The Path to London part 2

THE FAMILY STORY OF SYDNEY BELLAS

The Story of Thomas Bellas and Isabella Smith

Thomas Bellas was the ninth of the ten children of Mark Bellas and Sarah Hudson, and he was christened at Crosby Ravensworth Church on 23 September 1804.

On 23 May 1831, he married Isabella Smith at Crosby Ravensworth church. Isabella, sometimes later called Elizabeth in the baptism records for her children, seems to have been the daughter of John Smith and Isabella Strong, christened at Appleby St Lawrence as Elizabeth on 7 May 1815. In later census returns, she gives her place of birth as Burrells, Appleby. Her mother, Isabella, lived with them in later years, and in the census for 1851, she is described as formerly a farmer’s wife, aged 77, and born in Morland parish. She was probably Isabella, daughter of George Strong and Ann Dodd, christened at Crosby Ravensworth on 27 February 1775.

When Thomas and Isabella’s first child, John , is christened on 9 October 1831, Thomas is described as a labourer, living at Drybeck. When Mark, my great grandfather is christened on 18 June 1834, Thomas is still a labourer but living at Reagill where the couple remained for the rest of their lives.

At the baptism of the subsequent children, Mary in 1837, Sarah in 1840, Isabella in 1843, Thomas in 1845, Jane and Joseph, presumably twins, in 1849 and Benjamin in 1852, Thomas is described as a carrier.

And it appears that this was his occupation for most of the remainder of his life. Possibly this was a more secure and more remunerative occupation than agricultural work.The Report to the Poor Law Commission in 1834 records that in the parish of Crosby Ravensworth, there was unemployment in the winter and the weekly agricultural wage was 12s a week in summer and 7s6d a week in winter, or an average of about $20 a year – not a large wage to support a family.

Reagill is a quiet and attractive little hamlet about two miles from Crosby Ravensworth. According to the Land Tax assessment of 1832, Thomas Bellas was occupying a house and land belonging to Thomas Bland, a local landowner, whose residence was at Wyebourne just outside Crosby Ravensworth. On the 1842 Title Map, Thomas Bellas was owner of occupier of a homestead and garden (no 26 in the Reagill schedule), but it is not named. The position of this property on the 1842 Tithe Map was along the path to the left on the approach to the hamlet from the direction of Wyebourne and High Green.

In the 1841 census, Thomas Bellas is found living in Reagill with his wife and four eldest children, and his occupation is described as carrier. In 1851, his occupation is now carrier and butter dealer. This was apparently a well known combination, As well as taking passenger and goods the Penrith and Kendal (Penrith on Tuesdays and Kendal on Saturdays. According to the Post Office Directory on 1858), he would collect butter from the farms and sell it in Kendal and Penrith to other dealers who would take it further afield.

By 1851, Thomas and Isabella’s family is complete, apart from Benjamin who was born in 1852, and th4 children are growing up. John, the eldest son, is living at home. Aged 19. But employed as a stonemason. Mark has left home and we find him in another entry working as an agricultural labourer for the Bland family, Mary aged 13, lives at home but works as a housemaid, and Sarah, Isabella and Thomas are scholars, possibly at Reagill Free Grammar School. Isabella’s mother, Isabella Smith, age 77, lives with them.

By the time of the 1861 census, Thomas , who is now 56, describes himself as a carrier and a farmer, and at the time of the marriage of his son Mark in London in 1858, he is described as a farmer. In 1861, only the four youngest children are still living at home. Isabella, age 18, is described only as a daughter, with no particular occupation, and Joseph, Benjamin and Jane are scholars. We know sadly from the burial records that their son Thomas had died the previous November, Jane, on the twins, died in 1874 at the age of 24. It would also seem likely that the mother in law, Isabella Smith, had died between 1861 and 1871.

In 1871, Thomas, who is now 67, describes himself as a farmer of 80 acres, with no mention of being a carrier, In that rugged part of the world near Shap Fell, he was probably mainly engaged in sheep farming. His wife Isabella, is described as a farmer’s wife, Benjamin as a farmer’s son and Jane as a farmer’s daughter.

In the year 1881, when Thomas is 76 and Isabella 71, he is described and a landowner of 20 acres and a farmer of 50 acres, and his grandaughter, Isabella Thwaytes, age 22, daughter of his daughter Mary and her husband John Thwaytes, lives with them as a domestic servant.

Similarly in Slater’s Directory for 1884, Thomas Bellas of Reagill had been listed as a farmer. We do not know whether his carrying days were over. It certainly must have been a hard life, plying his cart backwards and forwards to Penrith and Kendal, coping with uncertain and inclement weather for much of the year as he climbed over Shap Fell. Nevertheless he must have been a man of very strong constitution, living until 1888, when he died at the age of 84 on Friday 12 October, according to an obituary notice in The Westmorland Gazette of 20 October 1888. Isabella had died in 1882, and they were both buried at Crosby Ravensworth.

When Thomas died, he left a will, leaving all his real and personal property to his eldest son, John, who was appointed executor, and leaving seventy pounds to all his other surviving children, Mark Bellas, Joseph Bellas, Benjamin Bellas, Mary Thwaytes, Sarah Ashby and Isabella Bellas. In the administration of the Will, undertaken by his son, John, a lathrender of 23 Baring Street, South Shields, with the assistance of Charles Henry Allan, solicitor of Penrith, Thomas is again described as a carrier.

Unfortunately the gross estate totalled £110, so the amount distributed to each child would have been rather less than £70 which he had hoped, but it still represented a substantial sum for the younger child of a weaver, who had started life as a labourer and spent most of his life as a carrier and responsible for bringing up a large family.

