomas Dale by his wife Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of
George Middleton of Silksworth. Through her Burke, who was far too
amiable a genealogist to doubt the assertions of any one respecting his
ancestors, however remote, traces the descent of Edward Dale from
Gundreda, daughter of William the Conqueror. The curious will find the
descent set out at length in Burke’s _Royal Family_, Pedigree XVI.
Edward Dale married Eleanor, youngest of the three daughters of the Rev.
John Lawrence, Rector of Bishop’s Wearmouth. Mr. Lawrence (1668-1732)
was in his day a well-known writer on horticulture, and has, as a
consequence, a niche in that temple of fame--the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. It is related that when in 1721 he was appointed to the
Rectory, he was so obnoxious to the principal inhabitants of his parish,
owing to his Hanoverian proclivities, that when he was "reading himself
in" the three chief landowners of the place--John Goodchild of Pallion,
John Pemberton of Bainbridge Holme, and Thomas Dale of Tunstall--walked
out of the church as a protest against his appointment.[22] By a kind of
poetic justice, his three daughters married into the families of the
three protesters. His eldest daughter married the above-named John
Goodchild, his two younger daughters the sons and heirs of John
Pemberton and Thomas Dale. Only unfortunately for the completeness of
the tale, the two last marriages did not take place till after the death
of John Lawrence.
By Eleanor Lawrence, Edward Dale had three daughters--Mary, Margaret,
and Anne--and one son, also called Edward. He died when his eldest
daughter was only eleven and his son still an infant.
Margaret Dale no doubt made the acquaintance of John Wesley through his
devoted adherent, Margaret Lewen. Miss Lewen, the only child of Thomas
Lewen of Kibblesworth, while still a girl of about twenty-two, was
attracted by the preaching of John Wesley during his visit to the North
in the year 1764. Wesley, in his famous "Diary," speaks of her as being
"a remarkable monument of Divine mercy. She broke through all
hindrances, and joined heart and hand with the children of God." She was
"a pattern to all young women of fortune in England." Margaret Lewen was
certainly exceedingly liberal. "In works of benevolence and Christian
zeal, she cheerfully expended an ample income" (Stamp: Orphan House of
Wesley, London, 1863). Wesley says she had about £600 a year "in her own
hands." On one of his visits to the North she gave him a chaise and a
pair of horses. Now, Margaret Lewen was very intimate with the Dale
girls, and it was probably through her influence that they came into
contact with the great preacher. Whether any letters were written to the
other sisters is not known, but they can hardly have been so numerous or
more intimate than those written to Margaret Dale.
The first letter extant is written from Portpatrick, and is dated June
1, 1765, when Margaret Dale was still two or three months short of
twenty-one. It begins: "My Dear Miss Peggy," and ends, "I trust you will
be happier every day; and that you will not forget, my Dear Sister, your
Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley." The letter is occupied with spiritual
counsels, and questions about her spiritual health. He inquires: "How
far do you find Power over your Thoughts? Does not your imagination
sometimes wander? Do those imaginations continue for any time?" It is
clear, from Wesley’s next letter, written from Kilkenny, dated July 5,
1765, that Miss Peggy had found she was guilty of wandering thoughts,
for the letter begins: "My dear Sister,--Altho’ it is certain the kind
of Wandering Thoughts wch you mention, are consistent with pure Love,
yet it is highly desirable to be delivered from yᵐ, because (as you
observe) they hinder profitable thoughts." Miss Lewen is mentioned. "I
hope Miss Lewen and you speak to each other, not only without Disguise,
but without Reserve." The letter ends, "My Dear Sister, your
affectionate Brother."
Letters 4 and 5 are missing. The next, numbered 6, is dated from London,
November 6, 1765. Peggy has a fixed idea that she will not live beyond
the age of three and twenty. Wesley, in this letter, asks many questions
about this conviction. He wants to know when it began, and whether it
continues the same, whether her health is better or worse. The subject
is continued in the next letter, written December 31 in the same year.
