Patrick Comerford
With my return visits to Rugeley, Brereton, Stafford, Wolseley, Lichfield, Tamworth and other parts of Staffordshire, I have written about the Chetwynd family, the supposed murder by Dorothy Chetwynd of Sir Walter Smyth, the elderly husband who was three times her age, and the complete lack of historical evidence or primary sources for the stories in local lore of that murder or of Dorothy’s alleged execution by being burned at the stake.
But the stories of the Chetwynd family led me to further genealogical and historical research into other family stories, and I came across stories of how one branch of the Chetwynd family in Rugeley were in direct descent from the Comberford family of Comberford Hall and the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Lichfield.
This branch of the Chetwynd family included another Dorothy Chetwynd who was a nun in Bruges, a 17th century; a 17th century MP for Stafford; and an 18th century MP for Lichfield who ran up heavy debts and whose funeral was delayed for weeks by his creditors.
The Rugeley branch of the family was founded by Dorothy Smyth’s nephew, Thomas Chetwynd (1561-1633), whose wealth came chiefly from the iron industry. His brother, the Very Revd Edward Chetwynd (1577-1639), was the Dean of Bristol (1617-1639) and chaplain to Queen Anne of Denmark, while a sister, yet another Dorothy Chetwynd, a nun in Bruges.
This Thomas Chetwynd married Dorothy Coleman, a granddaughter of William Comberford (1551-1625) of the Comberford Hall, who entertained Charles I, as Prince Charles at theMoat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth, in 1619. Dorothy Comberford married Walter Coleman of Cannock and Rugeley, a partner with the Comberford family in iron ore and mining interests in Wednesbury, and their daughter Dorothy married Thomas Chetwynd.
Dorothy (Coleman) and Thomas Chetwynd were the parents of Walter Chetwynd, named probably after his grandfather Walter Coleman, who married Dorothy Comberford; and of William Chetwynd, who became a merchant and shipowner in Bristol, probably through connections made by his uncle, Edward Chetwynd, Dean of Bristol.
William Chetwynd married Elizabeth Long, and this branch of the family returned to Rugeley when their son, William Chetwynd (1628-1691), inherited family estates in Rugeley, Staffordshire, and Grendon, Warwickshire, from his unmarried uncle Walter Chetwynd, who died in Rugeley in 1653.
At first, William was seen as hostile to the Stuarts. His election as chamberlain just before the Civil War was initially vetoed by the council, and he held that office even after the execution of Charles I. But back in his ancestral Staffordshire, after succeeding to his uncle’s estate in Rugeley, William Chetwynd was named to the Staffordshire assessment commission under the Protectorate, and he was clearly an Anglican and a royalist.
Shortly after the Restoration of Charles II, he was reported to be ‘well-moneyed, … loyal and orthodox’ and ‘an ingenious, sober man’. He was also described, though incorrectly, as a ‘burgess for Lichfield’.
William Chetwynd ploughed some of his money back into his family business. He began manufacturing garden-rollers at Madeley, bought several mills along the Trent, where he ground corn and produced starch and paper, and bought more land, increasing the value of his estate.
Chetwynd was the first of his family to enter Parliament when he became MP for Stafford in 1661. He was an active MP in the Cavalier Parliament, and sat on a number of committees, including one for restoring the bishops and another for ‘preventing mischief’ from Quakers.
He was involved in the Stour and Salwarp navigation, between the River Severn at Mitton, Kidderminster, and the edge of the Black Country at Stourbridge. He was involved in debates on confirming ministers in their livings, banning nonconformists (‘sectaries’ or ‘conventicles’) from meeting, preventing electoral abuses and on cattle imports from Ireland.
He was a political friend of the Duke of Ormonde and the Duke of Leeds, and was also high steward of Lichfield (1678-1686). After one vote in 1675, he was sent a hamper of German wine. Chetwynd later admitted he had scarcely been sober for five after, drinking in Lichfield with his cousin Sir Robert Holte of Aston, Matthew Smallwood, Dean of Lichfield, and Richard Dyott (1619-1677), MP for Lichfield.
Chetwynd decided not to stand for Stafford again in 1679, probably under political pressure locally, and he took no further part in politics. He was 63 when he died at Grendon, his Warwickshire estate about halfway between Tamworth and Atherstone, on 9 April 1691, and was buried at Rugeley.
William Chetwynd left a life interest in his estates to his sister Mary. She placed a memorial in Saint Augustine’s Church, Rugeley, describing his time in the militia and Parliament, and describing him as ‘conspicuous for intelligence, prudence, and constancy … and faithful to Church, King and country’.
The Chetwynd estates eventually passed to William’s first cousin once removed, John Chetwynd of Ludlow, Shropshire, a grandson of Ralph Chetwynd, a younger brother of Walter Chetwynd of Bristol. Grendon eventually passed in 1719 to John Chetwynd’s son, Walter Chetwynd (1680-1732), who was the MP for Lichfield from 1715 to 1731, and who amassed such large debts that he was forced to resign and then accepted an appointment as Governor of Barbados in the hope of escaping the debt collectors at his door.
