Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    H/DE
  • Title
    Delme Radcliffe family of Holwell
  • Admin/biog history
    The Family The first Radcliffe of this family to settle in Hertfordshire was Ralph, Schoolmaster and playwright ( ? 1519 - 1559). According to a monument in Hitchin church 'in the Reign of Henry VIII he came out of Lancashire where his ancestors were antiently seated, one of whom was Richard Radcliffe of Radcliffe Tower who lived there in the reign of Edward III, having three sons... From the youngest, Sir John Radcliffe of Wordsall , this Ralph Radcliffe, who was the son of a younger brother'. His father was Thomas Radcliffe of Ordsall, Lancs., and Ralph was one of the younger sons. Ralph Radcliffe may have been an undergraduate at Brazenose College, Oxford, ( Wood: Athenae Oxoniensis) , but he was certainly at Cambridge in 1532 when he recevied a grant of 40s. from Henry VIII. He graduated B.A. in 1536/7 and M.A. 1539. Hitchin Priory, which had belonged to the Carmelites, to a survey taken in 1546 it was in a ruinous condition, except for the mansion house where Radcliffe had set up a school. It was no ordinary school. Radcliffe was a friend of Roger Ascham and approved of this educational theories; he wrote educational treatises himself and also set up a theatre in the school where the boys performed 'mortality' plays written by himself. The subjects were mostly Biblical, and also served as a vehicle for Protestant reform propaganda. The theatre drew audiences from London and Cambridge, and Wood says that 'his school was in great renown, he grew rich, and was had in much veneration by the neighbourhood'. By 1553 he was wealthy enough to by the Hitchin Priory estate from the grantees, and this property became the seat of the Radcliffe family. His son, Ralph, who had Ascham as a tutor while the great man was living at hatfield, inherited the greater part of the property and greatly increased his estate by is legal practice. He was a Counsellor at Law, brother of the Inner Temple and double reader of that society. He speculated in buying land & among other ventures leased the Scilly Islands at a rent of 600 puffins a year. On a journey to Antwerp he is said to have bought Ruben's 'Adoration of the Magi' which John Radcliffe presented to Trinity College, Cambridge in the 18th century. His brother Jernemy was vice-master of Trinity and one of the translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible. The other brother, Edwards, studied at Orleans and became physician to James I, being Knighted in 1604. All Ralph Radcliffe's children died during his lifetime, so he adopted as his heir Edward, son of Sir Edward Radcliffe. This Edward Radcliffe bought the first Bedfordshire property which appears in this condition of deeds - a capital messuage and farm at Wilstead - from John Manley who had been confirmed in possession of this farm and others, together with the manors of West Cotton and Wilstead, after the daughters of Henry, Lord Mordaunt had compounded for their estate in 1649. Edward Radcliffe is said to have been a Royalist, his wife a Puritan, who was estemed in her lifetime as 'a virtuous and religious woman, a wise and indulgent wife, courteous and obliging to her neighbours, knowing and skilfull in surgery, always ready to help the lame and ingent, and... kept her family in great order'. (Chauncey). Edward Radcliffe was succeeded by his nephew Ralph, sonof his brother Ralph. He had helped Charles II with money during his exile , for which he was Knighted 18 February, 1667. He laid the foundations for the future prosperity of the family by a series of shrewd marriages, and by becoming a merchant adventurer trading to the Hague and the Levant. In the 18th century the deeds in this collection show that all the younger sons of the Radcliffe family were Levant merchants. His marriage settlement with his second wife is in the collection ( H/DE 389), and from two other documents, [H/DE 31, 459] it appears that he left a fortune of £26,400 invested in Stocks and shares with instructions to invest the proceeds in the purchase of real estate. A Lord Lieutenant and J.P., he ruled the parish and his household with a rod of iron, and was responsible for persecuting the Quakers in the neighbourhood. He was succeeded by his son Edward ( 1658 - 1727 ) who married Penelope, the daughter and coheir of Arther Shirley, Esq., Ifield, Sussex; it was presumably through this marriage that the family acquired the Susex properties which were sold in 1782 (H/DE 287). His will is mentioned in H/DE 393. His son Ralph who died in 1739, was a merchant in partnership with his younger brother Edwards. [H/DE 47. His will is mentioned in H/DE 44, 287, 472. He was succeeded by brother Edward, Aleppo merchant. ( 1687-1764). One of his ventures included the shipping home of animals for zoo in the Priory park. [ will-see H/DE 287]. His brother George, also a merchant, and a wit and composer of light verse, become insane and died in 1741. An ther brother, John, also a Turkey merchant (H/DE 31] , died on 1742. Edward was therefore suceeded by his brother