Reid Wilson and Agnes Levelet/Lavalade of Donaghcloney

Our paternal grandmother was Agnes Keating Wilson of Belfast, Co. Down, who was the great-granddaughter of Reid Wilson and Agnes Levelet/Lavalade of Ballygunaghan townland near Donaghcloney, Co. Down.

The Agnes Lavelet who married Reid Wilson was possibly the Agnes Lavelet who was baptised by Peter and Mary Lavelet of Donacloney on 28th January 1801;  if not, then she was a member of this same family.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/03/lavalade-records-in-donaghcloney-parish.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/2012/01/leveletlavalade.html


Reid Wilson,  the husband of Agnes Lavelet/Lavalade, was born about 1797 and died a widower in Ballymagarahan, the home of his son, on 2nd September 1881 - a John McKinley was present when he died.

Reid Wilson appeared on the Tithe Applotments Lists of 1834 farming 4 acres in Ballygunaghan - the tithe books for the Donaghcloney area show up no other members of the Wilson family.  Reid Wilson and Agnes Levelet would already have married by that point.

You can also see Reid Wilson on Griffiths Valuation of 1864 - he was leasing 15 acres from the Marquis of Downshire and subletting a house to a Richard Brown.  (The Brown family repeat, which can signify intermarriage - the son of Reid and Agnes, Edward Wilson, was leasing a house in Banoge, Donaghcloney, from a John Brown, who might be the same John Brown who witnessed the marriage of Reid and Agnes' daughter, Sarah, to William John Moore in 1850.)
Reid Wilson was also leasing a a second farm of 10 acres (three fields) from the landlord John Morrison in Moygannon south of Ballygunaghan.  This may very well be Reid Wilson Junior, of course.

(Of possible interest - only three fields away in 1864, a George Wilson was renting a house from William Skelton who was, in turn, leasing land from the Marquis of Downshire.   George Wilson, the son of  Thomas Wilson, married Sarah Jane Whiteside in Antrim on 22nd January 1863. Sarah Jane Whiteside was the daughter of John Whiteside - George Wilson was a merchant of Ballygunaghan, while the bride's father was a farmer of Ballyginniff.  The wedding was witnessed by John Andrews and Mary Ann Wilson.
James George Wilson was born on 9th December 1868 in Ballygunaghan to the grocer, George Wilson, and to Sarah Jane Whiteside.   
George Wilson died young in 1868, leaving a will which stated he was a grocer and pawnbroker of Ballygunaghan, but previously of Banbridge  - the profession of grocer seemed to run in the Wilson family, but it's unlcear whether this George Wilson was a relation of ours.  

Proni have recently published the Griffiths Valuation revision books online, which allow you to study the change in land ownership throughout the years.   The 1866 - 1875 Donaghcloney records show that Reid Wilson's 10-acre holding in Moygannon was subsequently farmed by a John Thompson.
The records for Ballygunaghan are more telling.  Reid Wilson's holding of five acres in Ballygunaghan was taken over by his son-in-law, Samuel Finlay, for a time, but, by 1875 - 1885, he had disappeared and had been replaced by a Samuel McCreanon.   
The 1866 - 1875 revision book shows that a house on this property, previously leased by Reid Wilson in 1863, to a Richard Brown, was now being held by James Wilson.   The 1875 - 1885 book shows that this same James was now farming the 5-acre farm.

A  James Wilson of Ballygunaghan later married Olivia Symington on 9th November 1882 in Gilnahirk Presbyterian Church. He was a merchant of Donacloney, and was named as the son of a farmer George Wilson. The witnesses were Marian Symmington and William Smith.
From the Belfast Telegraph:  'Wilson - Symmington - November 9th, in the Gilnahirk Presbyterian Church by the Rev. T.Y. Killen, Moderator of the General Assembly, assisted by the Rev. James Wilson, Ballydown,  James Wilson, Blackscull House, Dromore, to Olivia Symmington, daughter of Samuel Symmington, Ballyoran House, Dundonald.'

In both 1901 and 1911, James Wilson and his wife, Olivia, were living in Ballygunaghan.  James had been born in Down in about 1840, and was a farmer's merchant.   The name 'Whiteside' keeps on creeping into the Wilson history - staying with James and Olivia in 1901 was a boarder from Antrim, the shop assistant, Sarah Jane Whiteside, aged 21.  There was also a visitor, James Thompson, aged 21, a college student and Methodist from Tyrone.  Later, James and Olivia gave their religion as Methodist. This time, the couple had a visitor, William Johnstone Hunter, a young Methodist theological student from Belfast, staying with them.  They gave their profession as farmers, rather than weavers, in 1911.)

Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavelet/Lavalade's children were baptised in Donacloney First Presbyterian Church:

1)  Mary Anne Wilson, baptised 30th September 1827.  On March 24th 1845, she married Samuel Finlay in Donacloney 1st Presbyterian;  the witnesses were a John McDowell and her father or brother, Reid Wilson.  The couple had two registered children - Moses Finlay was born in Donacloney to the land steward Samuel Finlay and to Mary Anne Wilson on 16th October 1864, and Eliza Jane Finlay was born in Banbridge on 21st March 1868.  Samuel Finlay farmed his father-in-law's small farm in Ballygunaghan for a while prior to 1875.

On 16th August 1887 in Townsend Street Church in Belfast, pawnbroker Moses Finlay, the son of land steward Samuel Fulton, married Sarah Johnston the daughter of the missionary Samuel Johnston.   This was witnessed by Lizzie Johnston and Robert Curley.
Later a draper of the Falls Road, Moses Finlay died at 457 McAlinden Terrace on 25th September 1900;  his will left his house to his wife, Sarah, and financial legacies to his two elder daughters, Gertrude and Florence Mary Finlay.  Florence had been born on 12th May 1891 at 43 Avoca Street.

The wife and some of the children of Moses Finlay were buried in Belfast City Cemetery in grave B295.  Sarah Finlay, the widow of Moses Finlay, died at 105 University Avenue aged 63 on 15th November 1928;  son Samuel Leslie Finlay, who had been born at 157 Falls Road to the draper Moses Finlay and to Sarah Johnston, died aged 23 at 81 Chadwick Street on 14th May 1924;   Albert Ernest Finlay died aged 34 on 3rd November 1931, while a grandson, Harold Leslie Finlay, died on 21st February 1929 aged only one and a half years.

2) Sarah Wilson baptised by Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade on August 15th 1830.  She married, firstly William John Moore whose father was a weaver of Kilsorrell, William Moore. The marriage took place in Donaghcloney 1st Presbyterian on 24th April 1850, and the witnesses were John Browne and Nicholas Boyle of Balloonigan, Moira.

Sarah Wilson married, secondly, John Whiteside of Kilsorrell, the son of Samuel Whiteside of Loughans, just south of Gilford,  on 24th May 1862.   In 1862 the widowed Sarah Wilson was living in Drumnavaddy townland in the parish of Seapatrick;  the wedding was witnessed by a John Diamond and an Ann Jane Wilson.

(The Whiteside family of Loughans were good at making wills.  Moses Whiteside, who was farming immediatley next door to Samuel Whiteside in Loughans in the 1860's, made his will in 1877 and left everything to his two children, Moses and Mary Jane Whiteside.  He ends the document sweetly...'And now my dear children, I have disposed of my lands and chattels among you to the best of my judgement, and I have made it as plain as possible so there need be no mistake, and it is my most earnest wishes that you live in peace and harmony together...remembering that the fashion of this world passeth away...'
Moses Whiteside's daughter, Mary Jane, died and left her own will in 1888, in which she mentioned her cousin, James Wilson, a merchant of Belfast, along with a second cousin, the minister William Waddell of Knappagh, and a deceased uncle, James McClelland.   The witness was William Whiteside. Her brother, Moses, was also named. He died in 1916, and his will was probated by the gospel preacher, Robert Whiteside
It is worth mentioning that there was a healthy cluster of Wilsons living in the townland of Loughans alongside the Whiteside family, but, again, it's not clear if these were related to our Ballygunaghan family.
The James Wilson, who was a cousin of Mary Jane Whiteside, seems to have been born in 1869 in Waringstown to Esther Whiteside, the daughter of David Whiteside, and to her husband, John Wilson, the son of William Wilson.  Griffiths Valuation of 1864 shows a William Wilson Junior and a William Wilson Senior in Loughans, so it would seem logical to assume that this is the Wilson family involved here, rather than our own.   In 1901 and 1911,  this John Wilson and Essie Whiteside, were living in Ballydugan, Gilford, which is next to Loughans, just south of Donaghcloney.