What do we know of the children of Thomas and Isabella? We know from the details of Thomas’s will that John the eldest son had moved from Westmorland, probably because of the shortage of employment, to South Shields in County Durham, In 1888, he was living at 23, Baring Street, South Shields and was employed as a lath render. Mary married John Thwaytes at Crosby Ravensworth in 1858 and had at least one daughter, Isabella, who was living in the household of her brother Mark, in London at the time of the 1861 census, and appears to have married subsequently and became Sarah Ashby by the time of her father’s death. Isabella was unmarried and living with her parents in 1881 and was apparently still unmarried when her father died in 1888. Joseph married Augusta Atkinson at Shap, the next parish to Crosby Ravensworth, in 1869. They had a large family – Thomas, baptised in 1870, Isabella 1873, William 1875, Sarah 1878, Joseph 1881, Mary Anne 1884, and Benjamin 1887. Joseph is mentioned in the newspaper articles concerning the money in Chancery, which will be described in the next section. I believe that Joseph and his family remained in the Shap area and I understand from Douglas Bellas that some of his descendants are still there today. I do not know anything about Benjamin the youngest son of Thomas and Isabella. The story of their second son, Mark, my great great grandfather, who married Sarah Cole, will be told later.

My mother always knew that her grandfather, Mark Bellas, had come to London from Westmorland as a young man. She did not know the exact part of Westmorland but thought that it was near Shap Fell, as her Aunt Flo had remembered going up there on holiday as a child and being "carried up Shap Fell".

My mother always maintained that the family were yeoman farmers and she often told the story of money in Chancery which could not be obtained because one certificate was missing.

I was fascinated to discover that there was a basis for this story in terms of a claim put forward by as number of members of the Bellas family in Westmorland during the 1890’s. At this stage my great grandfather, Mark Bellas, had been in London for about forty years, and his parents, Thomas and Isabella were dead, but presumably he still had connections with the family in Westmorland and heard reports of the proceedings. A local newspaper 13 July 1895 carried a report of a meeting at the King’s arms Assembly Rooms, Kirby Stephen.

Among those listed as attending the meeting was Joseph Bellas of Shap, almost certainly the brother of Mark Bellas, and therefore an obvious source of information.

The newspaper reports are difficult to follow and one wonders if there was confusion between the descendants of the Bellasis family of Newburgh, particularly the Thomas Bellasis who married Oliver Cromwell’s daughter and the descendants of Stephen Bellas of Brampton. In one newspaper a Mr Lancaster says "he would like to know whether it was Thomas Bellasyse of a long distance back or George Bellas of 1786 from whom the money was to be received."

Mr Lancaster stated that

He goes on to mention another line:

Thomas Bellas, Brampton, married Julian, executor to her husband in 1719, will proved in 1719 at Carlisle, entered in the College of Arms will dated April 12 1727, eldest son, John Bellas, Stephen Bellas, St Olave’s parish, born at Brampton, married Catherine, daughter of George Chapman, Westminster.

The newspaper cutting stops here.

Mrs Ada Wareing sent me a family tree from the Sherwood collection, dated 12 September 1888. Showing the George Bellas mentioned above who was Procurator General of the Arches Court of Canterbury as the son of Stephen Bellas of Brampton and Catherine Chapman. I do not know how this pedigree was built up. Stephen definitely did go to London. The will of James Bellas of Brampton I 1719 included the bequest,

When Julian, his widow makes her will in 1727, she gives to "Catherine Bellas of London widow", her daughter in law, one shilling.

There seems to be some confusion about whose money they were chasing, possibly that of the George Bellas who died in 1855, or of his father George Bellas who died in 1784. The newspaper of 13 July 1895 states.

"The history of this matter is probably one of the most curious on record. There can be no doubt that since the very earliest years of the present century, efforts, sometimes individual and sometimes collective have been made to obtain certain alleged large sums of money, which it was stated had been left by a Westmorland man names Bellas who had gone to London and amassed a fortune there. No less than 52 years ago, a meeting was held at the White Lion Inn, Kirby Stephen on the subject, but at that distance of time little can be ascertained as to the result… The last effort of the kind was made about eight years ago, when meetings were held in Penrith and Appleby in the endeavour to elucidate the mystery, but unfortunately without any satisfactory result. But nothing daunted by these repeated failures, a number of the Preston relatives have been pegging away for the last eighteen months at the tracing of relatives and wills with considerable success."

Despite all this effort and excitement, the matter had to be abandoned. The final newspaper cutting finishes as follows:

In the Sherwood Collection family tree of 1888, the final George Bellas who died at Naples in 1855 is referred to as George Bellas-Greenugh, as his father, George Bellas, had married Sarah Greenugh in 1776. Perhaps he is the George Bellas "Goodenough" mentioned above.

I am very grateful to have received most of the above information from Mrs Mabel Bamford and Mrs Ada Wareing, whose grandfathers were both involved in the proceedings.

The Early life of Mark Bellas

Mark Bellas was the second son of Thomas Bellas, carrier and later farmer, and his wife, Isabella, and was born in the small hamlet of Reagill near Shap in Westmorland. He was christened on 18 June 1834 at the church of Crosby Ravensworth, the little town in the valley below Reagill, and the centre of an extended parish.

In the 1841 census, Mark, at the time the second of four children – which would increase to nine – is found, age 7, living with his parents in Reagill. No occupation is mentioned, but it is possible that he attended Reagill Grammar School, which was situated in the little hamlet. A tablet in memory of William Wilkinson, who was master there for 35 years is to be found in Crosby Ravensworth church.

By 1851, Mark is still living in Reagill. He is described as a servant and agricultural labourer, living with the Bland family, and from the Land Tax Assessment of 1832, it appears that Thomas Bellas rented a house and land from Thomas Bland at that time. The home of the Bland family was at Wyebourne, just outside Reagill, so it is possible that Mark was living there.