William Farndale (ffarndell)

c 1539 to 24 January 1606

The Doncaster Kirkleatham Skelton Line

The couple who married at St Mary Magdalene Church in Campsall north of Doncaster, and who emigrated to Wilton near Kirkleatham, Margaret’s homeland, and were buried in Skelton.

‘I made a chapel in Bernysdale, That seemly is to se, It is of Mary Magdaleyne, And thereto wolde I be’ (The Gest of Robin Hood)

FAR00063

Home Page Return to the Home Page of the Farndale Family Website

The Farndale Story The story of one family’s journey through two thousand years of British History

The Farndale Lineages The 83 family lines into which the family is divided. Meet the whole family and how the wider family is related

The Farndale Directory Members of the historical family ordered by date of birth

Themes Links to other pages with historical research and related material

Related Family Stories The story of the Bakers of Highfields, the Chapmans, and other related families

Headlines of William Farndale’s life are in brown.

Dates are in red.

Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.

References and citations are in turquoise.

Context and local history are in purple.

The evidence explored on the page of William’s father, Nicholas (FAR00059), explains the analysis of the known facts about this family and the most probable narrative of events. If we are right that this is the same William Farndale who died on 24 January 1606 in Skelton, then this explains his move from the Doncaster area to Skelton area.

1539

If William Farndell married at Campsall, north of Doncaster in 1564, say he was aged 25 when he married, then he may have been born in about 1539 probably in the Doncaster area, perhaps in or around Campsall.

He was probably the son of Nicholas Farndale (FAR00059) and Agnes Farndale (FAR00060).

If that is right then his father, Nicholas, would have been 27 when he was born and his mother, Agnes, 23.

1564

William Farndale married Margaret Atkinson at Campsall on 29 October 1564.

In the transcripts for St Mary Magdalene for this marriage, there is only one marriage on 29 October 1564 between a Willelmo ffarndell and a Margreta Atkinson. No further information is given in the transcript and only the two names are given. There is an indexation which records the name as Starndell, but the extract is below and the discrepancy is likely to rest with the later transcriber. This entry is believed to record the marriage between William Farndale and Margaret Atkinson.

The Campsall Parish records began to record baptisms from 1563, marriages from 1564 and burials from 1563 (Doncaster Archives, P15/1/A1). The marriage of William and Margaret was recorded on the first page of the marriage records of the church at Campsall. We have therefore taken the family history to the very beginning of parish records. Before this time it is impossible to be sure about family relationships, even though it is still possible to find records of individual members of the family. William’s name has later been wrongly transcribed at William Starndell.

The date appears in the line above the blue cross and then the record reads Willemo ffarndell et magreta atkinson, nup (married).

I have seen a suggestion by another researcher of a marriage of William to Margaret Kyddall who was born at Skelton in 1539 and who was the daughter of William Kyddall (1510 to 1549) and Margaret Dalyson (1510 to 1593). The suggestion is that Margaret Kydall was born or baptised in Skelton on 16 August 1539. It is possible that Margaret Kydall had married John Atkinson (died 1652 or 1570) before she married William, though the timings of that theory are difficulty to reconcile. I have not found the records behind the Kydall hypothesis.

I think it is most likely that Margaret Atkinson was from the Atkinson family of Wilton, near Kirkleatham, which would explain the reason for the Farndale family move north to Kirkleatham and later Atkinson marriages into the Farndale family.

There were other members of the Atkinson family living in Campsall at the same time. Robert Adkinson married Joan Foxe on 8 January 1573. Roger Atkinson married Margaret Barker on 22 June 1585. Agnes Atkinson was buried on 2 February 1564. Richard, son of Thomas Atkinson was buried on 16 January 1565. Joan, daughter of Thomas Atkinson, was buried on 27 April 1566. Anne, daughter of Thomas Atkinson was buried on 8 February 1571. Anne, widow of Thomas Atkinson, was buried on 26 December 1578.

