Forbes-Adam, Nigel, fl 20th century

The Thompson/Lawley family owned large estates centred on Escrick between the Ouse and Derwent rivers, a few miles south of the city of York. The two families merged with the marriage of Jane Thompson, heiress to the Escrick estates, to Sir Robert Lawley, 5th baronet Wenlock, whose family had held lands in Shropshire since 1471. Lawley family papers and title deeds for their Shropshire estates number some 138 items and date back to 1544 (DDFA/26, DDFA[2]/15). In 1639 the Lawleys acquired the site of Great Wenlock Priory (DDFA/26/17). Papers for the manor of Escrick date back to 1387, though the Thompson family's connection with Escrick dates from 1668.

Through the sixteenth century the capital manor of Escrick belonged to the Knyvett family (DDFA/31-2, 34-5, 67, 72, 74) and in 1607 Sir Thomas Knyvett was created Baron Knyvett of Escrick (his armorial seal can be found at DDFA/5/33 and on a defeasance at DDFA/5/36). The crown manor of Escrick was granted to John Bardolf in 1339 and it was given the name Bardolgarth. The earliest document in the collection relates to this manor; on 17 August 1387 some land on it was gifted to John and Helen Daunay (DDFA/5/28). This land later descended through the Legard family to the Thompsons in 1726. The larger part of Bardolgarth came into the hands of the Knyvetts, so joining the capital manor, in 1584 (Allison, The Victoria history of the county of York East Riding, iii, pp.20-1).

Baron Knyvett was succeeded by his brother, Henry Knyvett, in 1622, whose only daughter, Catherine, married Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk. Their son, Edward (who became Baron Howard), became the heir of the Escrick estates (DDFA/5/38, 75; DDFA[3]/9/94). He consolidated this inheritance by buying more land in Escrick, Riccall and Deighton from another member of the Knyvett family in 1630 (DDFA/5/5). In 1668 he sold the manors of Escrick and Bardolgarth and lands in Riccall and Wheldrake to Sir Henry Thompson (DDFA/5/7, 127-36, DDFA[3]/9/2) for 11,000. The Wheldrake land had come into his possession by letters patent from James I `for faithful service' in 1625 (DDFA/18/1 [with portrait and great seal of James I], 39).

Sir Henry Thompson (see entry for Business Archives) was a merchant who seems to have made most of his money through importing French wine. He was lord mayor of York from 1663 and owned Clifford's Tower, part of York castle. His business dealings were complex and his connections many (cash books, business journals, a letter book and some vouchers are at DDFA/37/1-6, 40-42). Barbara English suggests that he may have made some of his money through sequestrations of royalist property in York during the civil wars and some letters in the collection suggest that the Thompson family may also have been in the business of small lending (DDFA/39/9, 30). Henry Thompson began buying up land in Escrick in 1666 (DDFA/5/122-126). Two years after his large purchase in Escrick from Lord Howard he moved from York to his new country estate, leaving his brother in York as his main connection with the business world. To ease communication problems he built a carriage road from York to Escrick in 1672 (Neave, `Escrick Hall and Park', p.25; English, The great landowners of East Yorkshire 1530-1910, pp.29,46; Knight, A history of the city of York, p.489).

Some of the small amount of correspondence from this period throws light on the life of Henry Thompson. Like most members of the gentry, he was variously involved in matters of discipline and judicial procedure. He heard depositions of cases at York castle and was commissioned as deputy lieutenant for the West Riding and York in 1665 (DDFA[2]/22/1). In this capacity he received letters from the duke of Buckingham about the West Riding militia and was involved in the arrest of the storekeeper for prizes at Hull during the trade war with the Dutch in 1666 (DDFA/39/3, 4, 7). DDFA/31/1 is an order signed by the duke of Buckingham on 16 August 1666 to pay 365 to him out of rents collected in Helmsley (contains a good impression of the duke's armorial seal). Only eight days later the duke wrote to say that his debts at York, totalling 2439, would be paid `as fast as my rents at Helmelsy can be gatherd' (DDFA/39/6). On 24 July 1667 Richard Boyle, the first earl of Burlington and second earl of Cork, wrote to him concerning a loan that was to be raised in the county (DDFA/39/30). Boyle was lord lieutenant of the West Riding. Brian Fairfax, agent of the duke of Buckingham and cousin and biographer of Thomas Fairfax, wrote to him about the trade war on 9 January of that year, giving news also of the dreadful spread of the plague (DDFA/39/2; see also DDFA/39/5).

