Papers of the Strickland Constable family of Boynton

Scope and Content

The papers include correspondence on topics of local concern such as the Hull-Hornsea railway (and a plan of this 1864); estate rentals (1869-1917) listed according to the names of tenants in Bridlington, Hornsea, Goxhill and localities; a small number of nineteenth-century leases; seven receipts of Marmaduke Constable (1810) and a bond between Henry Strickland Constable and Francis Tadman of Hull.

Administrative / Biographical History

The founder of the branch of Stricklands in and around Bridlington was William Strickland, the navigator. He was descended from William de Strykeland of county Westmorland. As a young man William Strickland accompanied Sebastian Cabot in his voyages to the New World and the fortune he amassed was then invested in property in the 1540s when he bought Boynton, Hildenley, Newton and Wintringham. He rebuilt the house at Boynton (originally built by the Newport family) and lived until 1598, when the property passed to his son, Walter (d.1636) (Foster, Pedigrees; Johnson, 'Boynton Hall I', pp.35-6).

Walter married Frances Wentworth of Oxfordshire and their son, William (b.circa 1596) was married to Margaret, daughter of Richard Cholmley, and was created baronet in 1641. He was MP for Hedon between 1640 and 1653 and for the East Riding between 1654 and 1656. He remained staunchly parliamentarian, even though his wife's brother, Hugh Cholmley, governor of Scarborough castle, dramatically changed sides when Henrietta Maria landed at Bridlington in February 1643. Strickland was in London at the time and Henrietta Maria stopped at Boynton Hall and set up her court there for two weeks. When she left, she took the family silver with her (Foster, Pedigrees; Johnson, 'Boynton Hall I', p.38; Ross, Celebrities, p.153).

William Strickland died in 1665 and was succeeded by Thomas Strickland, 2nd baronet (1639-1684), William Strickland, 3rd baronet (1665-1724) and William Strickland, 4th baronet (c.1686-1735), all of whom were returned for parliament. The latter was MP for Malton 1708-15, then Carlisle 1715-22 and finally Scarborough 1722-35. He was one of the lords of the treasury 1725-7 and was then apppointed treasurer to the queen on the accession of George II and secretary at war 1730. He was also responsible for the alterations to the old hall and the collection of a fine library. Further extensions and alterations were carried out by his son and heir, George Strickland (1729-1808), who probably employed John Carr of York as his architect (Foster, Pedigrees; Sedgewick, The house of commons, ii, p.453; Johnson, 'Boynton Hall I', pp.42, 52; 'Boynton Hall II', 29).

George Strickland was succeeded by his son William (1753-1834), 6th baronet, and he married Henrietta, heiress of Nathaniel Cholmley of Whitby and Howsham (see separate entry). Their son George (1782-1874) took the name Cholmley to succeed to the Cholmley estates in 1865. His first wife, Mary, was the heiress of the Reverend Charles Constable of Wassand and the baronetcy first descended down through the their eldest son, Charles William Strickland (1819-1909), 8th baronet, and his son, Walter William Strickland (b.1851), 9th baronet, who was succeeded in 1938 by his cousin when he died without issue. George and Mary (Strickland) Cholmley's second son died as a young man and their third son, Henry Strickland (1821-1909) took the extra surname of Constable and succeeded to the Wassand estates. It is the papers of this branch of the family that are at DDCV(2)/65. Henry Strickland-Constable married Cornelia Charlotte Anne Dumaresq and their eldest son, Henry Marmaduke Strickland-Constable (b.1900) succeeded as 10th baronet.

Access Information

Access will be granted to any accredited reader

Related Material

Hull University Archives:

DRA/424; U U DDCV(2)/76/9-12; DDMC/100/1; DDSY/25/6-22

Other repositories:

Main archive of the Strickland-Constable family of Wassand, East Riding of Yorkshire Archives Service

Papers of the Cholmley family of Whitby, North Yorkshire County Record Office

Letters of George Strickland, 7th baronet, to James Brougham, London University

Letters of Walter William Strickland, Strathclyde Regional Archives

Bibliography

  • Foster, Joseph, Pedigrees of the county families of Yorkshire, 3 vols (1874-5)
  • Johnson, Francis, 'Boynton Hall, Bridlington', Transactions of the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire, 3 (1952-3)
  • Oswald, Arthur, 'Boynton Hall, Yorkshire, formerly the home of the Stricklands', Country Life, 122 (1954)
  • Pace, Peter, 'Boynton Hall', York Georgian Society (1984)
  • Ross, F, Celebrities of the Yorkshire Wolds (1878)
  • Sedgewick, Romney, The house of commons 1715-1754, 2 vols (1970)