Sarah Wilson, the daughter of our Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade)  and the weaver John Whiteside had a daughter, Agnes Whiteside, in Ballygunaghan on 14th November 1865.   Later on 8th July 1883, Agnes Whiteside gave birth to a daughter Sarah Jane Whiteside - in Moygannon next to Ballygunaghan.  At the time, Agnes was unmarried - she would marry George Spence of Ballygunaghan, the son of George Spence, on 22nd April 1889 - this wedding was witnessed by Jane Wilson and Agnes' brother Joseph Whiteside.  George Spence died of TB in Ballygunaghan not long after the wedding on 25th March 1891 - the couple had had a daughter, Mary Spence, on 9th February 1890.

Sarah Jane Whiteside, the daughter of Agnes Whiteside, married James Wishart (1880 - 1936) in Belfast on 20th September 1903 - in 1903 Sarah Jane was living in Belfast at 85 Leopold Street, while her groom, James Wishart was from Ballynavally, Drumbo, Co.Down - James was a carpenter as was his father David Wishart.  The witnesses in 1903 were Robert Massey and Minnie Wishart.  My father and I share DNA with a direct descendant of James Wishart and Sarah Jane Whiteside - we all descend directly from Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade of Ballygunaghan.

John Whiteside and Sarah Wilson had a son, Joseph Whiteside, also in Ballygunaghan on 24th April 1869.  On 14th October 1892 in Dromore Parish Church, Joseph Whiteside, son of the Ballygunaghan weaver, John Whiteside, married Diana Beattie/Beatty of Drumskee, Dromore. The witnesses were what seems to be Derek Gamble and Lizzie Gibson. Diana Beatty was the daughter of William Beatty and Margaret Anne Gibson, and had been born in nearby Dromore town on 17th June 1872.
Joseph and Diana Whiteside were living in Ballygunaghan, Donaghcloney in both 1901 and 1911 with their family.  Joseph was a damask-weaver.
Joseph Whiteside, the grandson of Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade, died in Ballygunaghan on 25th April 1935;  probate of his will was granted to his widow, Diana, and to his son, the weaver Samuel Whiteside.

The children of Joseph Whiteside and Diana Beattie were:
a) Margaret Sarah Whiteside, born in Ballygunaghan on 17th July 1894.  On 28th November 1919 in Waringstown, she married a bleacher, James Adair, the son of John Adair.  Joseph Whiteside and Clara Adair witnessed this wedding.
b) Joseph Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 24th  February 1897.
c) William Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 15th February 1899.  A weaver of Blackskull, Ballygunaghan, on 5th September 1919 in Donaghcloney, he married Mary Jane Finlay of Moygannon, the daughter of a blacksmith William John Finlay.  There were four witnesses - Hugh and Elizabeth Scott, Thomas W. Moore and Aggie/Agnes Whiteside.
d) Agnes Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 21st April 1901. She married a weaver, Thomas William Moore of Tullynacross, the son of Alexander Moore.  They married in Waringstown on 25th June 1920;  the wedidng witnesses were Lizzie Moore and William Wilson.
e) Diana Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 19th May 1903 - she died of pnuemonia on 8th March 1905.
f) Samuel Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 2nd April 1906.
g) Isabella Whiteside was born in Ballygunaghan on 18th August 1911.

Sarah Whiteside, the daughter of Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade, died aged 58 on 6th March 1888 in Moygannon.  She was noted as the wife of the weaver John Whiteside and her son Joseph was present at the death.  

I have not found a registration of death for her husband John Whiteside of Moygannon.

3) William Wilson, baptised March 31st 1833, married Elizabeth Matchet, the daughter of Samuel Matchet of Drumarrane,  in Tullylish on 5th August 1859.  William Wilson was farming in Loughans at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Matchet and the wedding was witnessed by David Wright and Samuel Matchet or Matchete.

This couple had seven children, born in the Dromore area, although, by 1911 only four were living:
Elizabeth/Lizzie Wilson, born circa 1865 - alive in 1911.
Samuel Reid Wilson, born 7th September 1866 Kinallen; his father was a merchant at this time.
Margaret Wilson, born 24th August 1877 in Kinallen to linen manufacturer and merchant, William Wilson.
William Wilson born in Kinallen on 14th December 1880.
Hugh George Wilson, born Kinallen on 1st September 1881.

Elizabeth Matchett's father, Samuel Matchet (or Matchett), appeared on Griffiths Valuation of 1863, living in Drumaran townland near Gilford, south of Donaghcloney.   Also in this Tullylish area were members of the Cloughley family, ie. Robert and James Cloughley -  a Susanna Cloaghley witnessed the marriage of Edward Wilson and Elizabeth Hynds in Dromore in 1865.
Samuel Matchett was still living in Drumaran townland, Tullylish, in 1901, a farmer aged 88 who had been born in Co. Armagh.  With him was an unmarried daughter, Margaret Matchett, aged 51, and a 13-yr-old granddaughter, Florence Calder.  (10 years later, Florence Mabel Calder was living at home with her widowed mother, Sarah Jane Calder, née Matchet, at 237 Roden St, Belfast, along with a sister, Sarah Isabella Calder, and a visitor, her aunt, Margaret Matchett. Sarah Jane Calder, in her 37 years of marriage, had had 18 children, although only 6 survived.)  There was also a visitor to Samuel Matchett's house in Drumaran, Tullylish in 1901 - Lizzie Wilson, aged 35, the daughter of William Wilson and Elizabeth Matchett of Kinallen.

From The Belfast Telegraph - Samuel J. Matchett, youngest son of the late Samuel Matchett of Drummarin, Gilford, Co. Down, died at Sandown, Isle of Wight, on 25th February 1903.

I traced the younger Lizzie/Elizabeth Wilson ten years later on the 1911 Census, living with her mother, Elizabeth Wilson, aged 71 (née Matchett), who was the widow of William Wilson and who was living in Kinallen, a few miles east of Dromore.  The return mentions that she had 4 living children somewhere, the younger Lizzie Wilson being one of them.  Her son, Hugh Wilson, aged 28, was also present.
 Earlier, in 1901, the head of the household, William Wilson, was still alive in Kinallen, and working as a grocer and general merchant; he had been born in Kinallen, Co. Down, not Ballygunaghan. However, he most likely filled out the return incorrectly, filling in his current address rather than place of birth.  In 1901, the other two children of William Wilson and Elizabeth Matchett were also present in the house - Margaret, aged 23, and William Wilson, aged 21.

William Wilson, (son of Reid Wilson and Agnes Lavalade) of Kinallen, died there on 27th January 1908; he was a grocer and spirit merchant, and the will was granted to his widow, Elizabeth Wilson, née Matchett, who died later in Kinallen on 10th December 1912.  Her will was granted to her son the grocer Hugh George Wilson.  Present at Elizabeth Wilson's death in Kinallen in 1912 was a neighbour, Maggie Creighton of Kinallen.

The Griffiths Valuation Revision books show William Wilson leasing about ten acres of land in Kinallen from the Bell family in the 1870's;  the books for 1912 to 1929 show his widow, Elizabeth Wilson, crossed out and replaced by a Jack Jones.  Also present there in Kinallen in the 1920s were Joseph and Robert Wilson - this Robert Wilson had replaced a Robert McGregor who, in his turn, had replaced a William Bell.

4) John Wilson was baptised on June 11th 1837.

5) Joseph Wilson, mentioned later in his brother Reid's will, was baptised in Donacloney on September 8th 1839.
 A commercial traveller and grocer, he married Frances MacCartney, the daughter of Andrew MacCartney of Ballykeel, in Moira Presbyterian Church on 30th July 1866.  Their witnesses were Mark Shanks and Margaret Garner.
Joseph was present at his brother Edward Wilson's death in 1878 at 121 Hilland Street, Belfast.
 Joseph Wilson died of TB at 30 Foundry Street in Belfast on 23rd January 1883;  his widow, Frances, was present.

Joseph and Frances MacCartney had a son, William Reid Wilson, born 16th November 1874. At the time of this child's birth, Joseph Wilson was a salesman with an address at Church Street, Dromore, Co. Down, while the mother, Frances Wilson, née M'Cartney, was living at 91 Vernon Street, Belfast. In December 1874, Joseph Wilson of 91 Vernon Street, Belfast, placed an advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter, seeking an assistant to the tea, wine and spirit trade 'for a country town', possibly Dromore.