After moving to Escrick in 1668, Sir Henry Thompson conducted a patchy political career as an MP. In 1673 he sent an apologetic letter to Thomas, Viscount Osborne, about his agreement to stand as a member for York when Osborne had his own son in mind for the place (DDFA/39/8). Throughout the 1670s he was a patron of Andrew Marvell, who was very friendly with his brother Edward. The 16 surviving letters of Andrew Marvell to Henry and Edward Thompson, make up a third of all personal Marvell letters extant. Three of these are letters held in the Brynmor Jones Library at DDFA/39/27-29. These have been reprinted by H M Margoliouth, The poems and letters of Andrew Marvell (vol. ii, 1971). A fourth letter in the Brynmor Jones Library is from Henry Thompson to Marvell (DDFA/39/26; see also DDMM/28/1). Marvell's letters to the Thompsons indicate that he kept them informed of parliamentary afairs as well as court and London gossip. Some of the letters also indicate that he represented Henry Thompson's case over wine licences and that there was some problem with the Thompson family business in the 1670s. The letters further indicate that the Thompsons shared with Marvell anti-popery sentiments and he kept them informed of the efforts by the earl of Lauderdale to bring the episcopate to a reconciliation with religious nonconformists (probably along the lines suggested by Richard Baxter). One letter from Marvell regrets Sir Henry Thompson's sudden departure from the house of commons.

Amongst the `valuable autographs' at DDFA/39 there are two more of interest from this generation of the Thompson family. DDFA/39/1 is a letter from Thomas Herbert to Thomas Lovell. Herbert had been in close attendance of the king in his last few months and accompanied him to the scaffold, at which time he was given the king's silver watch and cloak to keep. At the restoration he was rewarded with a baronetcy and retired to York to write books about his earlier travels on the continent and to the middle east and far east. DDFA/39/38(ii) is a letter to Henry Thompson from Richard Sterne, archbishop of York dated 23 November 1668. Sterne was probably the author of The whole duty of man, the most influential piece of Restoration pastoral theology. At DDFA/40/1 there is also to be found the oath taken on 6 July 1668 of Sir Walsingham Cooke, a free brother of the Society of Merchant Adventurers.

Sir Henry Thompson died in 1683 and copies of his will are at DDFA/5/137 and DDFA/44/5. Prior to this he had moved to Marston leaving the old manor of Escrick in the hands of his son, also Henry (b.1651). A year after his father's death, Henry Thompson consolidated the holdings in Riccall by buying more land there (DDFA/15/8). He was also responsible for rebuilding old Escrick Hall between 1680 and 1690. The resulting house was an elegant, symetrical house with two storeys and attic windows, a central door and portico, with evenly-spaced and sized windows. There is a copy of a sketch of it by Abraham de la Pryme, the Huguenot traveller, at DDFA/40/41.

Henry Thompson followed in the footsteps of his father, becoming lord mayor of York in 1699, just a year before his death. His second wife was Mary Beilby (DDFA/40/10 contains a transcription of her baptism date) and their marriage settlement document of 1685 is at DDFA/42/2. The Escrick estates passed on Henry's death to their son, who was given his mother's maiden name, Beilby, as a Christian name and this became a family tradition.

Beilby Thompson inherited the Escrick estates from his father in 1700 when only 14 years old and three years later he departed on a four year grand tour of Italy and the Low Countries. There are several letters in the collection from this time, many of them from his friend and companion, Ambrose Philips, who sent sanitised reports to Beilby's mother about their exploits (DDFA/39/10-12 [4 letters]). Ambrose Philips was the pastoral poet sometimes called `Namby Pamby' and he seems to have shared with Beilby Thompson a taste for a life filled with excessive light entertainment. After the grand tour he continued to write to Beilby about his romantic exploits, at one stage boasting `we turn night into day and day into night here, living in one continued Round of Pleasure'. This was in 1710, in the same year he wrote to Beilby's brother Richard, recommending a prescription for a purge. The letters indicate that after the grand tour Beilby went on financing the travels of Ambrose Philips (DDFA/39/14-15).

Beilby Thompson does not seem to have had any building ambitions for the house at Escrick, as it remained unchanged, but he did buy some more land from the Legard family. He married Dame Sarah Dawes of Acaster, prompting him to build a ferry across the Ouse to connect their estates. He also became high sheriff of Yorkshire (J D Legard, The Legards of Anlaby and Ganton: their neighbours and neighbourhood, p.165; DDFA/5/147-153; Allison, The Victoria history of the county of East Riding of Yorkshire, iii, p.75).

Few of Beilby Thompson's own letters are to be found in the Forbes-Adam papers, but the family kept a number of letters from the first half of the eighteenth century which have either been addressed to him or come into his possession. These are all calendared under DDFA/39 (`valuable autographs') and they have a certain unity to them; they are all from clerics, most of whom can be said to have had a controversial career. For example, there are letters of William Cooke and William Lloyd, respectively fellow of Eton and bishop of Worcestor - the latter was put on trial by the Privy Council and both went mad. William Lloyd spent too much time with the books of Daniel and Revelation and thought he was a prophet. Another letter is from Edward Chandler, another controversialist involved in millenarian disputes. Two letters from later in the century are from Beilby Porteus and Daniel Waterland, clerical figures who were also controversial in some way. The former became bishop of London. He was a Virginian and devoted his later life to the promotion of missionary activity amongst African Americans. Daniel Waterland was almost the lone voice of anti-latitudinarianism when the church of England was awash with latitudinarian theology.

