Sign In Sign-Up
Welcome!
Close
Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...
Yes, Please make this my home page!
No Thanks
  Don't show this to me again.
Close

    My TREADWELL Family Connections

 

    • Changes in the Spelling of TREADWELL
    • Movement of the Family in Britain
      • Links to Treadwells in America..
      • Links to Treadwells in Australia and New Zealand...
      • Remaining Challenges
    • The Village of Hartley
    • The Family Estate of Fairby
    • The Village of Southfleet, Betsham and Westwood
    • Our Headless Horseman!

      Treadwell is not an especially common name, a fact that has been a great advantage to those of us researching the family history! It sounds quintessentially British, some might even qualify this further and say typically English. In whatever part of the world we find ourselves today, there can be little doubt that those of us connected to the Treadwell line have our roots established somewhere in the mists of time in the British Isles.

      This does at least provide some comfort for those Treadwells who may have been the butt of schoolboy jokes about how they walk! They will be glad to know the history of the name is far worthier! To try and understand the early origins of the family name, and where we came from, I sought advice from ancient language scholars on the Internet.

      "By Tre, Pol and Pen ye shall know Cornishmen!"

      The prefix TRE is often found in place names or family names in Celtic parts of the British Isles. In Cornish and Welsh names Tre means a farm, home or homestead. In Wales, there is an optional spelling, Tref, while Pentref denotes a settlement larger than a village. So, Trederwen means home of the oak; Tregynon is the home of Cynon: Tremadoc is the town of Madoc, and so forth.

      Furthermore, the Celtic adjective well means better (including health), larger or additional. There is also a noun well(t) meaning grass, herbage or dried straw such as that used for thatching roofs (to "gwellt" is to thatch a roof).

      A Celtic language adviser I contacted thought the family name is more likely to be of West Country origin, probably from Cornwall, rather than from Wales.

      The conclusion is that Treadwell may have been a settlement no larger than a village located in southwest England, quite likely in present day Cornwall. Furthermore, the place would have been associated with a healthy environment and good access to grassland that may also have provided a basis for roof thatching. In common with the majority of the population, our family seems to have an agricultural background.

      Back to Top


      Changes in the Spelling of TREADWELL

      Partly due to illiteracy and a greater reliance on verbal communication before the 19th century, the spelling of many family names has changed in official records through time. Pronunciation will have been greatly influenced by dialect and accent. Even records for the same person can be written with different spellings during his or her lifetime.

      A variety of spellings have been seen for Treadwell, including the common form Tredwell as well as Treddle, Threadle, Threadwell and Treedle. Interestingly, almost universally the form Tredwell is replaced with the longer Treadwell after the 17th century. This has occurred not only in our own line of the family in Kent but also Treadwells in other parts of the country.

      Back to Top


      Movement of the Family in Britain

      We settled in Kent by the late 1600s…

      The earliest records that can be established for our line of the Treadwell family show that our ancestors had settled in northwest Kent by the late 1600s.

      Our earliest known ancestor, Richard Tredwell, was buried at Horton Kirby on 3rd March 1684. We have tried to trace the family back further than this, so far without much success. Court rolls and frankpledges from Manorial Records have been looked up as well as Parish Church registers and Archbishop's transcripts (where available). For the Parish of Hartley, which appears to have been home for a particularly large number of our forebears, even Hearth Tax records have been used because the Church registers before 1712 are missing (although registers of baptisms, marriages and burials should have started in 1538 as decreed by Henry VIII, the register for Hartley before 1712 has been lost).

      Curiously, the name Treadwell, however spelt, is hardly mentioned before 1700. This suggests our family may have moved into northwest Kent during the late 1600s or early 1700s from another part of Britain.