In his brother Reid Wilson's will of 1890, Reid only mentions Joseph's son, John Wilson.  John Wilson had been born somewhere in England in about 1868 - this according to the census returns of 1901 and 1911.
On 30th January 1892 in Great Victoria Street Church in Belfast, John Wilson of Moira, Co. Down, son of commercial traveller Joseph Wilson, married Jane Patterson of Belfast, the daughter of publican Samuel W. Patterson. This wedding was witnessed by Thomas Agnew and Elizabeth Bertha Hogg.
Jane Patterson was the daughter of Samuel Warnock Patterson, son of James Patterson,  and of Elizabeth Dornan, daughter of William Dornan, who had married in Belfast on 4th October 1861. Samuel Warnock Patterson was a publican at 71 May Street in Belfast, but he died young on 31st May 1874.  His wife, Elizabeth , was pregnant when he died, and a son, Samuel Warnock Patterson, was born a few months later on 18th October 1874 at 71 May Street.  As well as Samuel Warnock and Jane Lemon, Samuel Warnock Patterson and Elizabeth Dornan also had a daughter, Sarah Patterson, who was living with her sister Jane Lemon Wilson, in 1911 at 40 Beechfield Street.

John Wilson and Jane Lemon Patterson had a daughter, Edith Jane Wilson, at 88 Bryson Street on 24th May 1895.

In December 1895,  19-year-old William Reid Wilson of 92 Bryson Street, got into trouble - he was charged with assaulting Rev.C.K. Pooler of Newtownards and wrecking his bicycle during a daytrip with friends to Donaghadee.  The paper noted that the young men were all employed on Queen's Island (ie, the shipyards), and had had too much to drink in the course of their day out.  William Reid Wilson escaped jail but had to pay compensation to the clergyman for the loss of his bike.

The widowed Frances, spelt  'Francess', Wilson was living at 51 Gertrude Street in Belfast in 1911, aged 76 (ie: born Co. Down in 1835) along with her son, a fireman, William Reid Wilson who had been born in 1874. Although the census states that William Reid Wilson was single, the handwritten return shows that he had been married five years with two children, who were also present at 51 Gertrude Street, 14-yr-old Joseph John Wilson, and 4-yr-old Garner Wilson.  This makes no real sense! None of this family group are anywhere to be found on the earlier 1901 Census; I presume they had been working abroad for a while?

William Reid Wilson, son of Frances MacCartney and Joseph Wilson, died aged 38 of tuberculosis at 51 Central Street on 19th October 1911. His brother, John Wilson of 40 Beechfield Street, was present when he died.
William Reid Wilson's widowed mother, Frances Wilson of 40 Beechfield Street, died at 51 Lisburn Road on 28th February 1919. Her daughter-in-law, Jane Wilson, the wife of John Wilson, was present.

Garner McCartney Wilson was born in Belfast, Co. Antrim, on 17th March 1907 to William Reid Wilson and Minnie Wilson, née McMahon.  The address was what seems to be 26 Whitestar Court, Belfast, Co. Down, which I presume was close to the shipyards.  Garner Wilson later joined the Merchant Navy.  He died on 8th September 1944 aboard the steam tanker 'Empire Heritage' when it was hit by the German U-boat 'U-482'.    49 crew, 8 gunner, 1 army storekeeper and 53 passengers died as a result of the attack.  His last address had been 73 Mark Street, Newtownards.

6) Our great-great grandfather, Edward Wilson, was born to Reid Wilson and Agnes Levelet/Lavalade in Ballygunaghan on July 5th 1846 and was baptised in Donaghcloney Presbyterian Church. 

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/2011/09/edward-wilson-and-elizabeth-hynds.html

7) Reid Wilson Junior, born  circa 1838.  I didn't spot him in the register of the Donacloney First Presbyterian Church, so I wonder was he the son who was christened as 'John' in 1839?  They frequently had a change of mind about the child's name following the baptism.
 Reid Wilson Junior married Eliza Anne Atkinson on 29th August 1867. Eliza Anne's father was Joshua Atkinson.
Joshua Atkinson farmed and lived in the Magheralin neighbouring townlands of Feney and Ballymagaraghan which are close to Ballygunaghan where Reid Wilson and his family were living.  He was married to Mary Ann Stanfield - there were three known children of this marriage.  Eliza Anne, who married Reid Wilson Junior, was born to Joshua Atkinson and Mary Ann in February 1840.  Two years later, George Atkinson was born in June 1842, to Joshua Atkinson and ANN.  I'm not sure when their daughter, Sarah Jane Atkinson, was born, but she left a will when she died.
(Note: the LDS site records a Joshua Atkinson of Magheralin, who was earlier married to a different woman, Anne Crossy.  This couple had Anne Jane in August 1827; this may be the same Joshua Atkinson, but with an earlier wife.   There was also a Joshua Atkinson who had children in the same Magheralin area, namely,Mary Ann born 1788,  Sarah Atkinson born 1790,  and Margaret born 1793.)
The County Down Land Deeds of 1876 show that Reid Wilson owned one acre of land in the townland of Feney;  he was also noted as farming in the neighbouring townland of Ballymagaraghan.  Since the Atkinson family had their origins in these two places, it it safe to assume that he moved here from Donaghcloney following his marriage to Eliza Anne Atkinson.

Eliza Anne's father, Joshua Atkinson, died in Ballymagaraghan, on 31st January 1861.  The will was granted to his widow, Mary Ann Stanfield.    Eliza Ann's younger brother, George Atkinson of Ballymagaraghan/Ballymegarihan died 5th November 1868, leaving the following will which mentions his two sisters:

‘This is the last will and testament of me George Atkinson of Ballymegarihan in the County of Down farmer. I leave devise and bequeath to my sister Sarah Jane Atkinson her executors and administrators absolutely all and singular my lands messuages and tenements in Ballymegarihan aforesaid.  And also my tenements in Magheralin in said County which I hold under a renewable lease together with all my household goods and chattels and other my estate and effects, real freehold and personal and whosesoever situate subject only to my just debts and funeral and testamentary expenses and to the sum of fifty pounds sterling to be paid and payable and I hereby bequeath the said sum of fifty pounds to my sister Eliza Ann Wilson in ten yearly instalments of five pounds each provided my said sister Eliza Ann Wilson shall so long live, the first of such instalments to be paid to her on the expiration of three months after my decease and each succeeding installment on the expiration of every twelve calendar months thereafter until the entire shall be paid in full - and if my said sister Eliza Ann Wilson shall die before being paid the entire of said instalments, then I direct that the instalments, then unpaid, shall thenceforth be paid to the children of my said sister Eliza Ann Wilson equally, if of age, and if underage, to be applied annually by my executors hereinafter named towards their maintenance so long as it lasts. 
And I declare that the reason why I only leave the said sum of fifty pounds to my said sister Eliza Ann Wilson is that my late Mother agreed to give her one hundred pounds on her marriage, which sum of one hundred pounds was charged on my property, and I direct that previous to the payment of any sum on foot of said sum of fifty pounds, my said sister Eliza Ann Wilson shall execute a release of any rights which she may have to my late Father or Mother’s property, the said sums of one hundred pounds and fifty pounds being a full share for her thereof, and I hereby appoint Hugh Martin of Feney and Robert Stirling of Aghandrumvarran in said County executors of this my will - In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of October, one thousand six hundred and sixty eight - George Atkinson (his mark), signed published and declared by the Testator as and for his last will and testament in our presence, who in his presence and at his request and in presence of each other, all being present at the same time, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses hereto - Richard Hammond - James Bateman.’

Following George Atkinson’s death, the will was proved and granted to Hugh Martin of Feney and Robert Stirling of Aghandrumvarran on 7th December 1868.

Reid Wilson Junior and his wife, Eliza Anne Atkinson, proved the will of Eliza Anne's sister, Sarah Jane Atkinson, who died on 20th April 1870, in Ballymagaraghan townland. She left effects to the value of £300.

Eliza Ann Atkinson, wife of Reid Wilson Junior, died at some stage, and Reid Wilson Junior married again, this time to Mary Jane Spence of Edonmore, Maralin, Co. Down, the daughter of Thomas Spence.  The wedding took place on 12th January 1877 in the Magdalene Church of Ireland church in Belfast, and was witnessed by Robert Spence, George Corbitt and Margaret Lilburn.

Awkwardly,  Reid Wilson had a son, William Reid Wilson, five months later on 8th June 1877 in Gregorlough, about a mile north of Donaghcloney - the mother wasn't Reid Wilson's wife, but was a young woman named Mary Ann Hamilton.  On the registration of birth, the word 'formerly' had been deliberately crossed out beneath the maiden name of the child's mother, which seems to signify that Mary Ann Hamilton was not married to Reid Wilson.  Sadly, the baby's death was registered the same year.