There is also a letter to the Reverend J Clark from Arthur Charlett, master of University College, Oxford, whose inept political manoevres scuppered his clerical ambitions; he became the subject of considerable ridicule. His only redeeming feature seems to have been his commitment to the Clarendon Press and collecting books and items of historical interest. The letter in the Brynmor Jones Library reflects this better side of Arthur Charlett, as he writes to tell Clark that `we have built a noble Repository for all sorts of Rarity's'. He is probably referring to the Ashmolean Museum (DDFA/39/17).

Beilby Thompson died in 1750 and a personal account of his estates is at DDFA/40/12. His son, also Beilby Thompson, inherited the estate when only eight years old (b.1742). His mother, Sarah Thompson (who reverted to using her first married name, Dame Sarah Dawes), began building up the estate on his behalf. In 1750 she had an inventory done of her house in York (DDFA[3]/9/5)). In December 1752 she bought land and the manor with an old and new hall at Kexby (DDFA/8/11, 116). In 1753 she had her son's estates at Bole in Nottinghamshire surveyed (DDFA/25/4). In 1755 she bought the manor, manor house, rectory and advowson of Acaster Malbis and other lands bearing tithes, as well as land at Naburn for 26,000 and she had the lands at Riccall surveyed (DDFA[4]/1/11; DDFA/13/4). In 1756 and 1758 she arranged for the enclosure of lands at Stillingfleet and her large estates at Acaster (DDFA/45/1, 3-4).

Lady Sarah also turned her attention to the house and in 1758 a third storey was built and rainwater heads date from this year. Beilby Thompson went to Cambridge 1759 and, in his absence in 1763, John Carr, the famous York architect, was employed to design additions to the hall (his account is at DDFA/37/28). In 1764 he was further employed to build a new house in Micklethwaite. Lady Sarah did not confine her attention to houses and land. DDFA/20/6 is a portfolio of papers relating to the Ouse and Derwent Drainage Commission 1756 to 1764 (Pevsner and Neave, York and the East Riding, p.407; Neave, `Escrick Hall and park, p.26).

1764 and 1765 were important years for Lady Sarah Dawes. In 1764 Beilby Thompson returned from Cambridge and his sister, Jane, married Sir Robert Lawley, 5th baronet Wenlock. There are copies of the marriage settlement at DDFA/26/76 and DDFA/42/36 (original). Jane's dower was 20,000. In the same year, Deighton estate was added to Beilby Thompson's inheritance (DDFA/3/10-11) and his mother released all her estates at Kexby and Wheldrake for 60,000 on his coming of age (DDFA/8/123). Lady Sarah then made her will and there are copies at DDFA/44/35 and DDFA(4)/13/1. (Cash books and bank books of Lady Sarah Dawes and Beilby Thompson 1759-84 are at DDFA/37/7-11. There are vouchers for clothing, doctors and gunsmiths in the early 1750s at DDFA/37/47.)

In 1768 Lord Rockingham wanted Beilby Thompson to stand for York but his mother objected on the grounds of the expense. Instead he stood for and became MP for Hedon. His personal wealth was valued at the time as 8000 a year. Beilby Thompson was MP for Hedon for the next twelve years, and then was MP for Thirsk for four years and finished his parliamentary career as MP for Hedon, again from 1790 to 1796 having only had three years out of office between 1784 and 1790. He voted with the Rockingham whigs, but he rarely attended and was of little political influence. Later in his career he solicited first the Shelburne administration and then the Fox coalition for a peerage, but his fickle behaviour did not go unnoticed and he failed to gain the reward he sought (The British establishment 1760-1784, pp.855-6; Namier and Brooke, The house of commons 1754-1790, ii, pp.523-4).

Beilby Thompson carried further the process started by his mother of consolidating the Escrick estates. He enclosed fields and began the lengthy process of altering the shape of the village and its access so that Escrick Hall could stand alone in parkland. He demolished the old church and rectory and gained permission in 1781 by act of parliament for building a new one further away from the house. He was able to buy many houses in the village, but had to wait years in some cases for tenancies to expire before he could demolish a house. By the time he died in 1799, the church and three quarters of the village had been relocated (Neave, `Escrick Hall and park', pp.27-9).

