Catalogue description The Fitzherberts of Swynnerton

There are a few medieval documents relating to the Derbyshire estate and less relating to that of Swynnerton, nevertheless there are a number of bundles of deeds and similar papers marking later purchase of different properties. Intermixed with these and elsewhere in the collection are what, in total, is an interesting set of documents about private enclosure and the aftermath of parliamentary enclosure on the administration of the estate.

The sections on settlements and wills are fairly full but although there are documents relating to the sale of the White Ladies and Boscobel estate in the 18th century (including maps of 1753 - photocopies only), the acquisition of this estate is not documented; similarly although the important Hamstall Ridware estate had been acquired when Sir Anthony Fitzherbert himself married (? c.1500) the heiress of the Cotton family, it was sold shortly after 1600 to the Leighs of Warwickshire.

Although there are no large scale books of surveys of the estate, nevertheless scattered material of this type does form a very useful series for the 18th and 19th century, in both the Staffordshire and the Derbyshire estates. Similarly there are a number of useful maps from the 18th century onwards. There are no long groups of main series accounts, but the surviving groups of accounts and rentals, not to mention the quite elaborate, but spasmodic departmental accounts could well form a useful corpus of information when used systematically.

The estate correspondence starts c. 1775 but its main feature is the papers of the important 19th century agent R. S. Ford (1828 - 54). Ford had something of a national reputation.

Information from these estate papers, taken together with individual letters and accounts etc. in the personal papers of members of the family form, of course, an important source of information concerning certain aspects of the Catholic community during the 18th and 19th century, though again there is no large block of letters.

Some of the information is about the construction of chapels and schools, but among the correspondence of Lucy Dormer (grand-daughter of Thomas Fitzherbert - died 1778) are a few letters of Cardinal Manning (curiously enough the main contribution of her father, James Dormer, to the collection is a series of songs collected by him).

The personal accounts and papers are considerable in size and contain much material of interest. However they were received in very considerable disorder and much of their arrangement is artificial and hypothetical, so some errors in allocation must be inevitable, particularly where a family like the Fitzherberts gave such preference to the names of Basil and Thomas in naming their eldest sons.

Although the personal section and also the estate administration material does contain information on work on Swynnerton Hall and there are a few plans of the hall and its outbuildings, nevertheless this is all dated from 1800 or later and there is no documentation of the building of the hall about 100 years earlier apart from a plan (photocopy only) of proposals by Lancelot Brown for the park, undated but presumably mid 18th century.

The plans of White Ladies and Boscobel, referred to above (photocopies only) do of course give the earliest known representation of the area in which King Charles II wandered during his flight from Worcester just a little over 100 years previously.

In the 1830s Michael Jones was employed to make an elaborate history of the family and his two volumes, containing this history, remain at Swynnerton. With the facilities available at the time of the deposit of the collection and the nature of the volumes itself, it was not felt advisable to microfilm them. These volumes contain not only an elaborate history of the family, which is illustrated, but a number of original documents as well. Further Mr. Jones examined and rearranged a considerable number of the family documents and in veiw of the close relationship of these documents to the "History" the order left by Mr. Jones has been retained as far as these documents are concerned.

Although viewed as a whole the collection has not got the coherence of the sections of this collection relating to the Jerningham and Sulyard families it is nevertheless far more substantial than the papers relating to the Stafford-Howards.

A pedigree of the Fitzherbert family is in S.H.C. First Series Vol. VII part 2, p.113 - 17.

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Family background

The Fitzherbert family became landowners in Derbyshire in the 12th century and the senior branch of the family was associated with Norbury in that county until the closing years of the 19th century. In the 16th century William Fitzherbert, fourth son of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert of Norbury married the co-heiress of Humphrey Swynnerton of Swynnerton, whose families had owned Swynnerton for much of the middle ages. The settlement of Swynnerton on William Fitzherbert is documented both in this collection between 1550 and 1560 (D641/5/T/16 - 9) and in the Vernon collection, a family which married the other Swynnerton heiress (D(W)1790).

Swynnerton has descended in the Fitzherbert family until the present time.

In 1858 Basil Thomas Fitzherbert married Emily Stafford-Jerningham daughter on the honourable Edward Stafford-Jerningham and sister of Fitzherbert Edward Stafford-Jerningham, 11th Baron Stafford. On the failure of the male heirs to the Stafford barony her son Francis Edward Fitzherbert succeeded his uncle as Lord Stafford in 1913.

The family pedigree explains the occurrence particularly in the correspondence section of D641/5 of the greater number of the members of the family whose correspondence is preserved here.

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