Mary Jane Wilson, the second wife of Reid Wilson, was named as the executor of her own brother's will in 1902.  Her brother was a retired farmer of Ballymagaraghan, Thomas Spence - he left £100 to a niece, Isabella Spence, the daughter of his late brother, John Spence, and the rest of his estate went to Mary Jane Wilson.

Mary Jane Spence was the daughter of a Magheralin farmer, Thomas Spence, and his wife Isabella Murphy, whose children were all born in Magheralin as follows:
Rachel Spence, born 22nd October 1840.
Anna Spence, baptised 30th April 1847.
Margaret Spence, baptised 23rd December 1849.
Charles Spence.
John Spence, baptised 29th February 1852.
Mary Jane Spence, born 1854.
Robert Spence, born 25th April 1856 - this was most likely the witness to the 1877 marriage of Mary Jane Spence and Reid Wilson.
Sarah Isabella Spence, born 19th July 1858.
Catherine Spence, born 2nd February 1863.
Thomas Spence, born 17th March 1865.

Reid Wilson and his third wife, Mary Jane Spence, had a daughter, Eliza Ann, in Ballymagaraghan on 9th April 1889.

Reid Wilson Junior died on 17th December 1890 in Ballymagaraghan and his will appears on the excellent PRONI website. I'll transcribe it here:

" In the name of God amen. I Reid Wilson of Ballymagaraghan, parish of Moira and County of Down, so make this my last will and testament in the following manner, viz, I leave and bequeath to my wife, as long as she remains unmarried and conducts herself properly, the farm on which I now live, together with the stock crop farming implements furniture and all the other goods and chattels of which I may die possessed with the following exceptions reservations and liabilities, Viz: I allow and order our child Eliza Ann to be maintained and educated out of the profits of said farm.  I allow and order my wife to pay to my nephew John Wilson the son of my brother the late Joseph Wilson the sum of fifty pounds when he arrives at the age of twenty five years.  Also I allow and order my wife to pay to our niece Mary Jane Spence daughter of the late Charles Spence of Maralin the sum of fifty pounds when she arrives at the age of twenty one years , should my wife marry or act improperly I order and allow the farm to be sold together with the stock crop farming implements furniture and all other goods and chattles and my wife to be paid the sum of fifty pounds out of the proceeds, the other two legacies of fifty pounds to be paid as described and the remainder of the proceeds of the sale of the farm to be devoted to the support and education of our child Eliza Ann, I leave and bequeath to our child Eliza Ann all my property in the town of Maralin held under lease renewable forever, also my farm in Ballynadrone held in fee farm grant so soon as she arrives at the age of twenty one years, any profits that may arise out of these two properties in the meantime after paying the expenses connected with them,  I order and allow for the benefit of my wife and child on the conditions stated above, I nominate and appoint as Executors to this my last will and testament Edward Weir of Ballymacateer, Henry Bateman of Feney, James N. Hammond of Ballymagaraghan - Reid Wilson - made and subscribed by the said Reid Wilson as his last will in our presence, we signing it in his presence and in presence of each other at his request and at the same time as witnesses this 8th day of December 1890 - Samuel Graham - Thomas Spence."

Following Reid Wilson Junior's death in 1890, his widow, Mary Jane Wilson, née Spence, and their unmarried daughter, Eliza Ann or Elizabeth Anna, lived together on the family farm in Ballymagaraghan.

On 5th June 1908 in Ballymagarahan, daughter Elizabeth Anna Wilson  married William Jeffers, a linen manufacturer from nearby Armagh, the son of linen manufacturer William Jeffers. The witnesses were Thomas H. Clarke and Annie Clarke.
They had a son, Reid Wilson Jeffers, born in Ballymagaraghan on 1st November 1909.
William Jeffers had been born in about 1885 to William Jeffers of Armagh, who worked as both a farmer and a linen manufacturer. William Jeffers Senior had married Drusilla Reid (named Elizabeth D.Jeffers on the census) in Mullabrack, Co. Armagh on 26th May 1881. She was the daughter of Adam Reid, and their witnesses were Thomas and William J. Reid.  In 1901 and 1911 they were living with their large family in Taughran, near Lurgan, Co. Down, which is about 12 kilometers away from Donaghcloney.  Also living there in 1901 with the Jeffers family was Mary Ann Reid, the family's 83-yr-old grandmother, who would have been born in Armagh circa 1818.
William Jeffers, who was married to Elizabeth Anna Wilson, proved the will of Henry Bateman of Feney who died in 1927;  a Henry Bateman of Feney had earlier proved Reid Wilson Junior's will in 1890, while George Atkinson's 1868 will had been witnessed by a James Bateman.

The Wilsons' Huguenot Ancestry

My paternal grandmother was Agnes Keating Wilson of Belfast, Co. Down, (see above) who married my grandfather Cuthbert Stewart in the 1930s.

Agnes' father was a grocer named Edward Leviolett Wilson.  Family tradition had it that the name 'Leviolett' alluded to an early Huguenot ancestor.  I presumed to begin with that the name was really 'Laviolette' which is quite common in France and Canada, but when I searched the lists of Irish Huguenot names I discovered that no Laviolette Huguenots ended up here in Ireland.

The one name that seemed to make any sense was the name 'De La Valade' which was associated with the Lisburn area of Northern Ireland.  The Wilson family originated in the Donaghcloney area of Co. Down which is 15 miles away from Lisburn.

I ordered the birth certificate of Edward Wilson, the grandfather of Agnes Keating Wilson and the father of Edward Leviolett Wilson, who had been born on July 5th 1846 and baptised in Donaghcloney Presbyterian Church.  Edward Wilson's parents were Reid Wilson and Agnes Levelet.   It was evident that the names 'Levelet' and 'Leviolett' were one and the same albeit spelt differently and are phonetic variations of 'LaValade'.

It was during an online search of the Freeholders' Records on the PRONI website that I came across a Peter Lavalade who was farming in the Lurgantamry townland of Donaghcloney, Co. Down in 1780.  Agnes Levelet and her husband, Reid Wilson, spent their lives in Ballygunaghan which is a mere two miles away from Lurgantamry.  I have found no reference to any other individual named Lavalade or Levelet or Leviolett anywhere in the country following the baptism of Edward Wilson in 1846 which seems to suggest that the name died out around that time.  I would also presume that, given the lack of Lavalades anywhere, that Peter Lavalade and Agnes Levelet were related.  Peter Lavalade must have been either the father or grandfather of Agnes Levelet.  The name was passed on phonetically through the family as a middle name.

It seems that Peter Lavalade of Lurgantamry was married to Catherine Durry - their names appear in the Down and Connor and Dromore marriage bonds for 1793.  A will of Peter Levalad/Leavlade exists that document his date of death as 1805 and his address is once again confirmed as Lurgantamry.

(It appears that the name 'Durry' is another extinct family name. A search of the 1901 Census shows two Catholic Durry families, one in Belfast and the second in Dublin, but by 1911 there were no Durry families left in the country.  Before 1901, most references to the name 'Durry' appear in Dromore close to Donaghcloney.)

So where did the Lavalade family originate from?   The Huguenots were French Calvinist Protestants who had been tolerated in Catholic France for centuries by the monarchy under the terms of the Edict of Nantes. On October 18th 1685, however, Louis XIV revoked the Edict.  The Huguenots were then subjected to a brutal regime of religious persecution and at least 200,000 of them left France for the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Britain.

Among the refugees were Louis Crommelin and his brother, Alexander Crommelin, who became so well established in the Dutch linen trade that William of Orange, when he bacame King of England, invited him to set up shop in Ireland in 1697.   This he did in 1698, moving to Lisburn - then called Lisnagarvey, and bringing with him looms and about 70 people. 

Louis' brother had married Madeleine de La Valade, the daughter of a French noble, the Comte de la Valade who held lands in Languedoc.  Her brother, Charles de la Valade, and another unnamed brother, were Protestant pastors who had had to flee France at the Revocation.  In 1704 Charles de la Valade was appointed pastor of the French Church in Lisburn, a position he held for 40 years. He made his will in 1755 and died the following year. 

The Rev. Charles de la Valade eventually dropped the prefix 'De' because, on a lease of a house on the east side of the Market Place in Lisburn, his signature is Charles La Valade.  His wife, Madam Charles De La Valade, signed her will in 1759 - their daughter Anne married George Russell of Lisburn and is thought to have had descendants.