This letter begins "My dear Peggy," and ends, "I cannot tell you how
tenderly I am, my Dear Sister, your affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
Wesley had evidently a tender paternal regard for the girl. He was in
1765 sixty-two years of age, fifteen years older than her father would
have been if he had survived. Peggy was mistaken in her conviction. She
did not actually die till November, 1777, when she had completed her
thirty-third year, so she was just ten years out. Letter 9, written
April, 1766, from Manchester, contains nothing of interest. Numbers 10
and 11 are unfortunately missing. Number 12 shows that Peggy desired to
go to Leytonstone, where there was a considerable colony of Wesleyans,
and whither perhaps Margaret Lewen had already gone. Wesley was very
anxious she should not go. "I am afraid," he writes, "if you go to
Laton-Stone you will give up Perfection. I mean by placing it so high,
as I fear none will ever attain. I know _not one_ in London that has
ever largely conversed with Sally Ryan, who has not given it up, that
is, with regard to their own Experience. Now this, I think, would do
you no good at all. Nay, I judge, it wou’d do you much hurt: it would be
a substantial Loss. But I do not see how you _cou’d_ possibly avoid that
loss, without a free intercourse with me, both in Writing and Speaking.
Otherwise I know and feel, I can give you up, tho’ you are exceeding
near and dear to me. But if you was to be moved from your Stedfastness
that wᵈ give me pain indeed. You will write immediately to, my Dear
Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
The next two letters are missing, so that we do not know if Peggy obeyed
John Wesley or no, though from the tone of the next letter it seems
probable that she did so. The next letter is dated November 7, 1766.
Margaret Lewen had died at Leytonstone, October 30. By her will, dated
November 21, 1764, she left many legacies to various Methodist good
works, and to John Wesley £1,000, and her residuary estate to be applied
as he should "think fit for the furtherance of the Gospel." She left
Mary Dale £1,000, and to her sisters Margaret and Ann Dale, £100 apiece.
Her father threatened to dispute the will, and the matter was
compromised by the surrender to him of the residuary estate.
John Wesley refers to Margaret Lewen’s death in the fifteenth letter:
"How happy it is to sit loose to all below! Just now I find a paper on
wch is wrote (in Miss Lewen’s hand), ‘March 24, 1762, Margaret Dale, Ann
Dale, Margaret Lewen, wonder in what state of life they will be in the
year 1766.’ How little did any of you think at that time that she would
then be in Eternity: But she now wonders at nothing and grieves at
nothing." He ends: "And sure neither Life nor Death shall separate you
from, my Dear Sister, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
In the eighteenth letter--the sixteenth contains nothing of especial
interest, the seventeenth is missing--Wesley speaks of his followers at
Newcastle: "Those you mention are Israelites indeed to whom you will do
well to speak with all freedom. A few more in Newcastle are of the same
spirit: Altho’ they are but few in whom ye Gold is free from dross. I
wish you could help poor Molly Stralliger. I am often afraid for her
lest she shᵈ be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and lose all that GOD had
wrought in her."
The twentieth letter we give in full, not because it is more interesting
than the other letters, but because it has not before appeared in public
print.[23] The other letters will be found in the _Life and Letters of
Thomas Pelham Dale_, by his daughter, Helen Pelham Dale, published by
George Allen, 1894. The whereabouts of this letter was not then known,
but it has since been unearthed from a collection of autographs made by
a connection of the family. Possibly the other missing letters may be in
other collections. The letter is dated from Athlone, June 19, 1767: "My
dear Peggy, By conversing with you, I should be overpaid for coming two
or three hundred miles round about. But how it will be I know not yet.
