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« on: Sunday 30 August 20 23:08 BST (UK) »
Just thought I would post this little snippet about Robert M G
Robert Musgrave Blackwell
Robert was the grandson of Sarah Jane Taylor and Job Blackwell. Sarah herself was the illegitimate daughter of Frederick Lees, one of several brothers who owned and ran a cotton mill in Dukinfield, Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire. Frederick, the son of Robert Lees and my first(6 times removed) cousin Alice Sidebotham, never married and supported his mistress Ann Taylor and her family, including mother and siblings, in one of the many houses the Lees family owned. Frederick died young(1802 – 1843) and left £40,000 and Ann continued to be supported by Watkin, Nathan and James the 3 surviving brothers. These brothers were seriously rich, Watkin for example in his Will (1864) left close to £300,000. Nathan similarly did not marry but kept a mistress, Jane Cooper, and their 3 girls were very well provided for, being the main beneficiaries of his estate. They lived comfortably,all three dying on the West Coast of Lancashire. As you know mill owners ruled with a rod of iron in those days and did not tolerate their workers to question them, in any way at all. They acted as landowners have acted for centuries. They had a strong belief in their own opinions and were often fiercely religious. Indeed Nathan and Watkin had an ongoing feud with the Vicar of St Mark’s, Dukinfield and would not allow their younger workers to take time off to attend confirmation classes, they took the time off anyway and were immediately sacked. This generated a letter to the Manchester Courier in July 1850, written by the Vicar in an attempt to shame the 2 brothers. To no avail.
Back to Robert Musgrave:
His mother’s brother, James Taylor, worked for his richer relatives in a trusted position as head cashier of the Cotton Spinning Mill. He was an executor and beneficiary of his Uncle Nathan’s Will, described as James Taylor, gentleman.
Sarah Jane married Job Blackwell, warehouseman and they had 2 children – Robert and Elizabeth. Job died at the tender age of 23 in 1863 and so the children were dependant on their mother. Robert, a physician,(presumably his education was paid for by Lees family money) died at the age of 45 leaving a very small amount of money (£114. 10s) to his widow, Harriet Gertrude nee Bridden. Her estate when she died in 1940 was worth £3225, her father was an accountant and so maybe she herself had an income.
Robert Musgrave must have been very well aware of how much money the Lees family were worth and I imagine lived as if he possessed more money than he actually had. He variously describes himself as “Living on own means” (1901), labourer (1911 in New Zealand) market gardener & nurseryman(1936 in New Zealand during his divorce proceedings conducted in absentia),private means (1939, living in Cornwall) a planter (en route to Port au Spain, Trindad in 1946). He died in Tasmania in 1964. The only photo I have of him is courtesy of the New Zealand Police gazette, his mugshot, presumably taken when he was accused and eventually found guilty of stealing £2 from one, Crozier Graham in 1908 in Wellington, New Zealand. The defence pleaded extenuating circumstances. He was married twice – first in 1926 in Armadale St Albans, Victoria, Australia to Ada Winifred Toomath, who divorced him on the grounds of desertion in 1936 and then again in 1943 in Cornwall to Edith Marian Dale. Edith remained with him and she died in Tasmania in 1979.
Out of interest only Robert Musgrave Blackwell was a 3rd cousin of Bertha Georgie Hyde-Lees, a legitimate descendent twice over of Robert Lees and Alice Sidebotham. (her parents were 2nd cousins), Georgie was soon to be known as George Yeats when she married W B Yeats in 1917.W St Albans, Victor Armadale St Albans, Victoria, AustraIia
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