Beilby Thompson appears to have married Elizabeth Miller, a widow in 1792 (DDFA/42/15), but he left no direct heirs and his will in 1794 left all his estates and heirlooms to his brother, Richard (DDFA/44/41). Richard Thompson's will of 1816 provided for nieces, male and female servants and other women in his acquaintance. It also made provision for a canal to join the rivers Derwent and Ouse from Stillingfleet to Wheldrake `a plan whereof is in the Closet of the Library' (DDFA/44/45). He died in 1820 and the bulk of his inheritance passed by the male entail to Paul Beilby Lawley (b.1784; DDFA[3]/9/9), the third son of his sister, Jane. A provision of the inheritance was that Paul Beilby Lawley change his surname to Thompson. At this point the families of Thompson and Lawley merged (English, The great landowners of East Yorkshire, p.88).

Paul Beilby Lawley Thompson became Baron Wenlock in 1839 and 8th baronet after the deaths of both his brothers, Robert and Francis, in 1834 and 1851 respectively. After his elevation to the peerage in 1839 he was granted a licence to put the name Lawley before that of Thompson and for his heirs to take the name Lawley only. He had married Caroline Neville, the daughter of Richard, 2nd Lord Braybrooke, in 1817. They had four sons, Beilby Richard, Robert Neville, Stephen Willoughby and Francis Charles, and a daughter, Jane, who went on to marry James Stuart Wortley. The sons of this generation followed an almost archetypal hierarchy of employment for sons of the aristocracy - Beilby succeeded to the title and estate, Robert went into the army, Stephen went into the church and Francis went into politics. Robert spent his later life giving lectures on battles of the English civil wars (for example, The battle of Marston Moor, 1865). He married a general's daughter but died without leaving any legitimate issue (DDFA[5]/12/3). Stephen wrote an ecclesiastical tract (1880) and Francis had a chequered career in politics. He went into parliament, being MP for Beverley 1852 to 1853. He was a friend and private secretary of Gladstone and the family connection with Gladstone was to continue for many years; he is known to have visited Escrick on many occasions. Francis Lawley's political career was foreshortened by gambling debts and he spent nine years in America before returning to England and taking up sports journalism. He wrote about horse-racing, for example, The Bench and the Jockey Club (1889).

The family correspondence of this generation survives in plenty in the collection. DDFA(3)/1 is the correspondence to Lady Caroline Wenlock from about 1822 to 1871 (there are also 6 letters from her to her grand-daughter at DDFA[3]/7/7 and 3 to Lady Glyne at DDFA[3]/7/4). It includes 29 letters from her son Stephen. It also includes letters from her son Francis from America and 12 letters from her daughter Jane. Letters to Stephen Lawley number 292 and 139 of these are from his brother, Francis. Another 17 are from Francis's wife, Louisa (DDFA[3]/2). Other correspondents include W West, J Warriner, the Reverend Sidney Smith and Francis and Kate Belcombe. The correspondence of Jane Wortley and her husband is at DDFA(3)/3; this mostly comprises 33 letters of Jane to her husband from 1845 to 1868. An interesting miscellanous letter from the dean and chapter of York dated 12 February 1829 thanks the family for sending an engine to help fight the fire at York Minster (DDFA[3]/8/21).

Escrick Hall and park underwent considerable expansion in the time of the first Lord Wenlock. The movement of the village continued, Escrick rectory was built in 1848 and Lord Wenlock laid the foundation stone of another new church at Escrick in 1856 (DDFA[5]/1/1; DDFA/39/37; DDFA[3]/9/68) and more land was enclosed, especially 1829-30 and 1839-44 (e.g. DDFA/13/342-362). The management of the estates at this time can be researched through the various stewards' ledgers and account books which survive for the period 1832 to 1880. Wages books and household accounts also survive, including for the Shropshire estates (DDFA/37/12-27). The house went through numerous alterations and additions in the nineteenth century. It had a fine library featuring a classical collection and books on Italian topography and a water colour painting of the library by Jane Lawley is at DDFA(3)/9/29. The books on Italy may reflect the interest of the eldest son, Beilby Richard Lawley, whose journal of his European touring in the early 1840s is to be found at DDFA/40/27 (Neave, `Escrick Hall and park', p.29).

Paul Beilby, 1st Baron Wenlock pursued a parliamentary career being whig MP for Wenlock 1826 to 1832 and then for the East Riding until 1837. DDFA(3)/7/5 comprises 92 letters mainly relating to the 1837 East Riding election, but the bundle also contains three letters from Dr Arnold of Rugby sent between 1836 and 1841.

Lord Wenlock died at the age of 68 in 1852. His eldest son, Beilby Richard, was then 34 years old (b.1818) and had been married to Elizabeth Grosvenor, daughter of the marquis of Westminster, since 1846. Marriage settlement documents are catalogued as DDFA/42/25 and DDFA(4)/11/3-5 and indicate that she brought 5000 to the marriage. He became lord lieutenant of the East Riding and the letter from Lord Palmerston offering him the commission in November 1864 is to be found at DDFA[5]/12/1 (see also DDFA/35/1-2).