Rev. Charles De La Valade was succeeded by his brother who was possibly the Alan La Valade who was named as a godfather in 1733 - it is known that he had a family and carried on the name. A nephew of the La Valade brothers, Rev. Saumarez Dubourdieu, was the final pastor of the French Church. By the 1800s the Huguenots of Lisburn had been assimilated into the local community and there was no longer any need for a separate congregation.

A second Charles La Valade, 1755 - 1827, was noted in the Index of Wills. 

There are records - apparently - of La Valades living in the Moira district south of Lisburn and north of Donaghcloney where the Wilson family were farming.

It appears that the La Valade family had intermarried with the DuBourdieu family of Bergerac. A quick search of the area on Google Maps shows up the small town of Lavalade about ten miles south of Bergerac and I wonder did our LaValade family originate here?

Joseph Edwards Dickson of Tyrone and Dublin

Joseph Edwards Dickson and Tennie Dickson

Joseph Dickson and Emily Eveline/Eveleen Jones were our maternal great-grandparents. Emily Eveleen was the daughter of Charles Jones and Isabella Pennefather of 56 Blessington Street.

Emily Eveleen, known as Tennie, married Joseph Edwards Dickson, a coal merchant of 15 Northumberland Road, on 18th August 1897 in the Jones' parish church of St.Marys. Their witnesses were Tennie's older brother, Robert Oscar Jones who worked in the family business Charles Jones & Sons, and William James Hardy who was a friend of Joseph Dickson from Tyrone.  There was a 13 year age difference between the bride and groom - on the 1901 Census you can see that Joseph was 36 and Tennie was only 23.

I found two deeds relating to Joseph Edwards Dickson.  The first (1894-2-293)  was between John Arthur Maconchy and Alexander Knox McEntire of the Four Courts, Final Assigners of the Court of Bankruptcy, and Joseph Edwards Dickson of Grand Canal Wharf and Great Brunswick St, trustees for the creditors in the matter of a petition for arrangement by John Little, formerly of the Hibernian Glass Bottle Works, Ringsend and John Gardinner Nutling of Gortmore, Dundrum.
The second deed (1897-77-143) referred to Joseph's own bankruptcy that year. It was dated 7th December 1897.  'In the matter of Joseph E. Dickson of 110 Great Brunswick Street, coal merchant, trading as J.E.Dickson & Co. - a bankrupt. His effects vested in the Court.'
The Irish Times of November 6th 1897 noted that the Court of Justice was to have a meeting, on 19th November, to deal with the J.E. Dickson bankruptcy.
Despite the bankruptcy of 1897, the business seems to have survived for another few years.

In early April 1903, one of the floodgates at the Grand Canal Basin, Ringsend Docks, broke free and was carried away, emptying, at tremendous speed, 30 acres of water into the Liffey.  At 11.30pm, the steamship 'Gertrude' from Liverpool, laden with coal consigned to J.E. Dickson, was carried away by the torrents of water which carried both the shattered gate and the ship towards the sea.  For the first time in decades, the muddy bed of the Canal Basin could be seen exposed from the Grand Canal Bridge;  there were, thankfully, no injuries.

The Children of Joseph Edwards Dickson and Tennie Jones were as follows:

1) Cecil Robert Dickson was born at 3 Nelson Street, near Dorset Street, on 12th May 1899 and died  in 1965.  Cecil Robert Dickson later married Eva Maguire ( 15th December 1902 - 26th February 1995) on 31st August 1927.  At the time the Dickson family were living in Granite House, 124 Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, and the wedding was witnessed by Cecil's cousin, Percival Mottershed, and by his younger sister - our grandmother - Vera Antoinette Dickson.

Eva Constance Maguire had been born on 15th December 1902 to Frederick William Maguire and Fannie Earls of  Harolds Cross; Frederick William Maguire was the son of a civil servant of Garville Avenue, Rathgar, Henry Maguire, and of Emily Jones.  This Emily Jones was the daughter of a William Jones, but I doubt they were related in any way to the family of Tennie Jones, Cecil Dickson's mother.

Eva Maguire's mother was Fannie Teresa Earls, the daughter of a short-lived Dublin tailor, Henry Cadden Earls (1839 - 1875), and of Harriet Sherlock.  Henry Cadden Earls, the son of tailor John Earls, married Harriet Sherlock, daughter of Robert Sherlock, on 1st April 1861.

   Eva Maguire, daughter of Frederick William Maguire and of Fannie Earls,  and Cecil Dickson had two sons;
         a) Ivan Dickson, born 14th Dec. 1929, married Sallie Hudson, born 3rd May 1928.
         b) Freddie Dickson, born 4th Aug. 1940, married Flo Schmutz, born 28th April 1930.

2) Violet Alexandra Dickson - she was born to Joseph Edward (sic) Dickson and Emily Eveleen Dickson on 29th April 1900;  the family were living at 3 Nelson Street in Dublin city, just around the corner from Blessington Street where Emily Eveleen/Tennie's family were living at the time.

 Violet died of polio tragically young in Montebello, Howth, on 7th January 1917, aged only 16.

Violet Alexander Dickson

3) Emily Eveline Dickson, who we knew as Auntie Ebbie, was born on 14th September 1901, and died 21st November 1977.  At the time of Ebbies's birth, Joseph and Tennie were living at 2 Como Terrace in Clontarf.  Present at the birth was Adelina Maude Jones (née Pelissier) who had married Tennie's brother, Robert Oscar Jones, in 1897 in St.Mary's. Auntie Ebbie never married and spoilt us terribly.

Auntie Ebbie Dickson

4) Adelaide Victoria Dickson, aka Eda, was born 10th November 1902 in Ashbourne, Howth,  and was named after her aunt, Adelaide Victoria Jones Dunbar. She died 9th February 1982.

In December 1911, the governors of the Masonic Girls' School in Ballsbridge met to elect 9 new pupils.  Adelaide V. Dickson, daughter of the late Brother Joseph E.Dickson, coal merchant, of Lodge 126, Dublin, received 3,629 votes, coming second in the vote. It was noted that her father had been a life governor of the school.

She was married to Joseph McClean Wallace, aka Dinky Wallace, (he died 27th Jan. 1959).  They married in South Dublin in 1925 and had three children:
       a)  Cynthia Wallace, born 18th Dec.1925, died 1st October 1988. She married, in Switzerland, Kurt Steinmann.
       b)  Ronald Gordon Wallace, born 4th August 1927, died 10th March 1986. He married, in Dublin, Sylvia Joan Cullen.
       c) Stephanie Joan Wallace, born 4th September 1929. She married, in Bristol, Peter Edward Galton, born 15th July 1930.

Eda's husband, Dinky or Joseph Wallace, had been born in Tobermore, Co. Derry, on 12th May 1896, to the farmer Robert John Wallace and Margaret McLean.

Eda Dickson

5) A daughter, Josephine, was born in 19 Leahy's Terrace in Sandymount on 25th November 1903 but died three days later.  She was buried in Mount Jerome alongside her parents and her older sister Violet.

6)  Vera Antoinette Dickson, our maternal grandmother,was born in Belmont, Howth, on 6th November 1905 - seven months after the death of her father, Joseph Dickson;  she died on 24th August 1982.

Our grandmother, Vera Dickson, with her uncle, Robert Oscar Jones - his brother, Charles Jones, sent the postcard.

As can be seen from the address,  following Joseph Dickson's death, the family moved out to Howth

Vera Dickson married Richard Williams (30th May 1889 - 9th March 1977) on 28th September 1927 in the Plymouth Brethrens' meeting place of Merrion Hall in Dublin.  Richard Williams, a bank official and son of the retired shipping agent, Willis Creighton Williams, was living at 38 Grosvenor Square in Rathmines, while Vera Antoinette Dickson, daughter of the late coal merchant, Joseph Edwards Dickson, was living at home in Carisbrooke House, Pembroke Road. The wedding was witnessed by Vera'a sister, Eveleen Emily Dickson, and by Reginald Vincent Squire, a fellow-parishioner from Merrion Hall.

