Dorothea Brack was born circa 1770 and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. She was probably the daughter of James Brack of Durham County, who married Dorothy Clayton of Newcastle in 1769. Apparently orphaned at a young age, she grew up in the family of her maternal uncle, Alderman William Clayton, and never married. She took her mother's family name in 1814, becoming Dorothea Clayton. By the 1830s, she owned property in Durham County, a house and stable in London, and had many thousands of pounds invested in stocks. By the time of her death, she possessed more than £65,000 in assets. Dorothea's London house was located in Paddington Parish just north of Hyde Park, at 6 Hyde Park Street. It was probably built in the late 1820s or 1830s, and Dorothea may have been its first owner. One of her heirs described it many years later: "The house purchased by my relatives in an unfinished state & was completed without regard to expense & is I believe one of the best houses in the street. It is completed furnished almost entirely from Gillows [i.e. Gillows & Co., a London furniture firm]." When she died on September 15, 1849, Dorothea left the London house to her nephew, William Clayton Walters. William was the second son of Dorothea's adoptive sister, Isabella, and Robert Walters, a Newcastle attorney. Following in his father's and maternal grandfather's footsteps, he entered the field of law, studying at Lincoln's Inn. Though he soon became a practicing barrister, he gained more fame as a writer. Dorothea named William the executor of her estate. He inherited her house, and claimed a further £40,000 as a repayment of a sum that he said he had lent her seven months before her death. However, it is unclear whether there had truly been a loan, or if William simply wanted to avoid paying duties on that portion of her estate. William never lived in the London house. He leased it to a series of tenants beginning just one month after Dorothea died. In later years, he would try unsuccessfully to sell it with all of its furnishings intact. It stayed in his hands until 1871, when he (or perhaps his son of the same name) mortgaged it to a relative, John Clayton.
From the description of Clayton family papers, 1814-1871. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702203678