There are six small items separately catalogued for the 2nd Lord Wenlock at DDFA/35. Item 4 is an illuminated address from the tenantry of his estates in Yorkshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire, congratulating him on the majority of his son in 1870. There is other evidence in the Forbes-Adam collection of the kind of patron-client relationship which existed between estate owners and their tenants. For example, when Beilby Richard Lawley came of age himself in 1839 his father put on two days of entertainments for the tenants and poor people in Escrick (DDFA[3]/9/28). Another item of interested is a large photographic print of the 2nd Lord Wenlock and his eldest son mounted on horseback with the other members of the York and Ainsty hunt of 1878 (DDFA/35/6). The photograph was taken not long before he died in 1880.

The correspondence of Elizabeth, Lady Wenlock is at DDFA(3)/4, though it comprises mostly letters from her eldest son, Beilby, written between 1855 and 1895. They are written from Eton and then various places around the world including Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Austria and India. Lady Elizabeth died many years after her husband, in 1899, and so many of the letters from her eldest son were written after he became the 3rd Baron Wenlock and even after he became governor of Madras for five years from 1891. Apart from Beilby, there were three other sons, Richard, Algernon and Arthur. Letters from the former two to their mother are at DDFA(3)/4/3-4. All three eventually succeeded to the title. There are also about forty letters written to Lady Elizabeth from Beilby's wife at DDFA(3)/4/2, including some from when she was in India with her husband in the 1890s.

Beilby Lawley married Lady Constance Mary Lascelles in 1872; she brought 6000 to the marriage and an interest in the Harewood estates (DDFA/42/26). There is a lot of material in the collection for this generation of the family. Beilby, 3rd Lord Wenlock was lord of the Escrick estates from 1880 until his death in 1912 and his papers are catalogued at DDFA/36. They include items about a number of family trusts and the earl of Harewood's settlement (1874-1900), his appointments and commissions including his appointment to the governorship of Madras (1890; another copy at DDFA[5]/12/2) and his receipt of the honour of Knight of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (1891), his summons to attend the coronation of Edward the 7th and papers relating to his funeral and memorial after his death in 1912.

Lord Wenlock was a friend of the royal family. Some evidence of this can be found at DDFA(3)/8/33 consisting of a letter dated 11 February 1892 from Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, thanking him for his condolences on the death of King Albert. Other letters to Beilby Lawley can be found at DDFA/36/9; they number 36, dated from 1881 to 1911 and include a letter from W G Grace about his book on `Cricket'. Seven letters offering him various honours and awards including the mastership of the buckhounds and the governorship of New South Wales are catalogued as DDFA(5)/12/2.

More revealing evidence of the family's connection with the royal family is to be found at DDFA/36/25-41 (and DDFA/40/52) which contains some highlights of Lord Wenlock's world tour as lord-in-waiting to the duke and duchess of York in 1901. This tour took in Canada and the colonies of Australia and New Zealand. In Australia the royal couple were officially in attendance to mark federation. DDFA/36/30-32 are programmes for the opening of the new Australian commonwealth parliament in Melbourne and the celebrations and receptions to do with this. DDFA/36/34 is a well-preserved, leather-bound souvenir programme of the visit to Sydney. It is embossed with gold leaf with Lord Wenlock's name on the front. The programme itself is printed on pages of woven silk. Programmes of events in New Zealand include those for reviews, a public reception and a Maori reception in Rotorua. There are also eight large souvenir photographs of the southern alps featuring Mount Cook and the hermitage, the Murchison glacier and Lord Onslow and his party on Mount Sefton (complete with a small dog). Perhaps the most important item is some notes on meetings involving the governor of New Zealand about the land legislation of 1898 to 1899. These are in both English and Maori and were presented to Lord Wenlock by R J Seddon, Premier of New Zealand.

The correspondence of Constance, Lady Wenlock is quite extensive. It is catalogued as DDFA(3)/5 and DDFA(3)/7/9 and includes her letters to members of her own family and 88 letters from her husband written between 1871 and 1910, some of them from the time of his world tour. Most of her correspondence comprises letters sent to her rather than from her. She and her husband had many important connections and the collection includes letters from George, Earl of Pembroke and his wife, Gertrude; letters to and from Adolphus G C Liddell; from Evelyn, Viscountess de Vesci; from Ethel Grenfell (later Lady Desborough); from her brother, Henry, the Earl of Harewood; to and from Pamela, Countess of Lytton; from her sister, Margaret, Countess of Desart as well as 350 letters from her only child, Irene, sent from India and parts of Europe. The correspondence of Lady Constance Wenlock is of interest to anyone researching the history of the Raj as a great deal of her correspondence came from India, including many familiar letters from a man who simply signed himself as `Douglas'. The collection also contains smaller numbers of letters from various members of the family on both sides and there are letters containing comments on `the troubles' in Ireland 1922-3.