      As for our Richard Tredwell, he was just described as a "traveller" in Horton Kirby burial records. This tells us little more than that he came from outside the immediate area; it could even have been a neighbouring Parish! In those days, long before the Welfare State we are used to now, it was not easy to move from one district to another. Those that did usually needed to have some wealth so as not to become a burden on the community they moved to. Knowing this, it is likely that Richard was a man of some financial means and this appears to be confirmed by Horton Kirby court rolls, which mention that he had built a cottage in the Parish by 1682, only a short time before he died. Interestingly, the court rolls for that period are held by Queen's College, Oxford. Horton Kirby has had an Oxford connection since 1377 when a female heiress married Thomas Stonar of Oxfordshire. Through that line the manor of Horton Kirby went to Thomas Wentworth.  In 1558, Anne Rudston held the manor and left it to her son John Mitchell. He, in turn, left it to the College after he died without issue in 1736. Before Kent we may have come from Oxfordshire...

      Before Kent we may have come from Oxfordshire...

      So, where did the family come from before arriving in Kent? A former Rector of Hartley Parish, the Rev. C.G.W. Bancks has written a history of "Hartley Through the Ages" (ca. 1929), in which he comments that:

      "The Treadwells are a Cornish family, but came here from Oxfordshire at the end of the 17th century".

       

      Rev. Charles Gerard Winstanley Bancks

      Rector of All Saints' Church, Hartley 1902-1934

        Certainly, there are frequent occurrences of the name Treadwell in Oxfordshire, especially in and around Swalcliffe and Epwell, north west of Oxford, and south of Stratford in Warwickshire. Records of baptisms, burials and marriages verify this for Oxfordshire and surrounding counties.

      Further evidence for the Oxfordshire hypothesis comes from a study of heraldry carried out for the Treadwell family. It found a Coat-of-Arms purporting to belong to a John Treadwell, formerly Tredwell, of Tredington. Tredington, Warwickshire is only a few miles north of the Oxfordshire parishes Swalcliffe and Epwell.

       

      This "coat armour" is officially without the canon of legal heraldry but it is evidence for a branch of Treadwells in the Oxfordshire area in the 1600s. It also points to the prosperity of at least some of them at a time of great social upheaval in England, including religious persecution. Families sometimes travelled considerable distances to settle in other parts of the country in search of a better life. Some families even left the country in search of a new life overseas, notably America.

      Back to Top

 

    Links to Treadwells in America...

    This was a time of great social upheaval in England, including religious persecution, and sometimes families travelled considerable distances to settle in other parts of the country in search of a better life. It was a time when some families even left the country in search of a new life overseas, notably America.

    Although it cannot yet be proven, it is quite likely that our Treadwell ancestors are directly linked to the Treadwells who emigrated to America from north Oxfordshire in the early 17th century. Their modern day ancestors can claim connections with the actors Orson Welles (his great grandmother was Mary Jane Treadwell born 1827) and Spencer Tracy (he was married to Louisa Ten Broeck Treadwell born 1896). There is even a gold rush town in Alaska called Treadwell named after John Treadwell, the owner of Alaska Juneau Mining Company. John sold his interest in the Treadwell properties in 1889 for a reported \$1,500,000 and returned to California, only subsequently to be bankrupted in 1914 after a failed venture with his brother James in a trust company.

    Back to Top

    Links to Treadwells in Australia and New Zealand...

    As well as America, the Oxfordshire Treadwells emigrated to Australia and New Zealand in the mid-1800s, about 200 years later. This came to light when researching our own line of the family in Kent. Until we are able to confirm a direct link, as far as we know none of our branch of the Treadwell family have settled in America. However, we do have several links to Australia and New Zealand, notably by way of John Treadwell (born in Hartley in 1833) and one of his nephews, John Cooper Treadwell (born in Hartley in 1868).

    John Treadwell arrived in Melbourne in 1852 at the beginning of the State of Victoria's "gold rush" period. Nine of ten children from his marriage to New Zealander Ellen Dean were born in either Maldon or Sandhurst close to the heart of the gold-mining area. Gold was first discovered at Summer Creek in New South Wales in 1851 and by the next year, when John arrived in Australia, further discoveries had led to a gold rush that was centred on Mount Alexander, Ballarat and Sandhurst. Mount Alexander is now known as Castlemaine. Sandhurst was founded on a sheep run in 1840 but changed its name to Bendigo in 1891, to honour a local prize-fighter who compared his own prowess to that of the English pugilist known as Bendigo. Gold mining ceased in Bendigo as recently as 1955.