The children of our maternal grandparents, Richard Williams and Vera Antoinette Dickson were:
  a)  Maurice Willis Creighton Williams, born Dublin 14th September 1928. Maurice, an engineer, married Marguerite (Daisy) Henderson in 1952 and the couple moved permanently to Edinburgh, Scotland.  Daisy Williams died in Edinburgh on 25th October 2012.
b)  Raymond Dickson Williams, born in Dublin on 28th March 1930.  He married in 1964 Ruth Musgrave Harris - both were doctors and spent their entire working lives running a teaching hospital in Zaire, before retiring to England.
c)  Trevor Willis Williams, born in Dublin on 19th March 1932.  A doctor, he emigrated in 1957 to Canada where he married Elizabeth Rose Drover (Betty) in 1960.  Trevor settled first in St. John's, Newfoundland, where he worked with the Department of Public Health, before practising as a pediatrician in Winnipeg, then moving into research, working in the Cadham Provincial Lab as Assistant Director of Microbiology and Virology. He was the Director of Lab and X-Ray Services for over 20 years and was Director of Cadham Lab for the final 5 years of his career, retiring in 2000. He died in Winnipeg on 16th January 2001.
d)  Alan O'Moore Williams, an engineer, born on 1st May 1934. He stayed here in Ireland and never married. He died on 5th October 2014 and is buried in Mount Jerome.
e)  Ruth Dickson Williams, my mother, a teacher, born on 4th May 1937.  She married our dad,  Paul Cuthbert Stewart, in Dublin on 31st March 1960. She passed away on 14th February 2023 and is buried in Killiney Churchyard.
f)  Edward Dickson Williams, an engineer, born 23rd April 1942;  in 1970, he married Mary Elizabeth Percy (known as Elizabeth), a teacher who worked with my mother Ruth in Rathgar Junior School. They moved to England.  Edward passed away in England on 11th July 2020.

It was believed by the family that Joseph Edwards Dickson had died young at work following a fall onboard a ship on 10th April 1905;  however his civil registration of death reveals that he had died, aged only 40, of septic peritonitis following eleven years of renal disease; his brother-in-law, Charles Robert Dunbar was the informant when he died.  Perhaps he'd suffered a fall at work at some stage prior to this, and his family passed the story down through the generations?  Joseph Edwards Dickson left a young family - his wife, Tennie, and her children would remain living with her widowed mother, Isabella Pennefather Jones, first in Howth, then later in Carisbrooke House in Ballsbridge.

'Joseph Edwards Dickson of 19 Leahys-Terrace, Sandymount county Dublin died 10th April 1905. Probate Dublin to Eveleen Dickson and Isabella Jones, widows, sealed LONDON 13 November. Effects £65 8s. 2d. in England.'

The business continued without Joseph and can be seen in the Dublin Telephone Directory for 1913:
Dickson J.E. & Co., Coal Importers, 110 Great Brunswick Street and Custom House Dock.
Earlier the business address had been the Grand Canal Wharf and Great Brunswick Street.  The business had most likely continued under the management of Joseph's mother-in-law, Isabella Jones, who was known to be a formidable businesswoman.  An ad. for the business in the Irish Times of 1914 gave, not only the Gt. Brunswick address, but an additional one at 5 d'Olier St, and noted also that the business had been established in 1824.

Following his death, Joseph's widow, Tennie, moved back home to her mother's home with her children and spent the remainder of her life there, first at Howth, then in Ballsbridge.  Her mother, Isabella Anna Jones, née Pennefather, died aged 94 on 31st May 1942, and Tennie died four years later from starvation as a result of oesophageal cancer on 7th March 1946. Her unmarried daughter, Eveleen Dickson/Ebbie had lived with her for a number of years at the end of her life. Tennie is remembered fondly by her grandchildren as a sweet-natured woman who was a wonderful cook;  she was an enthusiastic member of the baptist Plymouth Brethren community and ran a Bible class for the girls, both at Merrion Hall and at home in Granite House.

Emily Eveleen/Tennie Dickson, of Granite House, Pembroke Road, died on 7th March 1946.

The Dickson Family of Clonfeacle Parish, near Dungannon, Co. Tyrone:

Joseph Edwards Dickson had been born circa 1865 in Benburb, Clonfeacle, Co. Tyrone (just south of Dungannon) to a farmer Henry Dickson (1812 - 1906) and his wife Eliza/Elizabeth Edwards.

His parents had married in the Moy, Drummond area of Clonfeacle in 1848: Henry's father was a second Henry Dickson and Elizabeth's father was James Edwards.  James Edwards was farming 29 acres in Leckpatrick, Desert, Co. Tyrone in 1858.   Henry Dickson Sr., the father of Henry Dickson Jr., was most likely from Carrowcolman, while his son would subsequently settle in Drummond, three miles away.

The Dickson/Dixon family was associated with the Clonfeacle area of Tyrone which included the neighbouring townlands of Benburb, Carrowcolman, Mullycar and Moy.

From the 1910 edition of 'The Journal of the Irish Memorials Association, 1910':   "Here lyeth the body of David Dickson late of Mullicar who departed this life October 3rd 1747 aged 61 years."

The PRONI website lists five Dicksons as 40-shilling freeholders in Mullicar, Tyrone, noted there on 25th February 1796: Thomas Dickson, Joseph Dickson, George Dickson, John Dickson and James Dickson.  A Thomas Dickson of Mullycar married a woman named Letitia and had Margaret Jane on 22/10/1839, Thomas on 22/3/1842 and Elizabeth on 9/4/1844.

The Tithe Applotment Books of the 1830s show up no Dicksons/Dixons in Clonfeacle, Benburb;  in Carrowcolman, however, Henry Dixon was farming 26 arable acres, and Richard Dixon was farming 9 acres.  The Henry Dixon here appears to be Henry Dickson Sr., the grandfather of Joseph Edwards Dickson.

Griffiths Valuation was carried out in Tyrone in 1860 and the survey shows a plethora of Dicksons/Dixons in the immediate vicinity leasing land from Viscount Powerscourt:
George Dickson,  Carrowcolman,  10 acres.
John Dickson,  Carrowcolman,  38 acres.
Thomas Dickson, Carrowcolman, 4 acres.
Joseph Dickson, Mullycar, 9 acres. (Leasing from Joseph Goff.)
William Dickson, Mullycar, 9 acres. (Leasing from Joseph Goff.)
Ann Dickson, Moy, leasing a house only from Marg. Johnston.
HENRY DIXON,  31 acres, Moy, Drummond. (This was either Joseph Edward Dickson's father or his grandfather.)
(The above John Dickson might be the John Dickson of Mullycar, who married Mary A. Leeman there and had the following children - William born 6/61875;  Violet Jane born 28/11/1877; John born 18/7/1879;  Barbara Ann born 18/4/1882.  Our own Joseph Edwards Dickson would later name a daughter as Violet.)

Henry Dickson Senior, grandfather of Joseph Edwards Dickson:


Joseph Edwards Dickson was the son of Henry Dickson Jr., whose father was also named Henry.  Henry Dixon/Henry Dickson Sr., was farming in Carrowcolman in the 1830s, alongside a Richard Dixon.  By 1860, he was noted in Moy, Drummond, although this might be his married son, Henry Dickson Jr.
The wife of the earlier Henry (our great-great-great grandmother) is unknown, but she might be the Naamah Dickson who had been born circa 1773 and whose death was registered in Dungannon in 1870 when she died aged 97.  A granddaughter was later named as Sarah Maria McCollough Dickson, so perhaps McCollough was the family name of Henry Dickson Sr.'s wife?  The name of Henry Dickson Sr's wife may never be known, but what is certain is that the unusual name 'Naamah' entered the family at this time and reverberated down through the subsequent generations of the Dickson family.

The known children of Henry (and possibly Naamah) Dickson Senior were:

1) Maria Dickson who married George Kirkland, the brother of Sarah Kirkland, on 25th January 1850 in Clonfeacle. William Kirkland was the father of George and Sarah Kirkland- in 1860, William Kirkland was farming in Terryscollop, Clonfeacle.  Maria Dickson was the daughter of Henry Dickson, a farmer, and in 1850 she was living in Carrowcolman.   The wedding witnesses were David Dickson, the bride's brother, and someone illegible along the lines of Robert Skittle (?).

2 ) Nahaamah Dickson who married Joseph Machesney, the son of James Machesney in Clonfeacle Church of Ireland on 21st May 1852.  Joseph Machesney was a publican/grocer of Market Street, Keady, Co. Armagh, although at the time of his marriage to Nahaamah Dickson he was noted as a farmer of Mullan, Tynan, Co. Armagh,  sixteen miles south of Carrowcolman where Nahaamah was living.  The witnesses to the wedding were David Dickson and James Greacen.

Griffiths Valuation of 1860 shows up a James McChesney farming in Mullyneil, Aghaloo, as was William Leslie, who was possibly the father of Agnes Leslie who married Nahaamah Dickson's brother, David Dickson.