If a ship be ready for Whitehaven, then I shall arrive at Whitehaven or
Newcastle, otherwise I must sail for Holyhead or Chester. I hope you now
again find the increased witness that you are saved from sin. There is a
danger in being content without it, into which you may easily reason
yourself. You may easily bring yourself to believe there is no need of
it, especially while you are in an easy and peaceful state. But beware
of this. The Witness of Sanctification as well as of Justification, is
ye privilege of God’s Children, and you may have the one always clear as
well as ye other if you walk humbly and closely with God. In what state
do you find your mind now? Full of Faith and Love? Praying always? Then
I hope you always remember my Dear Peggy, Your affectionate Brother, J.
Wesley."
Before Wesley wrote again he had been to Newcastle and had seen Peggy.
The letter is dated from Witney, August 27, and is, as usual, very
affectionate in tone: "I thought it was hardly possible for me to love
you better than I did before I came last to Newcastle. But your artless,
simple, undisguised Affection exceedingly increased mine. At the same
time it increased my Confidence in you so that I feel you are
unspeakably near and dear to me." He adds in a postscript, "Don’t forget
what you have learnt in Music." Possibly Peggy had been showing her
friend her accomplishments. Possibly, too, she had learnt her music from
a certain young man, Edward Avison, afterwards organist of St. Nicholas’
Church, Newcastle. If this were the case, her teacher taught Peggy
something else beside music, for she afterwards married him.
In the next letter we get glimpses of two people famous in the Methodist
world of the day, George Whitefield, and Darcy, Lady Maxwell. Of George
Whitefield it is unnecessary to speak. Lady Maxwell was the daughter of
Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane in Ayrshire, and the widow of Sir Walter
Maxwell, fourth Baronet, of Pollock. Left a childless widow in 1757, she
became a follower of John Wesley, though she did not formally join the
Methodists till many years later. She provided the money for building
the school at Kingswood.
Wesley writes: "I hope Mr. Whitefield was an instrument of good at
Newcasle, and a means of stirring up Some. He is very affectionate and
very lively and his word seldom falls to the ground: tho’ he does not
frequently speak of the deep things of GOD, or the Height of ye
Promises. But you say not one word of Lady Maxwell? Did she call at
Newcastle going and coming? Did you converse with her alone? And did she
break thro’ her Natural and habitual Shyness? How did you find her?
Seeking Heavenly things alone, and all athirst for _God_? It will be a
miracle of miracles if she stands, considering the thousand snares that
surround her. I have much satisfaction when I consider in how different
a situation you and my Dear Molly Dale are. You have every outward
Advantage for Holiness wch an indulgent Providence can give."[24]
The correspondence now begins to slacken. Peggy has accused him of not
answering her last letter; in reply Wesley writes from Liverpool, April
1, 1768. "I do not understand what Letter you mean. I have answer’d (if
I do not forget) every letter which I have receiv’d, and I commonly
answer either of you within a day or two. In this respect, I do not love
to remain in your debt. In others I must always be so, for I can never
pay you the Affection I owe. Accept of what little I have to give.... I
hope to be at Glasgow on Wednesday the 19th instant, at Aberdeen ye
28th, at Edinburgh May 5th, at Newcastle on Friday May 20th."
The next letter dated June 30, 1768, may be described as a very brief
treatise on Sanctification. Then there is a gap of nearly a year, the
next letter being dated May 20, 1769. Peggy has had to endure a great
trial. Her sister Molly married a Mr. John Collinson of London. The
_Newcastle Courant_ of April 29, 1769, thus announces the fact:
"Thursday, was married at St. Andrew’s, Mr. John Collinson of London to
Miss Dale of Northumberland Street, daughter of the late Mr. Dale of
Tunstall, near Sunderland, a most agreeable young lady, endowed with
every qualification to render the marriage state happy, with a fortune
of £2,000." But Peggy felt her sister’s defection much. Wesley was
strongly in favour of the single life both for men and women. He had
published a treatise in favour of celibacy, entitled _Thoughts on a
Single Life_. It is true that he himself afterwards married in the year
1751, but, as his matrimonial experiences were distinctly unfortunate
(he separated from his wife for ever after five years of married life),
he was not unnaturally more than ever firmly convinced of the advantage
of celibacy.[25] Peggy was as yet quite sure that John Wesley was right
in this as in everything else.