    In the ten-year period until 1861, Australia exported more than £124 million worth of gold alone (about £5 billion at today's prices) and its population reached 1.2 million, a threefold increase over the 1850 population of 400,000. Immigrants to Australia's eastern colonies came from Britain, America and Canada while from Asia a large number came from China. John Treadwell was one of these early pioneers and he continued to pursue his trade as a blacksmith supporting the gold-mining industry.

    In 1851, just one year before his departure for Australia, John's grandfather Francis died. Francis was yeoman farmer of Fairby Farm in Hartley but on his death it is believed the Will was contested due to the illegitimacy of his son William, John's father. William himself had died in 1849 meaning that Francis' death would have placed his grandchildren, including John, at the centre of legal proceedings over their right to inherit the family estate.

    It seems the outcome of the litigation did not favour John and his siblings. According to the Reverend Bancks, the Treadwells' association with Fairby ended "in the middle of the century" when the estate passed over to a Mr. J.T. Smith of Eltham [for more information on the connection to Mr. J.T. Smith follow this link http://digilander.libero.it/DURHAM_FAMILY/DURHAM-SMITH.htm]. John's older brother William continued farming in Hartley at New House Farm and another brother James farmed several years before moving to Newington, London where he became a "car man". One motivation for John's decision to find a new life in Australia may have been the absence of a clear future in England, due to the loss of the family inheritance.

    Today, many of John's descendants are living in the Melbourne area. However, he was not the first Treadwell to set foot on Australian soil. For example, there is another branch of the Treadwell family, also living around Melbourne, and descendents of a Thomas Treadwell of Dorchester, Oxfordshire. This Thomas sailed to Australia in 1849, 3 years before John, on the vessel "Tasman" together with his wife, Martha Hornblower, and their first 2 children. Despite living in the same part of Australia, our "Kent" branch of the family has until now had no social contact with their namesakes descended from Thomas of Dorchester.

    Apart from the coincidence of John Treadwell's wife coming from Wellington, our family's link to New Zealand is, as mentioned above, through John's nephew John Cooper Treadwell. John Cooper was the youngest son of John's brother William. Here is an extract from the Family Bible kept by John's parents William and Eliza Treadwell which shows he was born at Hartley, together with his other brothers and sisters.

     

    Maybe John Cooper Treadwell was influenced by his uncle's decision to emigrate about 40 years earlier to Australia and possible stories about the fortune to be made in the new "colonies"? Anyway, John arrived in New Zealand in 1890 and he married Catherine Frances Conchie in 1900. Their offspring are living today in and around Auckland in North Island and are even as far afield as the Falkland Islands...

     

    The "Treadwell Tombs", Hartley (and my nephew Tony)

     

    One of the headstones has an inscription in memory of John Cooper Treadwell.

    He died at Otaki, New Zealand, 5th November 1907

    Back to Top

    Remaining Challenges

    The task of linking our Kent line of the Treadwell family to the Oxfordshire Treadwells, both those who emigrated to America and those living today in Australia and New Zealand, is one of the major remaining challenges.

    From our own family origins, we know already that any connection between these various branches of the family must have been before 1700. There are significant difficulties in obtaining data for this period, apart from the fact that the events happened more than 300 years ago!

    It is also a challenge to try to understand better how many individual branches of Treadwell there are in Australia and New Zealand, partly as a means of identifying more accurately those which belong to our own Kent line. For example, I have already identified at least 3 distinct Treadwell branches in Australia, and I am aware of at least 2 Tre(a)dwell branches in New Zealand, none of which have any direct relation to our own family.

