| Located At | Staffordshire Record Office |
| Level | Collection |
| Doc Ref No | 4906, 7336, 7850 |
| Title | Records of the Chetwynd family of Brocton, Staffordshire, and Grendon, Warwickshire |
| Administrative History | The Chetwynd family's Staffordshire estate was at Brocton on the edge of Cannock Chase. There was also a Warwickshire estate at Grendon near Atherstone, and they had an interest in the manor of Norton-in-the-Moors [19th-early 20th century] which including coal mines.
The family was related to the Viscounts Chetwynd and inherited Grendon Hall c.1800 after a distant branch of the family died out. They came to Stafford when the 1st Baronet stood as Member of Parliament in 1820, and he was Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for many years.
The family left Staffordshire in 1922. The remaining estate is now owned by Brocton Golf Club.
Information about the family, supplied by the donor of accession 7336:
"The family had lived in the house [Brocton Hall] over a very long time, and it was said that they kept a room, the Eagle Room, over a front entrance especially for Charles II to entertain his lady friends. It was in recognition of this that the King gave the family a pair of bow-fronted french cabinets. The upper storey of the house was lost through a fire which was started when a workman was repairing one of the out-buildings at the back of the house.
"There was said to be a ghost that was seen only by members of the family and was known as the "Lady in Grey". She seems to have been quite a benign ghost and was once seen looking into the pram at the baby, one of the young Chetwynds. Presumably no one sees the ghost now as the family is long gone.
"The family: Mrs Chetwynd after leaving Brocton Hall in 1922 lived in London in Kensington with her younger daughter Mildred. When the Second World War started she moved in with her older daughter Beatrice who lived in Dulwich in South London. By this time she was old and frail and it was here she died not long after the war ended. Charles Chetwynd: (I only met him once or twice). He was Mrs Chetwynd's favourite and was rescued by her from difficult situations more than once. He was married twice. His final home was in Jersey. Mildred Chetwynd: the youngest of the three offspring, she did not marry nor was she in paid work. She lived with her mother and after the war lived in a hotel in Tunbridge Wells. She engaged in a lot of voluntary work related to hospitals and charities. She was a talented musician and played the piano for dancing and at parties in the Brocton Hall days. Beatrice Chetwynd: The oldest of the three siblings (and the one I knew best). She moved to London when she was in her early twenties and trained as a nurse and then as a midwife. She worked at the General Lying-In Hospital in London situated on the south side of Westminster Bridge. Later she went on to work as a District Midwife in the area near Waterloo Station. This was then all tenement buildings housing the true London Cockneys. We heard many stories about them and their traditions. A few examples - Cockney women always wore their boots while giving birth. Living conditions were difficult with only one cold water tap in the yard for each building. Her midwifery bag contained amongst other things a pie-dish to fetch water in and brown paper to wrap the baby in, in case there were no clothes. Costermongers used to deliver their wives in labour to the hospital on their hand carts from the market. Later Beatrice Chetwynd, together with three friends who were also midwives, set up a Nursing Home for mothers to have their babies in in South East London. This was before the Second World War and pre-NHS. Sometime before the war Beatrice Chetwynd returned to district midwifery and during the war she was employed by the London County Council to evacuate pregnant mothers out of London, by train, to the country for their confinements. Inevitably sometimes the baby came during the journey causing a degree of alarm amongst the other mothers and requiring some quick thinking and improvisation on the part of the midwife (Sister Chetwynd was well able to deal with these situations). It was during the war, when her friend, one of the other midwives, was killed in an air-raid, that she adopted her friend's daughter Hilary." [The donor of accession 7336 first met Hilary at Camberwell School of Art and through her inherited these documents.] |
| Description | Accession 7336 consists of early deeds, probate and family settlements, 1623-1804 [includes Common Recovery for the Manor of Brocton, 12 Geo.II [1738]; miscellaneous personal and official papers, personal correspondence (including a small bundle of letters from William Fawkener Chetwynd to Mary Ann Mosley, in the year of their marriage, 1843), printed items, family photographs and portraits. These also include army commissions, County Treasurer's accounts, Stafford prison accounts, Stafford election papers, Brocton Hall furniture sale catalogue 1922.
Accession 7850 consists of a small amount of additional material from the same source. |
| Extent | (1 box) |
| Related Material | There is further clients' material in the solicitors' collections Hand Morgan & Owen of Stafford (D1798 and D3941), and Frere Cholmeley Bischoff of London (D3519); also in the collection of Heatons of Endon, surveyors (D1176 and D6920).
These include documents of the Manor of Norton-in-the-Moors.
D908 and D942 contain documents and maps relating to the Chetwynd and Sparrow mining interests around Norton-in-the Moors, and have been separately catalogued in a solicitor's collection.
Artefacts which came with accessions 7336 and 7850 are now with the County Museum Service, including staff uniforms, braid and miniature portraits, other ephemera.
For material about the Warwickshire Estate, see Warwickshire Record Office. |