The most likely explanation is that Margaret Atkinson’s family probably came from Wilton, near Kirkleatham. We don’t know why or how they met. They seem to have decided to move back to Margaret’s homeland in Cleveland after they married. When they did, they emigrated north with William’s parents, Nicholas and Agnes, and his sister Jean. They probably travelled north pretty soon after the wedding in 1564 or perhaps 1565 because by 1567 Jean had met and married Richard Fairley of Kirkleatham.

The parish records of St Mary Magdalene Church at Campsall is held at Doncaster Archives Reference GB 197 P15. The collection includes Registers of Baptisms 1563-1979, Registers of Marriages 1564-1990, Registers of Burials 1563-1974, and other deeds. The township account book listed at P15/6/1/1 was added to this collection in September 2010. The collection is divided into eleven series as follows: P15/1: Registration, Church Services, and Worship P15/2: Incumbent P15/3: Churchwardens P15/4: Vestry and Parochial Church Council P15/5: Auxiliary Organisations P15/6: Township P15/7: Charities and Trusts P15/8: Schools P15/9: Statutory Deposits P15/10: Miscellaneous Records P15/11: Other Records [Deeds etc] Access Information Open Private (Church of England) Access will be granted to any accredited member of Doncaster Libraries Related Material Also available: Index : Bapt 1563-1850 Marr 1563-1837 Bur 1563-1871. The parish library, a collection of 126 volumes from the period 1573 to 1719 now deposited at Doncaster Archives, is the subject of M Gallico, 'A Catalogue of the Library of Campsall Church', (unpublished MA dissertation, University of Sheffield, 1980). A copy is available in the departmental library of Doncaster Archives.

William and Margaret married at St. Mary Magdalene's church, Campsall.

The historian John Paul Davis wrote of a connection between Robin Hood and the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall. The fifteenth century ballad entitled, A Gest of Robyn Hode suggests that Robin Hood built a chapel in Barnsdale that he dedicated to Mary Magdalene

I made a chapel in Bernysdale,
That seemly is to se,
It is of Mary Magdaleyne
And thereto wolde I be’.

Davis surmised that there is only one church dedicated to Mary Magdalene within what might reasonably be considered to have been the medieval forest of Barnsdale, being the church at Campsall. The church was built in the late eleventh century by Robert de Lacy, 2nd Baron of Pontefract. 

A local legend suggests that Robin Hood and Maid Marion were married at the church of Saint Mary Magdalene, at Campsall. Since Maid Marion was a much later addition to the Robin Hood legend, it is a fictional idea, but the story may add some romance to the marriage of William and Margaret. According to these versions of the Story, the marriage to Maid Marion was supposed to have been shortly after Richard I’s pardon. Robin Hood’s death was given to be 18 November 1247. However the placing of the legends in time varies enormously between tellings of the stories at different times.

Before we stray too much into the world of fiction, we can perhaps say that William and Margaret married in the same church as reputed to have been Robin Hood’s wedding venue, about three hundred years later. It was also the church for which, in the earliest ballads, including the Gest of Robin Hood, Robin yearned to return.

1564 to 1567

Between 1564 and 1567, the whole family appears to have moved north of the North York Moors, to Kirkleatham. Between 1564 and 1567, the family moved to the Skelton /Kirkleatham area. It seems likely that William’s wife, Margaret’s family, the Atkinsons, came from Wilton near Kirkleatham. William’s sister Jean married Richard Fairly, a family of some pedigree from Kirkleatham, but this was probably following the move there. For whatever reason, they seem to have moved from the Doncaster area to Kirkleatham.

1567 to 1573

They then lived in Kirkleatham, which was perhaps more the Atkinson and Fairly home than the Farndale home before then.

William’s three children were born in Kirkleatham between 1568 and 1573.

In 1568, soon after they arrived in Cleveland, William and Margaret had their first child, a daughter called Jane Farndale. In about 1570, they had a son, George Farndale. Then in 1573, Eln Farndale was born. Sadly their fourth child Isabell died on 2 April 1592 and was buried at Skelton. She might have died at birth, although this would have been much later in their marriage, but we don’t have her birth record, so she may have been born earlier.

