Whatmore Family History

There seems to be general acceptance that the Dyson family originated at Linthwaite near Huddersfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The majority of those with the surname Dyson are from the West  Riding of Yorkshire and research by Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University ¹ has shown that the majority of the Dyson males from the West Riding whose DNA he sampled, had an identical or very similar Y chromosome structure, indicating a commonancestor.  By calculating the number of mutations which had taken place in the Y chromosomes, it seemed that the common ancestor had lived about 27¹₂  generations ago. Allowing 25 years per generation, this common ancestor would have been living about 1314.  George Redmonds, an expert on the surnames of the West Riding ² suggested that this common ancestor was likely to be a John Dyson who is named in the records of Wakefield Manor Court in 1316, and who is known to be the son of a Dyonisia of Linthwaite near Hudderfield who was a cattle stealer and who is named in the records of Wakefield Manor Court in 1280 and again in 1306.

This Dyonsia was married to a Peter Mallesheved (of Moleshead, Golcar, across the river from Linthwaite) and who also had a daughter known as Agnes Dyedokter who was living at Rastrick in 1330. ³ Linthwaite is a small town alongside the river Colne, about four miles south west of Huddersfield.  It was only a chapelry in the parish of Almondbury until 1828 when Christ Church was built. The earliest Dysons would thus have been baptized, married and buried at Almondbury church.

 The place name ‘Linthwaite’ (pronounced ‘Linfit’) is  Old Norse. It means ‘Clearing where flax is grown’.⁴ The Vikings settled in Yorkshire between 876 and 880 and Linthwaith could have been founded by them, but it is just as likely that the settlement already existed and was renamed by the invaders. A pre-Viking settlement would have been inhabited by Angles from Angeln in Schleswig Holstein at the base of the Danish peninsula, but intermingled with the Angles would have remnants of the previous Celtic population – members of the Brigantes tribe. It is thus impossible to determine the earliest origin of the family which became known as ‘Dyson.’ 

The Wakefield Manor Court Records for 1286 refer to Dyonisia de Mallesheved with  John and Adam her brothers, seizing ten cows and driving them to Dyonisia’s pound in Croslande. The Dyson home was thus somewhere in the Crosland area which lies to the south of Linthwaite. Dyonisia and Peter would appear to be sheep and cattle farmers and would seem to be well-to-do since even at this early period the family were already apparently accumulating the lands and properties which enabled them to acquire the status of yeomen later on.

South Crosland near Linthwaite   Photocopyright: Humphrey Bolton        Source: Geograph website and reproduced here under the terms of the site licence which can be viewed ot this link:

Dyonisia’s son was known both as John Dyson of Lyntwayt and as John de Langeside. After quite a search I discovered that in the 13^th century Langsett was known as Langeside. Langsett is in the parish of Penistone, and is twelve miles south east of Huddersfield. We can be quite sure that this is the correct location of ‘Langside’ as  records show that on 18 May 1367, in a quitclaim, Henry de Birley gave all rights in the messauge of Bromheved in Hallamshire to John de Langside.⁵  Broomhead  was located  just to the south of Langsett, and was in the Chapelry of Bradfield in the parish of Ecclesfield.

Langett Moors   Photograph Copyright: John Fielding    Source: Geograph Website  and reproduced in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be viewed at this link:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A quitclaim is a term used to describe a document by which a person disclaims any interest in a piece of property and passes that claim to another person. Quitclaim deeds were often used when transferring properties to a relative.

I know little about Henry de Birley, except that he was a franklin (i.e. a freeholder not of noble birth but with extensive property), that he made his will on 1 May 1391 was buried on  21 June 1391 at Ecclesfield church.

John de Langside transferred his rights to trustees who in turn in 1369 transferred these rights to William son of John de Hunshelf and Agnes his wife. Later on, William’s sister, another Agnes, married John Wilson who was the heir to the Broomhead estate. ⁶ The author of the article in which this information appears states that there must have been some family connection between John de Langside and John de Hunshelf. Since we know, however, that John de Langside’s sister was an Agnes, it seems very probable that she  had married John de Hunshelf and that John de Langside was giving properties rights to his nephew William.

The Wilson line at Broomhead prospered and  during the reign of Charles I, Christopher Wilson rebuilt the house in contemporary style. This house was unfortunately demolished in the 1980s.

