Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford, 1st Baronet, DL (22 March 1778 – 10 November 1852) was a member of a prominent family of English Roman Catholics. He served as commander of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry at the time of the Peterloo Massacre. He was born at Croston Hall near Chorley, Lancashire, on 22 March 1778, son of John Trafford and Elizabeth Tempest, and was christened Thomas Joseph Trafford (no de).
Thomas married Laura Anne Colman (born 18 August 1780, baptized 9 November 1780, Cullompton), daughter of Francis Colman (d. 1820) of Hillersdon, Devon, and Jemima Searle (d. 1807), on 17 August 1803, and the couple lived at Trafford Hall, in Trafford Park. They had nine daughters and five sons, [1] including:
After his father's death on 29 October 1815, and despite his position as the fifth son, Thomas inherited his father's estates in Lancashire and Cheshire. Two elder brothers, both named Joseph, had died in infancy and two others, Humphrey and John, had both died before their father.
By 12 November 1819, he is recorded as selling the advowson of the parish of St Bartholomew's Church, Wilmslow, to Edward Vigor Fox for £6,000. This gave the right to nominate the rector when the parish became vacant, and was a right conferred by lordship of the manor in many cases. Selling that right was legal, so long as the post was not already vacant. However, in this case it appears that Trafford and Fox drew up the sale after they learned that Joseph Bradshaw, the incumbent, was close to death. The sale was concluded at ten to three in the afternoon, and Bradshaw died at half past eleven the same night. [6] At the time of the sale, Trafford was major-commandant of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, and Fox was a lieutenant in the same force.
Fox's subsequent nomination of George Uppleby as rector, on 30 December 1819, was contested by the Bishop of Chester, and the case wound through the courts during the 1820s. Eventually on 3 June 1829, the House of Lords heard Fox's appeal of earlier decisions voiding the appointment. The Lords could not find any evidence that Uppleby had conspired with Trafford and Fox to buy the appointment (an offence known as simony) and so they ruled in favor of Fox and Trafford. [6]
Slater's Directory for 1845 names Thomas Ayres as Sir T. J. de Trafford's land agent in Stretford. In Edward Twycross's The Mansions of England and Wales (1847), Thomas is noted as the owner of Trafford Hall in the parish of Eccles on the southern bank of the Irwell, 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Manchester. The mansion is described as built of stone with a front featuring a classical portico with columns and a pediment. [7] Tithe maps from the mid-19th century show that Thomas owned more than 700 plots in the Bollin valley near Wilmslow, amounting to about 430 acres (1.7 km2). [8]
Thomas is recorded as having divided the Manors of Trafford and Stretford, giving land including a portion of Croston Manor to his son John Randolphus. [9] In 1853, John Randolphus applied for a £5,000 government loan to drain lands in "Croston, Penwortham, Wigan." [10] In 1874, John Randolphus reunited Croston Manor for the first time since 1318 by purchasing the remainder from trustees of Thomas Norris.
It appears that Thomas Trafford was alert to the financial opportunities presented by the burgeoning coal mining industry. He leased mining rights at the Pemberton Four Feet Mine in Hindley to a partnership of Byrom, Taylor and Byrom for 33 years from 24 December 1849. Trafford was entitled to rent of "£75 per foot per Cheshire acre, and £100 per annum at the least." This venture evidently did not prove as profitable as the lessors had hoped. Within three years the partnership was bankrupt and the mine lease was auctioned on 27 October 1852. [11]
Thomas Trafford was commissioned as a Captain in the Third Battalion of the Royal Lancashire Militia on 6 March 1801, towards the end of Britain's involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars. [12]
Much later, after the Blanketeers' march of 10 March 1817, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry was formed in response to the perceived threat of riot, Trafford was commissioned as the Major-Commandant in charge of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry on 23 August 1817. [13]
By 1819, social discontent because of rising food prices and lack of suffrage had fueled a rise in radical groups in northern England. On 16 August 1819, Major Trafford was sent a note by a magistrate, local coalowner William Hulton, urging him to dispatch the cavalry regiment to a public meeting being addressed by the orator Henry Hunt. Major Trafford did send his 116 troops in response, but he appears not to have been present for the disastrous attack on the assembled crowd. Fifteen people died and hundreds were wounded. The government and landowners viewed the yeomanry's actions at Peterloo as a courageous defence against insurrection. Following the Peterloo Massacre, on 27 August 1819, Lord Sidmouth sent a message of thanks from the Prince Regent to Major Trafford, among others. However, public horror at the actions of the yeomanry grew after the massacre. Major Trafford resigned his commission in 1820, and the yeomanry corps was disbanded on 9 June 1824. [14]
After the repeal of the Test Acts and the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, the Trafford family became eligible for offices previously barred to them by their religion. Thomas Trafford was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1834. [15] [16] He is also recorded as serving as Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire. [7]
He was created the First Baronet de Trafford on 7 September 1841. On 8 October 1841, Queen Victoria issued a royal licence to "Sir Thomas Joseph Trafford ... that he may henceforth resume the ancient patronymic of his family, by assuming and using the surname of De Trafford, instead of that of 'Trafford' and that such surname may be henceforth taken and used by his issue." [17] The anglicisation to Trafford had probably occurred in the 15th century, when the Norman article "de", signifying that a family originated from a particular place, was generally dropped in England. The resumption of such older versions of family names was a romantic trend in 19th-century England, encouraged by a mistaken belief that the article "de" indicated nobility. [18]
Thomas de Trafford is recorded as living at 12 Grosvenor Street, in Mayfair, London, from 1847 to 1852. [19] In 1852, Thomas was thrown from his horse and broke several ribs. While he was convalescing, his wife, Laura, died on 22 October 1852. The family delayed Laura's burial to 5 November, and Thomas died five days later at Trafford Park on 10 November 1852. Thomas de Trafford's funeral was held on 19 November 1852, with a procession departing Trafford Park at 8:30am. An immense crowd attended the service at Salford Cathedral. [20] [21] [22]
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