The nature of family trees, expanding as you go back in time and forward in time, means that family history research can quickly get out of hand. I still plan to continue with general research, working through to-do lists and building up as yet undiscovered branches of my family tree but I am also trying to focus on specific projects. I have sketched out a few ideas below - if you believe you have connections within these projects, please feel free to get in touch.
I feel that this is a particularly interesting project but one that is likely to generate a large amount of data to sift through. I already have a large volume of data from the Registry of Deeds and Wakefield Archives and I left plenty more behind!
The story doesn't really get going until the mid 19th century, when my great-great-great grandfather William MITCHELL (1804-1873) got involved in the brewing industry. Up to the age of about 40, he had been nothing more spectacular than an Agricultural Labourer, but by the 1850s, he was a brewer at the Bentley Brewery in Oulton near Leeds. Between 1850 and about 1880, the brewing empire of the MITCHELL family flourished and deeds at the West Riding Registry of Deeds indicate that they owned in the region of 30 public houses, breweries and inns in the Pontefract and Castleford area.
Perhaps more surprisingly, they bought land in Whitwood Mere for the purpose of building a public house or brewery, which was later sold to the Ecclesiastical Commission of England and Wales as the site for Whitwood Mere parish church. My connection to this influential family is my great-grandmother Caroline SENIOR nee MITCHELL (pictured), who was a staunch Liberal and active political campaigner during the 1920s. Caroline even married my great-grandfather Thomas Wood SENIOR of Leeds in the aforesaid church!
An aunt of Caroline's, Eliza PICKERSGILL nee MITCHELL (b.1846) married into another family of local brewers and innkeepers; the PICKERSGILLs. At the turn of the 20th century they had several brewing properties in the Pontefract and Castleford area, including the Castle Brewery on South Baileygate and the Queen's Hotel in Tanshelf.
If you think you may have information relevant to my project, or you are interested in work as it progresses, please contact me.
I have made good progress with my WILCOCK research and I am now confident that I have traced my ancestry back to a Richard WILCOCK who was born in 1634 in Kirkburton, the son of a William WILLCOCKE. Richard appears to be the first of my ancestors to arrive in my home town of Pontefract, marrying Mary BURTON of Pontefract in 1656. This is an interesting marriage in itself, occuring as it did during the Commonwealth period.
Wednesday the one and twentieth day of May 1656 Richard WILCOCK of Pontefract in the County of York shoemaker and Mary BURTON of Pontefract aforesaid spinster were solemnly married according to the laws of Parliament ... made and provided(?) before Christopher Longs, gentleman, mayor and ... of the town corporation of Pontefract aforesaid where publication of the purpose was made in the ? of Stephen Hazzard, Thomas Tulip ...
My challenge now is to work out the origins of the Pontefract WILCOCKs in Kirkburton. I know that Richard's mother Elizabeth married a Mathew/Markus BRODEHEAD/BROADHEAD in 1644, when Richard was ten years old, but what were the circumstances surrounding this marriage? There is no indication that father William was ever married to an Elizabeth, or any record of his demise in Kirkburton.
The promise of marriage between Richard WILCOCK of Pontefract in the County of York, Shoemaker (his mother is Elizabeth, the wife of Markus Broadhead of Kirk-Burton on the said County, clothyer(?)) ...; to Mary BURTON of Pontefract aforesaid ... 4th March 1656.
To be honest, I suspect I have hit the brick wall with this WILCOCK research but I would still like to try and find out more about my origins in Kirkburton.