 John de Langside had a son called John as the records show that William, son of John de Hunshelf was to pay rent for Broomhill Manor to John, son of John de Langside, or to his sisters.⁷ 

The next Dysons who can be traced at Linthwaite are Adam Dyson and his son John. Whilst we cannot be certain  where Adam Dyson fits into the early tree, for the sake of simplicity I have shown him in my chart as the grandson of John de Langside. In his history of Almondbury, published in 1882 ⁸ Charles Augustus Hulbert states that in the reign of Edward III (1327 – 1377)  John Brockholes granted the messuage of Over Brockholes or Bank End to John Dyson, son of Adam Dyson of Lynthwaite.

Mr Hulbert speculates that John, son of Adam Dyson, may have been the occupant of the old house called ‘The Kitchen’ , attached to Linthwaite Hall but nearer to Slaithwaite  ‘where the family of Dyson remained until about 30 years ago (i.e. about 1850) when the last member – a blacksmith of eccentric character – expired.’ ⁹ Just south of Lingards, Slaithwaite, is an area called ‘Kitchen Clough’ which would seem to be the location of the house to which Mr Hulbert refers. This location is quite close to Linthwaite Hall. There is no evidence that the Hall itself was ever occupied by the Dyson family.

Kitchen Clough, Slaithwaite    Photograph Copyright:  Sue Trescott    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/

Also living at Linthwaite during the reign of Edward III, in the area called ‘Hoyle House’ was a Jenkyn Dyson about whom I know nothing further.

Far away from Yorkshire, at Inkberrow in Worcestershire, a Dyson family was well established by the 1470s when a Henry Dyson who lived at Nobury Manor in Inkberrow, built or rebuilt the tower of Inkberrow Church. ¹⁰This Henry was probably born about 1440. Since the manor house at Nobury was in ruins in the 1390s, the father of Henry must been responsible for the building of the new manor house on a site closer to Inkberrow church.

The Dysons of Inkberrow used a crest and coat of arms which was identical to that used later on by the Dyson families at Halifax. The earliest Dyson  I have traced in Worcestershire was a John Dyesone who paid 9d at Terdebigge et Bentleye in the Lay Subsidy of 1327. No Dysons, however, are mentioned in the Lay Sunsidies for Worcestershire of 1332/3, 1340, 1346 and 1358. If the Dysons of Inkberrow are descended from the Dysons of Linthwaite then the migration of a member of the family to Worcestershire must have taken place during the reign of Edward III. On my chart I have shown a speculative link to Adam Dyson of Linthwaite.

The Tower of Inkberrow Church     Photograph copyright: Phillip Halling   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/

The next early Dysons to be traced at Linthwaite are a John Dyson who was living in 1492 and an Edward Dyson at Crosland, living in 1545. These Dysons are mentioned in the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield.

The Dysons spread out rapidly from Linthwaite into the surrounding area, but many families remained in the town itself and in the neighbouring town of Slaithwaite. Of course boundaries  will have changed over the years, but the following figures give a general idea of the vitality of the Dyson family in their original heartland:

I am most grateful to my cousin, Hazel Wells (nee Dyson) of Garrowby who first drew my attention to the research of Professor Bryan Sykes, and to Gordon Dyson of Manchester for his research into the Wakefield Manor Court Rolls which has provided an outline of the early Dyson family at Linthwaite.

No doubt a researcher with easy access to the archives at Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield could discover more about the early Dysons in the Linthwaite area, but at least we now have an outline of their history.

Notes

1 ‘Adam’s Curse’ by Bryan Sykes  Bantam Press 2003 page 198

2 Ibid

 3 ‘History of Brighouse, Rastrick and Hipperholme’ J Horsfall Turner   Published by Thomas Harrison and Sons  Bingley 1893 page 72

4 ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names’ Eilert Ekwall

Oxford Clarendon Press 1964

5 ‘On the Origin, descent and the alliances of the family of Wilson of Bromhead’   Rev. Joseph Hunter   Article in ‘Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal’ Volume V  1879

6 Ibid

7 Ibid

8 ‘Annals of the Church and Parish of Almondbury, Yorkshire’   Charles Augustus Hulbert  Longmans  London 1882

9 Ibid

10 Jeff Dyson’s website on the Dysons of Worcestershire    http://www.dyson-family-of-worcestershire.co.uk/