The Forbes-Adam papers in the Brynmor Jones library are a rich source for the study of late Victorian and Edwardian aristocratic life in England. At DDFA(5)/125 is a letter from Peters and Sons, carriage manufacturers of London, agreeing to build a new buggy, complete with heraldry, for Lord Wenlock for 300. There are papers relating to hunts, fishing and game shooting (for example, DDFA[5]/13/47, 125, 127, 166). The miscellaneous papers at DDFA/40 are rich in cellar books, and game books, catalogues, invitation lists and lists of agricultural shows. Pantry accounts are at DDFA(5)/11/13.

Apart from the papers relating to the lands owned by the family, there are interesting papers to do with the maintenance of the house. For example, DDFA(5)/13/74 contains the details sent by the Northern Vaccuum Cleaner Company of Leeds for cleaning Escrick Hall in 1904 and DDFA(5)/13/90 indicates that the following year the family were looking into fire protection. Papers relating to early services such as water, electricity and the telephone also exist (DDFA[5]/13/81, 99, 102, 325). Some photographs of the gardens at Escrick in the late nineteenth century are at DDFA(3)/9/72.

The family's involvement with their locality is clearly shown in papers such as those about the maintenance of local schools and the village church (for example, DDFA[5]/13/89). In December 1902, there was a servants' ball held at Escrick and a programme, with a list of dances is at DDFA[5]/13/48. Like so many private landowners, the Barons Wenlock were also involved in railway development. In 1911 Beilby Lawley sold some of his fine collection of paintings by Romney, Gainsborough, Vandyke and Reynolds to finance the Derwent Valley Light Railway. Papers to do with this railway before and after 1911 can be found at DDFA/40/53-54; DDFA(5)/13/131, 173, 343 and DDFA(6)/13/3. At the death of the 3rd Baron Wenlock the family owned 15,000 of shares and they continued to maintain this business interest (DDFA[5]/11/10[h]; Neave, `Escrick Hall and park', p.29; DDFA/36/8).

The 3rd Baron Wenlock continued to buy property and add to the Escrick estates of his family. In 1898 he paid 32,500 for the manor, mansion house and estate at Skipwith (DDFA[4]/5/23) and in 1907 he bought 93 acres to add to his estates in Stillingfleet (DDFA/15/94). However, by 1894 he was worrying about death duties and how detrimental they would be to the family fortune. He discussed the problem with two of his brothers at the time. Death duties will `involve the slow yet sure disintegration of Escrick and all other such estates' he noted in his diary (DDFA[3]/9/38). A speech attacking Lloyd George and death duties made by a member of the family is at DDFA(3)/9/77. When he died, he left 100 to his butler and sums of 50 and smaller to other servants. He complained of wanting to leave more, but said he felt constrained by death duties which were likely to be in the order of 67,000. He raised the amount he wanted to leave to his only child, Irene Constance, from 15,000 to 20,000. He left his wife, Constance, 1000 and a diamond necklace which she was allowed to keep for her lifetime (DDFA[3]/9/38). An enormous effort went into settling his many estates. Inventories of furniture, paintings and heirlooms were done, not just in Escrick Hall but in two London houses at 29 Berkeley Square and 50 Portland Place (DDFA/36/8; DDFA/40/51 56, 57; DDFA[5]/11/7-12; DDFA[5]/13/120, 178-179; DDFA[5]/21/14-15). Some estates were sold (DDFA/31/5). Once it was all done his estate was valued at over half a million pounds and it turned out he had underestimated the death duties he would owe - the account came in at 84,904 (DDFA[5]/11/10).

Irene Constance Lawley made a momentous decision upon the death of her father. She decided that her depleted inheritance would not leave enough money for her properly to run Escrick and she moved out into the house at Skipwith that her father had bought in 1898. She sent a note about this, accompanied by her photograph, to all her tenants and the pathos of this act evoked national sympathy; what she had done was recorded in many newspapers and the cuttings are at DDFA(3)/9/35. Farms were sold off for a few years (DDFA[6]/12/1-9). Skipwith remained the family house and it was altered and extended in the early 1930s (DDFA[5]/11/303). In 1935 she turned Escrick Hall into flats and papers to do with their management are at DDFA(5)/14. In 1948 Escrick Hall was let to Queen Margaret's School and the school is still there, with classes held in the old stable block (DDFA[5]/13/1086-1093).

