HOF – Bagshaw

The village of Scarcliffe in Derbyshire is dominated by the church of St Leonard at its centre. The church registers are available from approximately 1680, some 30 years before the earliest Bagshaw of our family makes an appearance. St Leonard’s is a Norman church with a 19th century tower that would easily have been seen from the surrounding agricultural land, some of which was farmed by John Bagshaw (b 1709).

For reasons known only to his family, John was christened in the nearby parish of Teversal (St Katherine’s church). It appears that the family settled there until his son Henry resumed the connection to Scarcliffe in the mid-1750s. It was here that this branch flourished, particularly as Henry married three times and fathered 6 children, and they worked the land at Scarcliffe Hall Farm.

Information sourced from the website richardsbygonetimes.co.uk/landtax.htm and Derbyshire County Record Office (Ref: Q/RE. Film M226), indicates that the land was owned by the Earl of Bathurst, and therefore the Bagshaws were tenants and not owners. Henry’s son John married Maria Skinner and they produced 9 children of whom both Thomas and his brother Robert married two sisters, Elizabeth and Martha Twidale respectively.

Robert, in 1871, was admitted to Nottingham Lunacy Hospital and later died there. This would have been the General Lunatic Asylum for County and Town of Nottingham opened at Sneinton built in 1810. In 1855 private patients were transferred to The Coppice q.v. and Sneinton became ‘County and Borough of Nottingham Lunatic Asylum’.

At this point in time there is a movement away from Scarcliffe and also a broadening in the type of employment entered into by the Bagshaws. Thomas made the move at some point to Bolsover and although he continued farming and undertook milling, he was strangely described as a Tea Merchant on the birth certificate of his son, William.

Second son, Robert, worked originally on the premises but as a corn miller before at some point, he changed career and moved to Worksop as a Coal Merchant. He later moved away to Ashover and Bath House, returning to farming.

He married Mary Vessey in 1886 and they produced 6 children.

A further move to Thorpe Salvin saw the birth of  youngest child Edward Bagshaw, in 1902. He married Sarah Helena Hopkinson in 1927 in Chesterfield. They returned to Ashover and Bath House Farm, where eldest child Hilda was born, but moved to Dale Bank where Geoffrey and Ronald were added to the family.

The final move was to Holmesfield.

Geoffrey was born in 1929 and went on to marry Edith Parry, thus bringing the two families together.