He comforts her thus: "The hearing from my Dear Peggy at this critical
time gives me a particular satisfaction. I wanted to know, How you bore
such a trial, a wound in the tenderest part. You have now a first proof
that the God whom you serve, is able to deliver you in every trial. You
feel and yet conquer.... I hope you are delivered not only from
_repining_ with regard to Her, but from _reasoning_ with regard to
yourself. You still see the more excellent way, and are sensible of the
advantages you enjoy. I allow _some_ single women have fewer Advantages
for Eternity than they might have in a married State. But, blessed be
GOD you have all the Advantages wch one can well conceive.... O may you
improve every advantage to the uttermost. And give more and more comfort
to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
There is one more letter from London, November 17, 1769, encouraging
Peggy to persevere in her work for others. Then the letters cease.
Perhaps there were more letters which have been lost, or were perchance
destroyed by the recipient. Wesley, with his zeal for celibacy, can
hardly have liked the news of his Peggy’s engagement to Edward Avison.
He was organist of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle, in succession to his
father, Charles Avison,[26] once a well-known musician in the North of
England. He was three years younger than Peggy. Their married life was
short. They were married March, 1773: Edward Avison died October, 1776,
aged twenty-nine; and Peggy in November, 1777, aged thirty-three. They
left no children. Their monument in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s
Church, Newcastle, says: "They were eminent for piety and primitive
simplicity of manners; having each borne a lingering disease with the
most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced at the approach
of death." Perhaps Wesley visited Newcastle during the last year of his
dear Peggy’s life, and was able to minister spiritual consolation to
her. Let us hope that any breach that Peggy’s marriage may have made
between her and one who loved her with so tender and paternal an
affection was cured by the approach of Death, the great Healer.
Little remains to be said. Mary Collinson lived to 1812, and left a
family of two sons, George Dale and John Collinson, and three daughters,
Ann Collinson, Thermuthis Collinson, and Mary, the wife of Christopher
Godmond. It is not known if any of her descendants are alive to-day; if
there be any such, they may very likely possess the missing letters. Ann
Dale never married, and lived till 1820. Edward, their brother, died in
1826, having seen five of his six sons die before him without issue. His
eldest and only surviving son, also Edward, lived till 1862, and then
died childless. With him died out the senior branch of the family of
Dale of Dalton-le-Dale and Tunstall. Since his death there have been no
Dales of this family residing in the Bishopric. How the letters written
by John Wesley came into the possession of Canon Dale, or Canon Dale’s
father, William Dale, is not known. Possibly Anne Dale gave them to
William Dale, or her brother may have given them to his son. It is
certain that to that son’s careful preservation of them we owe this
intimate revelation of the great revivalist’s affection for a Durham
girl.
THE OLD FAMILIES OF DURHAM
BY HENRY R. LEIGHTON
The evil fate that has attended the old houses in this county has
followed equally relentlessly the families who once dwelled therein.
Here and there, it is true, a family still exists that has weathered the
storms of long centuries; one or two, perhaps, may be pointed out that
have increased their acreage as the long years went by; and perhaps
another two or three whose lands remain with daughters’ heirs.
With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal
days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once
threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in
several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their
native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and
FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names
recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of
the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the
Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and
Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from
Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland.
The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of
Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote:
"The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the
Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend
an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and
which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme
nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar
state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s _Visitation of York_, Mr. Davies wrote:
"Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called
upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees
treated his summonses with neglect."
In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood
can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no
appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of
the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so
well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of
Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton,
Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion,
Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of
Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose
names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these
families had intermarried with families who registered and had written
themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an
interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown
that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to
others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been
altogether a matter of means.
It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the
principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving
the succession to estate in this county.