Irene Constance Lawley had been born in 1889. She was only 22 years old when her father died. She was interested in caring for the sick and had done some training with St John's Ambulance Association (DDFA[3]/9/40). In 1914 war broke out and a hospital was set up in Escrick Park for wounded officers. An enormous number of letters and Christmas cards, as well as a few photographs were sent to Irene during the war and after from the men cared for at the hospital (DDFA[3]/6/43-5). The correspondence of Irene Constance Lawley is the most considerable in the Forbes-Adam papers and it is clear that she was a prolific letter-writer. Apart from the letters she received from the wounded during the first world war, she also received hundreds of letters from friends and family travelling in pre-war Europe and then serving in the forces once the war began. For example, the collection contains 12 letters from her uncle, Richard Lawley, from India and South Africa; 125 letters from Phyllis Windsor-Clive from India, France and Germany and around 400 letters from Barbara Jekyll (later Lady Freyberg) from Egypt, France, Spain, Switzerland and Belgium (DDFA[3]/6/3-5). Her aunt, the historian, Alethea Wiel Lawley wrote to her from her home in Italy between 1912 and 1917 (DDFA[3]/6/20).

Between 1910 and 1920 she received around 130 letters from Leonard Parker of the Royal Flying Corps (DDFA[3]/6/13). Another member of the Royal Flying Corps, Lance Page, sent 46 letters from Gallipolli, Mesopotamia and France (DDFA[3]/6/14). Edmund, 5th Earl of Limerick sent her 76 letters and a photograph of the 6th squadron and the Royal Flying Corps (DDFA[3]/6/27). The Honourable Guy Charteris wrote to her from Malta, France, Canada and the United States (DDFA[3]/6/15). 150 letters were sent from Frank Balfour in the Sudan between 1913 and 1919 (DDFA[3]/6/26). Francis Rodd, later Lord Rennell of the Rodd, sent her 150 letters while on war service from Italy, Egypt, Turkey and Bulgaria. Between 1914 and 1921 Morris Gray sent her 53 letters from the United States (DDFA[3]/6/29).

Just before the outbreak of the first world war she received several letters from two young German men, Egon Leuder and Hans Gunther Vogel. The latter sent her a picture of himself and a picture of the Flensburg naval college in Germany (DDFA[3]/6/16, 19). She seems to have had a large number of admirers. Around 125 British soldiers wrote to her during the first world war and many sent photographs (DDFA[3]/6/32). One of the more interesting bundles is that of about a hundred letters from Belgian soldiers and refugees, again including a number of photographs (DDFA[3]/6/31). Irene Constance Lawley's correspondence is a wonderful source for anyone researching the social dimension of the first world war. In addition to the letters already enumerated, she received letters from Eric Ward (later earl of Dudley); Ivor, Viscount Windsor (and later earl of Plymouth); Bernard Freyberg (later first Lord Freyberg); Oliver Lyttleton (later Viscount Chandos); Roxburgh Stuart Wortley; Ralph Cavendish and many others, all on war service (see DDFA[3]/6/33-41, 46).

On 10 October 1916 she attended the memorial service at St Margaret's in Westminster for the Honourable Edward Wyndham Tennant who had been killed in action in France on the 22nd of the previous month. The order of service and a memorial booklet are at DDFA(3)/6/46-47. The memorial booklet contains a printed drawing of Edward dated 17 August 1915 and his last letter home to his mother written two days before he died. `To-night we go up to the trenches we were in, and to-morrow or the next day we go over the top...I am full of hope and trust, and I pray that I may be worthy of my fighting ancestors...I have never been prouder of anything, except your love for me, than I am of being a Grenadier'. He was 19 years old.

There are numerous other items of interest in the Forbes-Adam collection for a researcher interested in the first world war. The organization of the war effort at home is represented by material on the training of Canadian horses for the army (DDFA[5]/13/143); the National War Savings Committee (DDFA[5]/13/192-193) and the National Service Scheme (DDFA[5]/13/231). Also in the collection are the field almanac of Bertram Pearson, 1916 (DDFA[3]/9/44); a German field postcard of 1914 (DDFA[3]/9/78); as well as two trench maps, a list of code messages and a field hymn book for Roman Catholic members of the German army and the transcript copy of a war diary (DDFA[3]/9/79-87).

In 1920 Irene Lawley met and married Colin Forbes-Adam, the 3rd son of Sir Frank Forbes-Adam, a successful businessman in India and Manchester. Over 200 letters of congratulation on the marriage are at DDFA(3)/6/56. However, the family solicitor did not feel like celebrating. It meant Irene writing a new will and he had to consider the possibility of her not producing an heir and the inheritance moving sideways, as she wished to make no specific provision for her husband. After the death of the 3rd Lord Wenlock, the actual title had been inherited by his brother, Richard, who had had a relatively undistinguished career in the army and colonial civil service and died in 1918. Thus, in 1920 the title was held by yet another brother, Algernon, prebendary of St Paul's. He had only a daughter, so the heir presumptive was another younger brother, Arthur (portrait at DDFA/40/55), who also had only daughters. The solicitor speculated on the nightmare of estate duties that could result. If Arthur Lawley remarried at any stage and had a son who died the estate would pass back to his eldest daughter, only `loaded with the Estate Duty...And if there were twin boys, and they died one after the other, there would be double Estate Duty'. It was decided to let the inheritance of Escrick move colaterally and then through a female line because death duties meant `that the old inherent right of males to priority is...falling into disuse' (DDFA[5]/13/462). Arthur was in the colonial service; he was governor of Western Australia for two years and he followed in the footsteps of his older brother, the 3rd baron, when he became governor of Madras in 1905. He did eventually become the 6th baron, but the peerage became extinct when he died in 1932.

