Coachman to Lord Sefton

[Maiden Stone]

I've scrutinised the 1851 census page for Charles Watts, stable-boy at Croxteth Hall. His POB looks like Badminton. One site has transcribed it as Badminton. IMO he was the same boy who was sleeping over the kennels at Badminton House in 1841. Presumably he helped look after the foxhounds for the Beaufort Hunt. Possibly a relation of Richard or John Watts.

Founding of the Grand National horse race was, in part, down to the 2nd Duke. The family would have owned the best quality horses and employed the best people to care for them. Ironic, considering that when they were R.C. there was a law forbidding a Catholic to own a horse worth more than a set amount (5 guineas I think). The Molyneux family would have ignored the law.

A 2nd look at that 1851 page showed that the person after Charles Watts in the stables staff quarters was a visitor called Cowban. That's the surname of an old Lancashire family related to one of mine. Staunch Catholics, with connections to some of the Lancashire Catholic gentry. My ancestors related to Cowban mostly remained in one part of Lancashire. I found 1 small family of them further south in the county; going back in time, their ancestors were on a Recusants List for the area. Top of the list was Lord Molyneux. I surmised that the head of the family had joined Lord M's employment when Lord M had been visiting the Clifton family, or a Clifton had recommended the man.

Hope I'm not sending you off on a wild-goose chase to Gloucestershire. Should that be a fox chase? 

[amondg]

I'll take any help I can get, the help are rarely mentioned prior to census.
I wish more account books that list employees were available as they were not poor enough to make the poor law lists and not wealthy enough to make the papers.

[Maiden Stone]

There's an 1821 newspaper report (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser 20 December 1821) of an inquest into the accidental death in the Berkeley Square area of "R.Watts" coachman to Lady Cremorne, aged about 60. There's a corresponding burial on 23 December 1821 at St Luke's Chelsea of Richard Watts aged 58, died in an accident. Could be the same Richard Watts who served as coachman to Lady Sefton?

In 1821 Dowager Lady Cremorne, was still alive, aged around 80. Her residence was Stanhope St., Mayfair, where her husband, Thomas Dawson, (b.1725) 1st Viscount Cremorne, Baron Dartrey and Baron Cremorne died 1813. He was an Irish landowner and politician. He was one of the largest landowners in Ireland with annual income of £8, 000.  The Dowager was his 2nd wife. Her name was Philadelphia Hannah Freame and she was a granddaughter of William Penn ( of Founding Fathers fame I assume). She died in 1826 at Stanhope St.
The Baronetcy of Cremorne was inherited by Thomas Dawson's great-nephew, Richard Thomas Dawson 1788-1827 who became 2nd Baron Cremorne. The other 2 titles of Viscount Cremorne and Baron Dartrey had become extinct on the death of Thomas Dawson. Richard Thomas Dawson was briefly an M.P.  for Monaghan before inheriting his title. He married Ann Elizabeth Whaley of Whaley Abbey in Ireland. ( She had a colourful relative in "Buck" Whaley, another Irish M.P. and gambler. His memoirs were suppressed by his executors.  )
The Lady Cremorne who employed Richard Watts could have been either of these ladies.

[Maiden Stone]

I'll take any help I can get, the help are rarely mentioned prior to census.
I wish more account books that list employees were available as they were not poor enough to make the poor law lists and not wealthy enough to make the papers.

Molyneux Papers include estate books and possibly household accounts and correspondence. See National Archives Catalogue and catalogues of the local archives which hold them.
There may be a Cremorne archive somewhere. English or Irish Archives.
I only know about the Molyneux papers because they pop up sometimes when I'm searching LanCat.

[Maiden Stone]

Duke of Beaufort was a guardian of the young, fatherless  Charles Molyneux, later 1st Earl of Sefton.
Therefore it's likely he visited Badminton House in his childhood and youth. His Protestant guardians would have wanted to keep him away from Catholic influences in Lancashire while he was growing up, so keeping him busy elsewhere would have been a good plan.  He made a formal renunciation of his Catholic faith before a clergyman of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in London in 1769(?).
So, if that young Charles Watts on 1841 & '51 census was one of a long line of a family working with  Beaufort hounds and  Sefton  horses, Charles Molyneux may have known members of the family since his youth.

BTW 1. The future King Charles of France visited Croxteth Hall annually during exile (early 1790s-1814/15).
2. A chaplain at Croxteth Hall kept a register for a few years, starting in 1713. It will be among the oldest surviving Catholic registers.
3. 2 grandchildren of the 5th Viscount Molyneux were godparents to members of my ancestors' family.
4. A Lady Molyneux is a minor character in a historical novel by Georgette Heyer. I don't know which Lady M or which novel. I read them all in my teens. Many of her novels include fast carriage-driving and gambling. The novels were well-researched. Having now learned about "Lord Dashalong" and the Irish gambler "Buck" Whaley, truth seems to be as entertaining as fiction. Many of them were set in the Regency period, at the time John and Richard Watts were driving these titled people around town.

Where did William Norman, cousin of Susannah live/die?

[amondg]

He died in Ealing Middlesex and is buried at St Mary's Hanwell. He doesn't give an occupation when he wrote his will just Gent.
He left money to friends in Russell Street London and Berwick Street London also a coachmaker in Hemmings Row London. So my guess is he made his money in trade in London and retired to Ealing,
he has proven to be a hard man to find so I'm trying through relatives mentioned in the will.
It's not easy they are proving just as hard to find.