The only trace of the Machesney family are a family on the 1901 Belfast census living at 16 Lawnbrook Avenue, who have re-used the odd 'Naamah' name and might therefore be the children of Naamah and Joseph. All were born in Co. Armagh - George Machesney, an oiler in a linen factory, was born in 1860;  Naamah Machesney, a dressmaker, was born in 1865;  Sarah Maria, another dressmaker, was born in 1866;  Joseph Machesney, a colour maker, was born in 1869.

The very useful Belfast City burial records are now free to search and view online.  Several members of this Machesney family were buried in grave C2 120, including the father, Joseph Machesney (1818 - 1887) who had died, aged 69, on 3rd June 1887 at 90 Cupar Street.  
Two of his children were buried alongside him - George Machesney (1859 or 1861 - 1912) who died at 40 Lawnbrook Avenue on 29th February 1912, and Sarah Maria Machesney (1863 - 1903) who died aged 40 at 40 Lawnbrook Avenue on 14th October 1903.
The civil records back these deaths up - Sarah Machesney died aged 37 at 40 Lawnbrook Avenue on 14th October 1903, and the informant was her brother Joseph of 40 Lawnbrook Avenue.  Her brother, George Machesney died there a bachelor on 27th February 1912, aged 53;  his brother was present - James Machesney of 6 Birkin Street.

On 30th June 1882 in Ballysillan, Belfast, yarndresser James Machesney, son of Joseph Machesney and Naamah Dickson, married Maggie McLean, daughter of tenter Robert McClean of Belfast, The witnesses were Robert Douglas and Ellen McClean.  They had Robert Joseph McChesney on 25th May 1883, daughter, Naamah Machesney at 5 Carnan Street on 3rd October 1885, Sarah Ann who was born on 11th April 1889 but who died the following year, and James McChesney born 28th October 1890.    Robert Joseph McChesney, the son of James Machesney and Margaret McLean, married Elizabeth Cowan in Belfast and had a son, George, in December 1912.

3) Henry Dickson 1812 - 15th August 1906, our great-great grandfather who married Elizabeth Edwards in Clonfeacle Church of Ireland on 27th October 1848.  Their son was Joseph Edwards Dickson from whom we directly descend.

4) John Dickson 1823 - 1892  - he married Sarah Kirkland, the daughter of William Kirkland, in Clonfeacle Church of Ireland on 5th December 1850.   John Dickson, son of Henry Dickson, was living in Carrowcolman in 1850 as was Sarah Kirkland.  Their witnesses were Johnstone Irwin and Anne Anderson.

The widowed Sarah, née Kirkland, can be seen on the 1901 Census still living in Carrowcolman, Tyrone.
Their children were Thomas Dickson 1861 - 1942, Sarah Maria Dickson who was born on 27th May 1866 at Carrowcolman, an unnamed son born at Carrowcolman on 15th October 1868 and Margaret Dickson was born there on 4th November 1869 - 1938.  Eliza Dickson was present for the birth of Sarah Maria in 1866  - this was possibly Eliza Edwards, wife of Henry Dickson.  A Mary Millar of Terryglassey (?) was present for the birth of the son born in 1868.

5) David Dickson, born circa 1826.  David Dickson of Benburb married Agnes Leslie in Minterburn First Presbyterian Church on 1st October 1852.  (From 'Belfast Newsletter', 18th October 1852.)  Their wedding was registered - David Dickson of Carrowcolman was the son of farmer Henry Dickson, while Agnes Leslie was the daughter of William Leslie of Mullyneil, and the witnesses were John Johnston and John Tronson Leslie.
John Tronson Leslie, who witnessed the 1852 marriage of David Dickson and Agnes Leslie, died on 23rd March 1864, leaving a will noting him as a merchant of Downpatrick, and naming his siblings as James and Louisa Leslie, Louisa being of Armagh.

David Dickson and Agnes Leslie  possibly emigrated to New Jersey shortly after their marriage.   Agnes Leslie's father was William Leslie of Minterburn, and Griffiths Valuation notes a William Leslie farming 35 acres in Mullyneill townland, Aghaloo, 2.5 miles north of Minterburn Church, as was James McChesney, possibly the father of Joseph McChesney who married Naamah Dickson, David Dickson's sister.

Henry Dickson (1812 - 15th August 1906) and Elizabeth Edwards (1815 - 1905) :

Elizabeth Edwards, who married Henry Dickson, was the daughter of James Edwards.  The marriage of Henry Dickson, son of Henry Dickson of Drummond, and Elizabeth Edwards, daughter of James Edwards of Kilmore, Winterburn, took place in Clonfeacle Church on 24th October 1848.  The witnesses were Thomas Irwin and Thomas Edwards.

Thomas Edwards was Elizabeth Edward's brother.  On 26th January 1849 he married Elizabeth Campbell, the daughter of Moses Campbell of Crievelough.  This was witnessed by Henry Edwards and James Wright.
Thomas Edwards of Kilmore (1810 - 1871)  died on 7th March 1871, leaving a will in which he named his son as James Edwards.  His executors were William Campbell of Guinness, Tyrone, and his brother-in-law Joseph Campbell of Creevelough.

Thomas's son, James Edwards, died aged 30 in Kilmore on 26th February 1880; his mother, Elizabeth, née Campbell, was present at his death.  The widowed Elizabeth died aged 82 in Crievelough on 7th September 1890 - her brother Joseph Campbell was present.
Joseph Campbell of Crievelough/Creevelough made a will when he died there in January 1896;  he named his sister as Elizabeth Edwards and left £5 to Joseph Andrew Edwards, son of James Edwards of Crievelough who was now living in German Hills, Orange, New South Wales.  Also named in this will was Henry Edwards, the son of William Edwards of Crievelough.    The 'Northern Whig' of November 1875 advertised the sale of James Edwards' farm in Crievelough, on the road leading from Benburb to Dungannon, prior to James Edwards' planned emigration to New Zealand.

Was there a family link between the family of our James Edwards of Kilmore and the Edwards family of Crievelough, I wonder?   The townlands of Kilmore, Dyan, Ballyvaddy and Crievelough all cluster together in the parish of Aghaloo.

The Freeholders records, viewable on the PRONI website, show up only one member of an Edwards family farming in the parish of Aghaloo in the 1790s.  This was our James Edwards who was a landholder in Kilmore.  As a forty shilling Protestant landholder he was eligible to vote, so he signed the freeholders register on 25th February 1796.

The tithes records of both 1825 and 1837 record that James Edwards, our ancestor, was farming in Kilmore and also possibly in neighbouring Dyan townland, since the books record two men with the same name.  Also in Dyan was a Wilson Edwards.  There were no Edwards in Crievelough before 1837, but by 1860, when Griffiths Valuation was carried out,  Henry Edwards was farming there - he might be the same Henry Edwards who was farming land in adjoining Ballyvaddy.
By 1860,  James Edwards of Kilmore had been replaced by his son, Thomas Edwards, in the land records, and Griffiths records that Thomas Edwards was also leasing a field in neighbouring Dyan.

Henry Edwards (1799 - 1881) was the son of William Edwards of Crievelough, and the husband of Jane Johnston.  Henry made a will and died in Crievelough on 29th August 1881;  his will named his son and heir as William Edwards, and his daughters as Martha, Jane, Rosanna and Eliza.   Son William, who inherited the Edwards family farm, died on 30th November 1896 and named one of his executors as his brother, John Edwards, who was faming across the county border in Portnaghey, Co. Monaghan.  On 25th April 1873, John Edwards, son of Henry Edwards of Crievelough, married Jane Wright of Ballyvaddy, daughter of Francis Wright. When  John Edwards died his will named his son as William Henry Edwards, and daughters as Maggie, Edith, Annie, Martha Robertson of New York State,  Tillie Hammesfahr of New York State (she was the wife of Peter Hammesfahr)  and Sarah Hoey of Dyan, Co. Tyrone.

A recent DNA test has strongly linked both my mother and I to Christine Peterson who also descends directly from a James Edwards of Co. Tyrone, via his daughter Rosanna Edwards.

Rosanna Edwards had been born in about 1812 and married James Kerr in about 1832.  James Kerr died aged 76 in Drumnastrade, Benburb, Co. Tyrone, on 13th March 1886.  Their daughter, Rosanna Kerr (1836 - 1904) married Henry William Kerr in Waterloo, Ontario, and had Ida Winifred Kerr who married David Coote Beggs.  Christine descends directly from them.

The name 'Rosanna' was associated with the Edwards family of Creevelough,  Aghaloo parish, Co. Tyrone and also with our Dickson family of Drummond.