Colin Forbes-Adam was in the Indian civil service and he and Irene went out to India after their marriage. Irene Lawley kept in very regular contact with her mother (Constance died in 1932; DDFA[3]/9/35 and DDFA[3]/6/79). The correspondence between the two women is intact and numbers some 750 letters (DDFA[5]/5/35; DDFA[6]/6/1). Other correspondents included Diana Duff Cooper (later Viscountess Norwich); Eve Fairfax; Victor Bulwer-Lytton (later earl of Lytton); George Lloyd (later Lord Lloyd of Dolobran); Blanche Lloyd (later Lady Lloyd of Dolobran); Donald Somervell (later Lord Somervell of Harrow); Irene Charteris (later countess of Plymouth) and Ursula, Lady Ridley (all in DDFA[3]/6).

DDFA(3)/6 also contains many letters from members of Irene's family. For example, there are six letters from her uncle, the Earl of Desart (DDFA[3]/6/72). There are also around 250 letters addressed to her from her husband and dated between 1920 and 1956 (DDFA[3]/6/60) and many letters to her from her children, Virginia Mary (b.1922), Stephen Timothy Beilby (b.1923), Desmond Francis (b.1926) and Nigel Colin (b.1930) (DDFA[3]/6/69, 81-82). DDFA(3)/6/78 is a bundle of some 150 letters from her son, Timothy, many of which were written on service during the second world war. DDFA(3)/6/88 is a bundle of about another 150 letters from various family members and friends dated between 1912 and her death in 1956.

Colin and Irene Forbes-Adam retired in 1927.. Their residence in England ensured that items of interest for the second world war also appear in the collection. For example, there is material from the East Riding of Yorkshire executive of the War Agricultural Committee as well as a number of items about war memorials and the Air Ministry's requisitioning of land in Escrick (DDFA[5]/1/3-14; DDFA[5]/13/969-970, 1057, 971-973, 1049-1055; DDFA[5]/22/28).

The family had strong connections with India with both the 3rd Lord Wenlock and 6th Lord Wenlock holding the post of governor of Madras (Beilby and Arthur Lawley both had a number of pieces of political and travel journalism about India published in the 1890s and 1920s) and with Irene Lawley marrying a member of the Indian civil service. The correspondence of these generations of the family make valuable research material about India. There are some letters of an earlier age. For example, Richard England wrote about his service in India in the 1840s (DDFA/39/51) and in 1851 Lady Elizabeth Lawley received a letter describing the Taj Mahal (DDFA/39/38). In 1859 Tom Dayrell wrote to describe his life in India (DDFA/39/37). In 1860 S T Canning wrote to Sir Charles Wood saying he was retiring as governor general of India, but that he wanted to carry through some constitutional changes first (DDFA[3]/8/26). The deposit of miscellaneous items at DDFA(3)/9 contains a number of notices of entertainments amongst the ex-patriot community, including an exhibition of paintings of India by Lady Constance Wenlock shown on her return at the Sunderland art gallery (her paintings were collected into a book, Southern India, and described by Fanny Penny, the chronicler and romance novelist of Indian life - a painting of Annie Allen Lawley, Arthur Lawley's wife, features in this book).

While the Forbes-Adam family papers do have concentrations of papers on research areas such as Indian history and the social history of the first world war, in large part it is a collection of memorabilia. At DDFA/8/1 it can be discovered that Kexby manor was granted to Robert Ughtred on 5 May 1552 `in consideration of injuries done to him by Cardinel Wolsey'. DDFA(5)/21/11 is a poster for Signor T Somerfield's `celebrated refined troupe of Negro minstrels' dated 4 February 1899 and DDFA/43/27 is an agreement for stopping the trains at Escrick station at Lord Wenlock's request in 1864. There are letters from Lords Middleton and Carlisle dated 1826 and 1839 respectively and a letter from Lord Grosvenor dated 1852 saying that he would like Gladstone to pitch into Disraeli because the latter `has no shame about him' (DDFA/39/38). Most importantly, in the correspondence of Irene Lawley there are four letters from Vita (Victoria) Sackville-West from the 1920s (DDFA[3]/6/75).

From the guide to the Papers of the Forbes Adam/Thompson/Lawley (Barons Wenlock) Family of Escrick, 1387-1988, (Hull University, Brynmor Jones Library)