    Back to Top


    The Village of Hartley

    Time and time again the village of Hartley features as the birthplace of many of my ancestors. Hartley is at the centre of a wider area of northwest Kent where most of our branch of the family have lived and still live.

    My family were local yeoman farmers and several generations were publicans of the Black Lion public house in the village.

     

    In 1998, an extension was made to the building to create a new restaurant called "Defoe's". The restaurant was named after Daniel Defoe, the author of the well known book "Robinson Crusoe", who is believed to have lived in a small cottage in part of the building which is today the "Black Lion".

    During the construction works, a bottle was found in the walls of the old building which was placed there in the mid-1800s by Henry Cooper, the son of William Cooper and Amelia Treadwell. The bottle contained a note written on 23 May 1861 which provides an insight into life in Hartley at that time.....

    "This building was erected by Henry son of Wm and Amelia Cooper of the White House, Fawkham in the 27th year of his age in the year of our Lord 1861. He laid every stone himself and never learnt the trade. He mixt his own mortar and done all that was required to the building. The premises belonged to Charles and William Fleet at Dartford and was in the occupation (sic) of Rhoda Treadwell Aunt to H Cooper. H Cooper collected the flints from all parts. Some from the Church which was then under repair. Some from the bottom of the railroad (then under construction). Some from the ruins of the old chapel in Chapel Wood. The farms in the parish was then occupied by the following persons Hartley Wood (now called Hartley Manor) by Wm Benstead, Hartley Court by Wm Allen, New House (demolished and the site now part of New Ash Green) by Wm Treadwell, Fairby by James Thomas Smith Deptford, Middle Farm (now occupied by Alan McCann, the finder of this document) by George Best, the Revd Edward Allen Rector Wm Witton Allen Curate at the Rectory House (near the station and demolished). This will give some idea of how things was breaking in 1861. Victoria Queen and Albert".

    Henry later became publican of the Black Lion Inn at Hartley and was recorded as such in the 1871 Census. He took over from his aunt Rhoda Treadwell and, before her, his grandfather William Treadwell.

    The Rev. C.G.W. Bancks, author of "Hartley Through the Ages", referred to the origins of the name Hartley in the Parish Magazine (October 1924). It seems, in olden days, Hartley was known by many different forms of spelling: Heortlea, Heorut-lea, Herets-ley, Herteleigh, Hertlegh, Herdei, Erclei, Haesel-holt, and finally Harteleye and Hartley. The first part of the word may be derived from the Saxon Heorot. Leah or lea meant pasture land. So, Heortlea might mean the lea or meadow of the hart (a small deer).

    But there is another possible derivation. The Danes and the Wends have left many traces of their occupancy in the place names of northwest Kent, for example, Sweynscamp (Swanscombe), Herotfelda (Harvel), and Stanihtan-dyrst (Stansted). Heorotha was a Wendish female deity, so Heortlea may have indicated a verdant clearing in the forest sacred to this goddess.

    Domesday Book Entry for ‘Erclei’ 1086

    Hartley is recorded in the Domesday Book as Erclei, which was the Norman version of the Saxon Heortley.

    Back to Top


    The Family Estate of Fairby

    The village of Hartley has certainly featured prominently in our family's history since at least the early 1700s. However, within Hartley Parish, the estate of Fairby has also played a major role and may be regarded as the family's spiritual or even metaphysical home if local folklore is to be believed! Fairby takes its name from "John Feerby of Hertle" whose family Fer(e)by lived at Speldhurst in the 14th Century but eventually moved to St. Paul's Cray near Orpington.

    Fairby House as it looks today. It is now called Fairby Grange, an old-people's home. In former times the servants used to live upstairs in this house, not downstairs! There are large rooms with inglenook fireplaces at the front downstairs. John Treadwell who emigrated to Australia in 1852 was born in a room in the attic in 1833.....