William and Margaret’s family might have been:

Jane Farndale,( FAR00066) (1568 to 1596)

George Farndale, (FAR00067) born about 1570. George Farndale married a lass from Wilton, her mother’s home town and probably where the family had been living, called Margery Nelson, in 1595, but by then George Farndale was ‘of Skelton’. They had a family of five, William Farndale in 1599, Susan Farndale in 1601, George Farndale in 1602, Infanta Farndale who died at birth on 4 January 1603) and Richard Farndale in 1604.

Eln (Eleanor?) Farndale, (FAR00068) born about 1573, also married a lad from Wilton, called Pet Atkinson, his mother’s maiden name, in 1598. Eln and Pet probably related, perhaps even cousins.

(Kirkleatham PR) [check if birth records or surmised from marriages]

Skelton

They may have moved to Skelton, which is only five miles away, and part of the same parish at some stage. Or maybe they continued to live in Kirkleatham, and William might have been buried at St John’s church in the nearby Skelton, as the main parish church for the area.

1572

William’s father, Nicholas died in Kirkleatham in 1572. The family seem to have moved the short distance to Moorsholm in the Parish of Skelton by then. Valentine was a yeoman farmer and a Skelton man, so that might explain why the family moved there. The family would have been living in Wilton for about twenty years by then, and perhaps when Nicholas and Agnes died, there was a decision to move across to the Skelton area.

1573

Margaret Farndale nee Atkinson may have died in 1573 at Skelton aged 34, after 9 years of marriage. If this record is correct, then Isabel may not have been their child, or was born as a twin to Eln in 1573, which might explain Margaret’s early death.

Margaret [Atkinson?] died in 1573 at Skelton aged 34, after 9 years of marriage (this needs to be checked). So the fact that Margaret died in Skelton is further evidence to support the logic explained on Nicholas Farndale’s page.

1586

William’s mother Agnes died in Kirkleatham in 1586.

1588

Jane Farndale married Valentine Wraye on 11 February 1588 in Skelton. Jane and Valentine had five children, Margaret (perhaps named after her grandmother), Robert, John, Katherine, Nicholas. Valentine got into a bit of trouble in 1611 when Valentine Wray of Skelton, yom'n, for uttering contemptuous words and threats against certain men - viz. Will. Gedge, Anth. Hutton and Nich. Harker, bound as witnesses in the matter of a certain felony committed by Chr. Hobson and Henry Robinson, late of lastingham, in contempt &c. Made submission, and paid fine of 20. Valentine was buried at Skelton on 25 November 1613.

1606

William Farndale died on 24 January 1606, aged 67. He was buried on 25 January 1606 at St John the Baptist Church in Skelton. (Martin Farndale found this but I need to recheck this – Skelton History Group records starts 1698 – Teeside Archives for earlier records for Skelton-in-Cleveland from 1512). See also Church of England Parish Registers at Teesside Archives and Middlesbrough Reference Library, Skelton All Saints No 43.

Burials 1571-1852 TS41 Library

Burials (Notes) 1875-1892 TS41 Library

Burials 1567-1631 MF772 FindMyPast

Burials 1624-1694 MF772 FindMyPast

This seems to be the burials entry for Skelton in Cleveland for 1600.

How do William and Margaret Farndale relate to the modern family?

We cannot be sure, but it is probable that William and Margaret Farndale are paternal and maternal ancestors of all modern Farndales. If we have pieced the jigsaw together correctly, then William’s father Nicholas Farndale was a descendant of Nicholaus and Alicia Farndale of Doncaster, brother of William Farndale the Vicar of Doncaster.

There are some branches of the family (including the Ampleforth Line) about which there is some doubt of the direct ancestry. However it seems most likely that William and Margaret are common ancestors of the whole family.