Arther, a merchant trading to the Levent [H/DE 31], who is said by Sir William Musgrave to have left a fortune of £150,000 to his nephew John. The marriage settlement of Arthur and Mary Lovibond is among the document in the collection. [H/DE 396. will mentioned H/DE 287] John (1738 - 1783) was M.P. for St. Albans from 1768 to his death. The 1768 election is said to have cost him £9,000, so the fortune he inherited in 1767 was timely. He also undertook the restoration of the Priory under the supervision of the Adam brothers, a venture which cost him £30,000. Finaly he could not afford to live in the Priory, but occupied the Radcliffe dower house at Highdown. He married Lady Frances Howard, but there were no children, so he proved to be the last male heir of the Radcliffes. The inheritance then passed to Sir Charles Farnaby Radcliffe, Bt. and at length to Emilius Henry Delme Radcliffe. ( see pedigree). Charles Clarke would have succeeded to the estates but he was killed as the result of a fall when the scaffolding on which he was seated to the watch the celebration of the Peace of Amiens in Paris, collapsed. Napoleon sent his own surgeon to attend him. The Delme family were descended from Philip, (d. 1653) who was for many years the pastor of the Walloon church at Canterbury. Banking soon became the family business, and Peter, grandson of Philip, was alderman and sheriff of London, Lord Mayor in 1723, and a director of the bank of England. His grand-son, Peter, married the famous beauty, Lady Elizabeth Howard whose portrait was painted by Reynolds, and was himself a celebrated gentlemen and sportsman. He Kept a pack of hounds on each of his three estates, and was considered to be the leading 'whip' of the country. He taught the Prince of Wales to handle a team of horses and every year drove a tandem to Castle Howard. Emilius, who assumed the additional surname of Radcliffe, was the boon companion of the Regent, Gentlemen of the stud to George IV and William IV, Kept his own racing establisment and enjoyed a great reputation as a gentleman jockey. On his death he left a stable of 95 horses. He was succeeded by by Federick Peter Delme Radcliffe, Also a famous gentlemen jockey and sortsman, and the last of the family whose name appears in the documents of the collection, He was the author of 'The Noble Science', and a Keen huntsman . For several years he hunted with the Oakley, then with own pack, and in 1834-9 was Master of the Herts. Hounds. He was a model squire, encouraging all forms of sport in the neigbourhood, and took a keen intrest in the affairs of the country. In his old age he took up yachting and remained a sportsman to the end. [ Scurces: D.N.B., V.C.H., (Herts), Wood 'Athenae Oxonienis', Cooper 'Athenae Canathb.' Dugdale 'Monasticon', Hine, 'History of Hitchin' and 'Hitchin Worthies', Chauncey ' The Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire', Clutterbuck, 'History of Herts.'] The Radcliffe estates in Bedfordshire Until the death of Edward Radcliffe in 1727, the properties of the family in this country consisted of the Wilstead farm purchased by Edward Radcliffe in 1651, and the advowson of the Rectory of Holwell acquired by Sir Ralph Radcliffe in 1673. The family also owned the manor of Littlington, Cambridgeshire. [W/DE 393]. The proceeds of the stocks and shares devised by Sir Ralph Radcliffe were used to purchase Brogborough and Beckerings Parks from the Ashburnhams, a capital messuage in Ridgmont, the tithes of Brogborough and Peckerings parks, and property in Pirton and Ickleford. The Bedfordshire property together with the Hertfordshire estates became the principal Radcliffe estate. In 1782 John Radcliffe sold the Sussex property, and the manors in Kent which came to the family through the marriage of Sir Edward Radcliffe and Martha Wilcocks, giving as his reason their remoteness from his main estates, [H/DE 287] though the expense of his building operations may also have been a reason. John Radcliffe added to the Bedfordshire estates, spending over £7,000 in the purchase of the manor of Holwell and other farms in Holwell and Shillington. The deedsrelating to the manor of Holwell make the history of that property in the 18th century clearer than the a count given in the Beds. V.C.H. only minor properties, also in Holwell and Shillington, were added by the Delme Radcliffes, the most important being Norfalks farm. The general picture given by the deeds is that of a merchant family investing its wealth to build up the estate in the neighbourhood of Hitchin Priory, the family seat. John, the polititian, broke with the trading tradition but continued the same policy of consolidating the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire estates which were inherited by the Delme Radcliffes, sportsmen and country gentlemen.
  • Hertfordshire Record Office, accession numbers 1952, 1959
  • Scope and Content
    Documents relating to the Bedfordshire Estates of the Delme Radcliffe family, deposited by Hertfordshire Records Office.
  • Reference
  • Level of description
    fonds
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