    Back to Top


    The Village of Southfleet, Westwood and Betsham

    Just a few miles north of Hartley in the direction of Gravesend lies the village of Southfleet and its smaller communities Betsham and Westwood. Many of my ancestors have lived in these settlements. Several of them were farmers and one of them, William Treadwell, was publican of the Harrow at Betsham. William was landlord of the "pub" in the 19th Century and here is a liquor licence granted by the local magistrates in 1824.

    The "Harrow" was renamed "The Colyer Arms" after World War I in honour of the son of the locally influential Colyer-Ferguson family who was killed during the War.

    My grandmother, Jessie Treadwell (née Appleby) was an accomplished pianist and used to provide the musical accompaniment for large family gatherings at the home of my great-grandparents George "Tubby" Treadwell and Fanny Mary Treadwell (née Hills). The old thatched cottage in which they lived for many years is still there and looks very much the same today as it did in this old photograph. Just a short distance away from Westwood there is an old railway line that once used to carry Queen Victoria to the Isle of Grain where she would board a ship to the Continent to visit her German "cousins". That same railway line, which was closed in the 1960s as part of the "Beaching cuts", is now being upgraded and redeveloped imaginatively as part of the link to the high-speed railway line between London, Paris and Brussels.

     

    My grandparents cottage is on the right of the photograph and has a well in the front garden. Part of the cottage also functioned as a small shop so that local people would not always need to travel to Longfield or Gravesend. In the centre background is a larger thatched building which is now the Wheatsheaf public house.

    Back to Top


    Our Headless Horseman!

    According to an article in a local newspaper from 1974, it appears we have a headless horseman in the family: -

     

    A LIGHT-HEARTED LOOK AT HARTLEY

     

    Just how do you identify a headless horseman?

     

    HAVE YOU ever wondered how a headless horseman sees where he is going?

     

    Come to that, how can anyone identify such a faceless phantom?

     

    If questions like those keep you awake at night, you can always pop over to the village of Hartley and ask for they have a headless horseman all their own.

     

    Perhaps I should say "had". For as far as I can tell, he has not been seen for a while and is distinctly camera-shy. Despite these problems, local people seem to be in no doubt as to whom he is.

     

    The rider who has no trouble with collar-sizes is said to be none other than Richard Treadwell, a well-known late 18th-century resident, who still has relatives in the area.

     

    Quite why he rides around his old house, "Fairby", is less clear. Ghosts generally seem to revisit a place if they have lost something there, or so they say. Very often the something that they lost was their life.

     

    Not so in this case, though the house of Fairby was one of considerable importance to Treadwell. His family had lived in Hartley as yeoman farmers for hundreds of years.

     

    Fairby, effectively the great house of the village, was probably originally built by a family of landowners called Feerby or Ferby back in the 15th century. But in Richard Treadwell's time it was in the hands of another wealthy family, the Youngs, who had rebuilt it in 1612.

     

    It was to be Richard Treadwells's destiny to inherit the house, for he married the last heir of the Young family, Mary, in 1743.

     

    The couple met in dramatic circumstances. Early in the 18th century the House was burgled. The raiders gagged and bound the master and his wife but little Mary Young, then only five, slipped out and summoned the Treadwells to help. The thieves were driven off and the Youngs freed unhurt.

     

    So far so good. It reads like one of those half-hour historical series that the BBC tends to screen at about 4.30 on Sunday afternoon. Richard married Mary and inherited the house, catapulting himself several rungs up the social scale in the process.

     

    Unfortunately, the thieves in their flight found they could not carry off the family plate and perhaps intending to return for it, they threw it down the 300-foot well which is under the present kitchen.

     

    Treadwell's repeated efforts to retrieve the treasure all met with failure, and as far as anyone knows, the gold and silver plate is still there.

     

    Part of the silver still exists and has been passed down the generations to relatives in New Zealand

    This silver spoon has Richard Treadwell's monogram on it

     

    So maybe this is what the headless Richard has returned for though how he came to lose his head must remain a mystery. His body (as far as we know intact) lies beside his wife under the aisle of Hartley Parish Church.

    Back to Top

     

    Home Page