Notes for: Thomas Wycliffe
This family originally comes from An History of Richmondshire, in the North Riding of the County of York; together with those parts of the Everwicschire of Domesday which form The Wapentakes of Lonsdale, Ewecross, and Amunderness, in the Counties of York, Lancaster, and Westmoreland, by Thomas Dunham WHITAKER. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees (and others), 1823. 2 volumes. Here is the info given there on this family:
Thomas Wycliffe, of Richmond, Esquire, eldest surviving son and heir, baptized at St. Andrew's, Holborn, London 19 December 1756, living ____, 1816.
The day "19" is hard to read as well as the year 1816. They could be something else.
This Thomas was supposedly the last-surviving male heir of the Wycliffes who were Lords of Wycliffe.
My guess is that this Thomas Wycliffe is the one mentioned below in reference to Gayles. This comes from: "Parishes: Kirkby Ravensworth," A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1 (1914), pp. 87-97. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=64721&strquery=Wycliffe.
GAYLES (Dalton Travers, xiii-xvi cent.; les Gayles, xv cent.; Dalton-in-le-Gales, xvi cent.; Dalton Travers alias Dalton Gayles, xvi-xix cent.; Dalton Travers alias Gailes, 1563).-The Askes were mesne lords of this manor under the Earl of Richmond from or before 1262 (fn. 120) ; and under the Askes the family of Travers was enfeoffed.
Alan of Britanny, lord of Richmond, who died in 1146, (fn. 121) granted the waste land of the wood of Gilling to 'Warin Travers the old,' otherwise called 'Warin Archarius,' son of Hervey. (fn. 122) In 1186 Warin Travers, presumably a successor, granted this land to St. Agatha's Abbey. (fn. 123) Perhaps he is the Warin, son of Peter de Dalton and nephew of Conan de Aske, (fn. 124) who granted 13½ acres of his demesne in Dalton to St. Agatha's Abbey. (fn. 125) His son Robert confirmed in 1246 to John le Franceys a grant made by Warin to Robert le Franceys, father of John. (fn. 126) He was alive in 1250-2, (fn. 127) but died soon afterwards, leaving by his wife Beatrice three sons-Warin, who died childless, Gilbert, who became a monk in his eldest brother's lifetime, and Robert, who succeeded Warin, and before 1262 had sold his tenements in Dalton to Roger de Aske and Robert de Wycliffe. (fn. 128) The lastnamed Robert Travers confirmed the grants of his father Robert and grandfather Warin to the nuns of Marrick in Dalton. (fn. 129)
Roger de Aske granted these tenements before 1262 to Wischard de Charron son of Wischard, (fn. 130) to whom also the Abbot of St. Agatha's Abbey granted whatever the abbey held here. (fn. 131) In 1280 Wischard de Charron granted the manor to Wischard his son, who held half Dalton Travers in demesne in 1286-7. (fn. 132) Wischard was one of the knights of the shire for the county of Northumberland in 1310 and lord of several manors there. He left a daughter and sole heir Joan wife of Bertram Monboucher. (fn. 133) In 1319 Bertram and Joan entailed their manor of Dalton among other possessions (fn. 134) ; their son and heir Reynold was aged seventeen in 1332, (fn. 135) in which year Lady Alice de Charron paid 3s. subsidy in Dalton (fn. 136) and may have been holding the manor. Reynold son of Bertram and Joan left a son Bertram, who appears in Fuller's 'List of Northumberland Worthies,' and died in 1388 seised of the manor of Dalton. (fn. 137) Bertram his son and heir was followed by a son and grandson of the same name, and on failure of heirs the lands passed to Isabel sister of Bertram the grandfather. (fn. 138) She married first Sir Henry Hetton, kt., by whom she had a son William, who died without issue, and several daughters; her second husband was Sir Robert Harbottle, Sheriff of Northumberland in 1406, (fn. 139) who died in 1419-20, leaving a son Robert by her, (fn. 140) sheriff of the same county in 1439. Bertram son of Robert had issue Ralph and died in 1462. (fn. 141) In 1507 Margaret widow of Ralph, who was knighted in 1482, (fn. 142) claimed one-third of the manor as dower against Wischard his son, (fn. 143) but Wischard denied her claim, as Sir Ralph no longer held the manor when he married her. (fn. 144) Wischard died seised in 1512, leaving an infant son George, (fn. 145) who died seised in 1528. (fn. 146) His estates were partitioned in 1534 between his sisters and heirs, Eleanor wife of Thomas Percy and Mary wife of Edward Fitton, Mary receiving the manor of Dalton Travers. (fn. 147) Mary died a widow in 1556. She was succeeded by her son and heir Sir Edward Fitton, (fn. 148) who the following year sold tenements in Dalton Travers to George Bowes. (fn. 149) These were presumably the manor. Richard Bowes and Elizabeth his wife, the heiress of the Askes, (fn. 150) had made a conveyance of the 'manor' in 1534, (fn. 151) but as this was the year of the partition of the Harbottle lands it may have been a quit-claim. In 1563-4 George Bowes and Jane his wife conveyed the manor to William Wycliffe, John Saire and Richard Gascoigne. (fn. 152) In 1576 Sir George Bowes, kt., sold the same manor to William Wycliffe and Robert Smelt and the heirs of William. (fn. 153) Thomas Wycliffe was in possession in 1779 and living here in 1792. (fn. 154) In 1796 John Wharton was among the parties to a conveyance of the manor to Thomas Wycliffe. (fn. 155) In 1815 Sir Charles Blois, bart., and Clara his wife and Lucy Willey, widow, conveyed a moiety of the manor to Hugh Duke of Northumberland, (fn. 156) and Gayles is now the property of his descendant the Duke of Northumberland (fn. 157) and of the Rev. John Shaw of New South Wales.
In 1174-5 a Benedict de Dalton, who must have had some territorial connexion with one or all of these Daltons, paid 10 marks to the king, who was then holding the honour of Earl Conan, for permission to recede from a lawsuit against his nephews. (fn. 158)
From the information above, it looks like the Wycliffes in the end had just the manor of Thorpe/Gayles and maybe just Gayles. That is a small parish outside Kirkby Ravensworth. All the other manors where the Wycliffes were once lords had passed on to other families. This Thomas's sister was a Methodist, it seems. Maybe this branch of the normally Catholic Wycliffes had become Protestant.
Marshall Plantagenet's The History of Yorkshire: Wapentake of Gilling West, in the genealogy of the Wycliffes at Gayles (p. 157), says this:
Thomas Wycliffe, Esq., of Richmond, co. York; baptized at St. Andrew's, Holborn, London, 18th December, 1756, and was buried in the chancel of Kirkby Ravensworth church, 1821.
I downloaded a purchased copy of his will, but it is very difficult to read. I don't think there is anything very important in it genealogically speaking. It does seem to mention his three sisters: Lucy Barker, Catherine Wade, and Elizabeth Sawyer. Otherwise, I can't get much detail out of it. It was written August 24, 1815 and proved at London (I think) on February 22, 1822. I think Thomas Stapleton was the administrator.
There may be more on this Thomas Wycliffe in Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, ed. White, vol. ii, p. 357.
One source says he was 65 when he died. That might just be a rounded-up number, though. No proof was given (The New Montly, v. 6, 1822, p. 48).