This Walter Chetwynd succeeded to the Grendon estate when his grandfather, Charles Chetwynd, died at Grendon in 1719. He was first elected a Whig MP for Lichfield in 1715 and spoke and voted against the septennial bill, a law extending the maximum term of Parliament from three years to seven. It was designed to stabilise the Hanoverian regime against Jacobite threats and to reduce political volatility.
When he became Paymaster of Bounties and Pensions in 1718, his appointment forced a by-election in Lichfield, and in the by-election on 18 March 1718 he was defeated by one vote by the Tory, William Sneyd. Chetwynd’s supporters claimed they were ‘barbarously beaten and abused and their lives were endangered by a great mob with papers in their hats resembling white roses’, the emblem of the Jacobite pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie. Chetwynd challenged the result legally and he returned to Parliament as the MP for Lichfield on 10 December 1718.
From then on, Chetwynd voted with the Whig government, and he was re-elected for Lichfield in 1722 and again in 1727. His kinsman, John Chetwynd (1643-1702) of Rudge Hall, was MP for Tamworth (1698-1700), MP for Stafford (1689-1695, 1701-1702) and High Sheriff of Staffordshire (1695-1696).
When Joseph Comerford erected his plaque to the Comberford family in the Comberford chapel in Saint Editha’s Chapel, Tamworth, in 1725, he says the family ‘died out with the death of Robert, last scion of the Staffordshire branch in England, when he died in AD 1671’. However, it is difficult to believe that he did not know of this powerful political family in Lichfield and Tamworth who were immediately descended from the Comberford family.
Perhaps, he ought to have known too that there were descendants of the Comberford family living in Heveningham family in the Lichfield area.
Chetwynd found himself in a financially straitened situation, perhaps because of his wife’s lifestyle, and he resigned his seat on 13 April 1731 to take the post of Governor of Barbados, with the promise of £2,000 a year. As he was preparing to set out for the West Indies, however, he died at his house in Sackville Street, London, on 5 February 1732. His funeral was delayed by three weeks or more by bailiffs seeking to extract debts owned by the dead man.
According to Lady Huntingdon, ‘poor Mr Chetwynd’s corpse … had been so barbarously treated, for since his death, which is now three weeks, there have been bailiffs by it night and day, and will not let it be buried. I think it should almost distract his wife, and more so when she reflects it is chiefly by her means the poor remains of him are used in so shocking a manner, for I believe it will be hardly in her power to do justice to many of his creditors.’
His wife, Barbara Goring of Kingston, Staffordshire, died a year later and left her mother as the guardian of their children. Their eldest son, Walter Chetwynd, died of a fever caught while attending a trial at the Old Bailey in 1749. Their second, William Henry Chetwynd, succeeded to Grendon, but he had no children when he died in 1755, though twice married, and he left Grendon and an estate of £3,000 a year to his brother’s granddaughter, Mary Blundell.
Mary Blundell was a granddaughter of John Chetwynd of Weeping Cross, between Stafford and Rugeley, and a daughter of Montague Blundell, Lord Blundell. Her second husband, General Lord Robert Bertie (1721-1782), was Governor of Cork (1762-1768) and Governor of Duncannon, Co Wexford (1768-1782). In 1768, Lord Robert sold what was described as the ‘manor’ of Rugeley to Thomas Anson of Shugborough, later Viscount Anson, who was succeeded in 1818 by his son Thomas William, later Earl of Lichfield.
When Mary died in 1800, these estate passed to a distant kinsman, Sir George Chetwynd (1739–1824) of Brocton Hall, who became a baronet in 1795. Brocton Hall, between Rugeley and Stafford and near Wolseley Bridge, was rebuilt by the Lichfield architect Joseph Potter in 1825 and was sold to a golf club in 1923; Grendon Hall remained in the Chetwynd family until it was demolished in 1933.
The title of baronet remains in this branch of the Chetwynd family, although the present title holder, Sir Peter James Talbot Chetwynd, is not appear on the official roll.
Another branch of the Chetwynd family – although not descended from the Comberford family though Thomas Chetwynd and Dorothy Coleman – has also been associated with the same parts of Staffordshire. They are descended from Anthony Chetwynd, a younger brother of that Thomas Chetwynd, and have long been associated with Ingestre Hall and the title of Viscount Chetwynd. A Chetwynd heiress, Catherine Chetwynd, brought her family names and some of the estates into the Talbot family when she married John Talbot.
That branch of the Talbot family were given the title Earl Talbot, donated land for Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton, and gave their name to many places in the Rugeley area, including the Talbot Arms, associated with the ‘Poisoner of Rugeley’ William Palmer. After one Earl Tabot also became Earl of Shrewsbury, the pub became the Shrewsbury Arms, and is now known as ‘The Shrew’.
There was another marriage involving the Chetwynd and Talbot families that resulted in a sensational divorce case in 1865. But that, perhaps, is a story for another evening.
Further Reading:
HE Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Chetwynds of Ingestre, being a history of that family from a very early date (London: Longman & Green, 1892)
