Whatmore Family History

In this post we turn our attention to Soyland, a small village a few miles to the west of Halifax and some five miles as the crow flies to the north of Linthwaite.  At Soyland is Upper Swifts Place - the earliest that we can definitely  identify of the fine houses which were homes to the Dysons of Halifax. There is no known Dyson connection with the house known as ‘Lower Swifts Place’ 

E. W. Crossley, in a paper on the Dyson family describes the Dysons of Soyland as:

  ‘a typical yeoman family…. Occupiers of small parcels of land, or at the most of a few acres. After a while by dint of industry and thrift they became the owners, under the Lord of the Manor, of small tenements, which as time wore on, they gradually and substantially increased both in extent and number. At length, by their shrewd business acumen, their wealth so increased that they became prominent among their neighbours as owners of land. They traded, in their capacity as clothiers and merchants, in the great metropolis.’ 

The land around Soyland was only suitable for the grazing of sheep so most of the farmers supplemented their income by woollen cloth weaving. Several beautiful weavers’ cottages still exist at Soyland.

Some of these weavers eventually became merchants, buying finished woollen cloth and selling it not only locally but in places as far away as London  where they had stalls at the annual cloth fair at St Bartholmew’s, West Smithfield, held every year on 23 – 25  August. As the trade developed a weekly cloth market was established at Blackwell Hall, Bassington Street, London. Some of these merchants were members of our Dyson family who became very wealthy.

Soyland    Photograph Copyright: Mark Anderson   Source: Geograph website and reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be viewed at this link:    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

As the name suggests, Swifts Place was originally the home of the local Swift family but they had moved elsewhere by 1488 when a Christopher Dyson bought rights to the house. In 1490 Christopher Dyson took out a 46 year lease.  We know little of Christopher except that his wife was an Agnes. He was probably born about 1472 or a little earlier. It is not known whether he was the first Dyson to live at Swifts Place.  Christopher and Agnes had two known children – Henry and John.

 Turning first to John who would seem to have been the younger son, he had a large number of children: Agnes, Elizabeth, George, Gilbert, Johanna, Peter, Rosamond and John. We known  very little of what became of these children. Gilbert married an Elizabeth and they had a daughter also called Elizabeth whilst John who was baptised at Elland on 23 October 1575 married  a Sarah Denton on 10 August 1590. Their children included a Robert, possibly born about 1623 and I would like to think that this was the same Robert who had a son John baptised at Staveley, Derbyshire on 15 February 1664, thus founding the branch of the Dyson family to which I belong – but I have no proof of this. 

Source: Halifax Antiquarian Journal

Turning now to the elder son Henry born about 1529, he married an Alice and inherited Swifts Place. He was buried at Elland on 16 August 1573 and Alice was buried there on 30 January 1577. Henry and Alice had two known children – Alice and Thomas. Thomas inherited Swifts Place and married a Christabell. He was buried at Elland on 5 December 1577 and Christabell was buried there on 6 May 1602. 

The known children of Thomas and Christabell were Grace, Jane, Johanna, Christabell (1559),  Abraham (1563), John 1568 and Richard (1574). As the eldest son, Abraham inherited Swifts Place. He married an Alice.  Records show that in 1613 Abraham bought a messuage in Soyland and this was probably Swifts Place. Abraham was buried at Elland on 22 June 1621. Alice died in 1643. 

The known children of Abraham and Alice were Abraham (1598), Susannah (1600), Thomas (1602), Simeon (1603), Samuel (1604), and Martha (1606).  Abraham married a Dorothy Crowder in 1626 and their daughter Dorothy (born 1627) married Jeremy Bentley was the first MP for Halifax. Thomas married a Sarah Dyson from Huddersfield  and they had a called named William. Simeon inherited Swifts Hall and will be described below. Samuel married Maria Fielden in 1637 and they had a large family. What happened to Martha is unknown but her sister Susannah married a Richard Townsend. 

Source: Halifax Antiquarian Journal

Returning to Simeon Dyson – he married Martha Firth on 10 February 1625 at Elland.  A year earlier he had either rebuilt Swifts Place or encased it in stone. The initials of  SMD for Simeon and Martha Dyson, are still  to be  seen on a stone in the wall. Simeon was also responsible for installing a magnificent fireplace.  

Simeon and Martha had a large family. Their known children were:  

Susannah (1626) who married a Henry Riley. 

Simeon 1628 who pre-deceased his father and had three known children – Simeon, (1654) Martha and Mary.  It was Simeon (son of Simeon born 1628 who inherited Swifts Place under the will of his grandfather. 

Martha (1630) who married Edmund Tattershall of the Hollins, Warley. 

Abraham (1632) Joseph (1634) whose children were Elizabeth and Martha. 

Henry (1637) who married Maria Ramsden and went to live at Lower Goat House. Henry’s branch of the family will be described in later post) 

Jacob (1637) 

Mary (1639) who married a Thomas Bates

 Samuel (About 1640) The last Dyson to own Swifts Place was Simeon (born 1654) the son of the Simeon born 1628. He married Ester Clayton on 29 Sept 1678. Their known children were Hester, Hester and Simeon. Simeon born 1654 sold Swifts Place in 1690 to a member of the Hoyle family (probably Elkanah Hoyle). In 1698 Elkanah Hoyle had the house rebuilt or remodelled. Thus ended over two hundred and eighteen years of known occupancy of Swifts Place by the Dyson family. 

Sources: 

‘Upper Swift Place in Soyland’   Hugh K Kendall Halifax Antiquarian Society Journal  6 June 1915 

‘The Dyson Family Part One’   E W Crossley Halifax Antiquarian Society Journal  2 October 1917