Durham, being a separate regality, is not included in the Domesday Book,
and our earliest record is the Boldon Book, dated some years later,
being compiled by order of Bishop Pudsey in 1183. Later there is a
survey of the county, made by order of Bishop Hatfield, who ruled from
1345 to 1381. From the time of Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) the succession
may be proved by the inquisitions post-mortem taken upon the death of
every owner. These documents were formerly kept at Durham, but are now,
with many other local records, in London.
With these must be mentioned the Halmote Rolls, commencing in 1349,
containing a record of all holders of the Bishop’s lands and other
records of the cursitors. The Durham Chancery Proceedings, also now in
the Record Office, are full of the most interesting information
respecting local families.
The wills of residents in the Bishopric from the sixteenth century
onwards are of great value. A few also of the parish registers within
the diocese commence towards the end of the same century, but the
majority do not date with any regularity until another hundred years had
passed.
Limited space forbids any lengthy account of the families individually,
and a few passing notices must suffice. Amongst the existing
"indigenous" families, as Surtees calls them, the Lumleys must bear the
palm, not for length of pedigree, but for the long period they have
ranked amongst the greater nobility.
Probably for some generations before, and certainly from, the days of
Uchtred, Lord of Lumley, _temp._ King Stephen, the family has held high
rank. Marmaduke de Lumley, who was in right of his mother one of the
coheirs of the barony of Thweng, made an interesting change in the
family arms. His father had borne a scarlet shield with six silver
popinjays, whilst his mother’s family arms were a golden shield, thereon
a fess gules. Marmaduke dispensed with three of the popinjays, and
placed his mother’s fess between the remaining three, two above it and
one below. His son Sir Ralph, the builder of the castle at Lumley, was
summoned to Parliament as a Baron in the eighth year of Richard II.’s
reign. Yorkist in sympathy, he joined in an unfortunate attempt to
overthrow the fourth Henry in the year that monarch grasped the throne,
and was killed at Cirencester in a skirmish. One of his younger sons,
Marmaduke, was successively Bishop of Carlisle and Lincoln, and Lord
High Treasurer of England. John de Lumley, Sir Ralph’s second but eldest
surviving son, was restored to his father’s estates by King Henry,
became a distinguished leader in the French wars, and was slain on the
field of Baugé in 1421. The successor, his only son Thomas, was summoned
to Parliament in his grandfather’s barony in 1461, the attainder of the
latter being reversed upon petition.
Third in descent from the last-named peer, John, the fifth Baron, took
part in the great victory of Flodden. He lived to see his son and heir,
George Lumley, beheaded for high treason, and attainted, for taking part
in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
George Lumley’s son, John Lumley, was recreated a Peer in 1547, his
father’s attainder being reversed. This John, Lord Lumley, must have
been something of an Oriental in his philosophy. He was strongly imbued
with the spirit of ancestor-worship. It was he who brought two stone
monuments from Durham Abbey under the belief that they were of his
forefathers, and set them up with a long line of effigies representing
every generation of his house from a remote period. The rooms at Lumley
were also hung with a series of portraits of the same individuals by his
direction. About the origin of these the late Mr. Planché advanced an
interesting theory, printed in 1866, in the _Journal of the British
Archæological Association_.
Lord Lumley appears to have impressed his family importance upon William
James, the contemporary Bishop of Durham, whose repetition of the
pedigree so astonished that modern Solomon, King James I., that the
latter evidently thought the Bishop was taking a rise out of him. "By my
saul, I didna ken Adam’s name was Lumley!" said the Sovereign. Doubtless
this was a natural exclamation, for it was the King’s first meeting with
a pedigree drawn up by an Elizabethan Herald. He would meet others as he
travelled farther South!
The estates passed on the death of this peer to a second cousin, Sir
Richard Lumley. Created in 1628 a Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland,
Sir Richard in later years was known as a gallant Royalist, and one of
Prince Rupert’s trusted officers.