As for the family of James Kerr, who had married Rosanna Edwards in about 1832, there was a family of this name in Drummond, Co. Tyrone.  John Kerr died aged 84 on 25th October 1899; his son, Joseph Kerr, was present.  On 8th June 1894 in St. James' Church, Moy, this Joseph Kerr married
Madoline Kerr, the daughter of Thomas Kerr and Susan Ford of Drummond.  Joseph Kerr didn't last long, and died of typhoid on 9th September 1904.
His widow, Madoline, married Thomas James Dickson, in the Registrar's Office on 4th October 1906.  Both bride and groom were 30 years old and the wedding was witnessed by the groom's brother, David Dickson, and by John Kerr.   Thomas James Dickson and David Dickson were the sons of Henry Dickson Jr. and  Elizabeth Edwards who were my maternal great-great grandparents.

The six known children of Henry Dickson Jr. and Elizabeth Edwards were

• Naamah Dickson born circa 1860.  
• Sarah Maria Dickson who was born in Drummond on 20th April 1864.
• Our great-grandfather Joseph Edwards Dickson born  circa 1865. 
• David Dickson. 
• Rosanna Dickson.
• Thomas James Dickson.

On the 1901 Census in Moy, Drummond, we can see the elderly Henry Dickson aged 86 and Elizabeth aged 85, still alive and living with their son, David Dickson, and his young wife Anne Marie.
Immediately next door to Henry and Elizabeth, was their son Thomas Js. Dickson, aged 28.

Elizabeth  Dickson, née Edwards, died at Drummond aged 90 on 29th April 1905; the informant was her son David.
Henry Dickson of Drummond, father of Sarah Maria, Joseph, David, Rosanna, and Thomas James, and husband of Elizabeth Edwards, died a widower aged 94 on 15th August 1906.  I hope I've inherited their genes.

In 1911 Henry's son David Dickson and his wife were still living at Moy.   David's wife was Anna Maria Atkinson.  David Dickson, son of Henry Dickson and Elizabeth Edwards, had married Anna Maria Atkinson, the daughter of John Atkinson of Coolhill, in Drumglass on 2nd August 1898 - this was witnessed by his brother Thomas J. Dickson and by Lizzie Atkinson.

(The Atkinson family originated in Annamoy townland.    Anna Maria Atkinson, who married David Dickson in 1898, had been born in Annamoy on 23rd February 1873, to John Atkinson and Margaret Walker.  Among her siblings were Margaret Jane Atkinson who was born in 1869 in Annamoy and who married George Gleichert in New York in 1902.  Robert John Atkinson was born in 1871 and married Matilda Jane Ewing in 1913.  Other siblings were Thomas Henry Atkinson who married Edith Lawson in New York in 1908, Thomas Henry Atkinson and Frederick William Atkinson.

Anna Maria Atkinson's father, John Atkinson (1848 - 1920) of Annamoy and Coolhill, was the son of Cornelius Atkinson of Annamoy.
Cornelius Atkinson died on 10th March 1880;  he left a will in which he named his son, John, as the chief beneficiary, and also two daughters, Catherine and Eliza.  The two witnesses were Dickson Orr of Lisnacroy, and Joseph Alexander Dickson of Carrowcolman, who was possibly a relation of my own Dickson family of Drummond. 
Catherine and Eliza Atkinson, sisters of John and daughters of Cornelius, might have emigrated to New York where they married - a Catherine Haskins, died aged 44 on 1887 and was noted as the Irish-born daughter of Cornelius and Ruth Atkinson.
Eliza Atkinson, noted as the daughter of Cornelius Atkinson and Ruth Kimpsire (this name was most likely a typo, married Maxwell Gillespie in 1875;  widowed, she later married, in 1887, William Haskins, and then in 1898, Charles Monckton. The record named her as Lizzie Haskins, the daughter of Cornelius Atkinson and Ruth. E. Compesta.

David Dickson, who married Anna Maria Atkinson in 1898, was named as one of the chief mourners at the 1909 funeral of Joseph Atkinson of Annamoy, who had married Mary Jane Jardine in 1868.  The two sons of Joseph Atkinson and Mary Jane Jardine were Joseph and Edward Jardine Atkinson.)

David Dickson, brother of our Joseph Edwards Dickson - photo kindly supplied by David's great-granddaughter Elizabeth Newell

Elizabeth Edwards Reid, née Dickson, eldest daughter of David Dickson and Anna Maria Atkinson - grandmother of Elizabeth Newell who kindly supplied this photo.

The children of David Dickson and Anna Maria Atkinson were:

• Elizabeth Edwards Dickson born 28th May 1899 - 26th April 1975.
• Margaret born 28th November 1900 - 2nd September 1915.
• Ruth Emma or Anna Dickson born 18th June 1902 - 6th March 1907.
• Annie Maria born 21st August 1904 - 1996.
• Henry born 1st October 1906 - 1990, died in Belfast.
• Naamah Dickson born at Drummond on 28th May 1908 - 1997, she died in Portadown, Co. Armagh, and had married Robert George McClelland on 11th June 1928.
• Joseph Edwards Dickson 1911 - 1970;  he was named after David's late brother, our great-granddfather, who had died six years earlier.
• Thomas James born 15th May 1913 - 1948.

David Dickson's wife, Anna Maria Atkinson, died aged 42 of tuberculosis in Drummond on 17th February 1914.
On 3rd May 1916 in Moy, Clonfeakle, widower David Dickson, son of Henry Dickson and Elizabeth Edwards, married Eliza Jane, daughter of Robert Lucas of Ballymackleduff. The witnesses were Robert and Mary Lucas.

Joseph Dickson's oldest sister, Naamah Dickson, was born in Drummond in about 1860 to Henry Dickson and Elizabeth Edwards.  She died aged 26 of heart disease in Drummond on 21st December 1886;  her brother, David Dickson, was the informant.

Joseph Dickson's sister, Sarah Maria McCollough/McCullagh Dickson, was born in Drummond on 20th April 1864  to Henry Dickson and Elizabeth Edwards.  On 27th December 1895 in Moy, Clonfeacle, she married James Millar or Miller, a farmer of Mullaghboy, the son of John Millar.  The wedding was witnessed by our great-grandfather, Joseph Edwards Dickson, and by an M.E.Hillock, who I believe to be Margaret Elizabeth Hillock, the wife of an Armagh coal and timber merchant Henry Hillock.

James Millar and Sarah Maria McCollough Dickson of Mullaghboy, Co. Tyrone, had:

• Elizabeth Millar on 12th August 1897.
• Lydia Millar on 11th August 1898.
• John Millar born circa 1900.
• Naamah Maria on 1st October 1901.
• Annie Evelyn Millar on 9th October 1903,
• Margaret Millar on 21st October 1904 and
• James Millar on 8th August 1906.

There are extremely strong DNA links between my mother and two descendants of the Millar family. George Millar is a descendant of John Millar, the son of James Millar and Sarah Maria McCollough Dickson - John Millar (1900 - 1975) married Matilda Weir (1911 - 2001), and DNA match George Millar descends from them.
A second strong DNA match is Sharon Farmer née Lavery, whose parents were Robert John Lavery and Doreen McKenzie;  Robert John Lavery must be a son of the George Lavery who married Elizabeth Millar, the daughter ot James Millar and Sarah Maria McCollough Dickson, in Loughgall, Co. Armagh, on 13th December 1917.  George Lavery was the son of a John Lavery.  The witnesses to this wedding in 1917 were Joseph Lavery and Lydia Millar.   Lydia Millar, in her turn, married John McClelland, son of George McClelland of Loughgall, in Benburn, Clonfeacle, on 22nd April 1920, and this wedding was witnessed by a Robert McClelland and a member of the Dickson family, Lizzie Dickson.

A fourth child of Henry Dickson Junior and Elizabeth Edwards was Rose Anne (or Rosanna) Dickson (1853 - 1891) who married Samuel Fulton of Lisduff, Benburb, on 10th December 1878 in Clonfeacle Church. Samuel Fulton was a farmer and son of Robert Fulton of Lisduff.  The wedding was witnessed by the bride's younger brothers,  Thomas J. Dickson and our great-grandfather Joseph Edwards Dickson.
Samuel Fulton and Rose Anne Dickson had children - Martha Jane Fulton was born in Lisduff on 15th October 1879, Sarah Maria Fulton was born on 21st June 1881,  Joseph Henderson Fulton was born on 5th February 1883, Joseph Henry Fulton was born on 21st October 1885, Naamah Fulton was born on 24th October 1887 but died in 1890, and Sarah Maria was born on 3rd August 1890.
The childrens' mother, Rose Ann, née Dickson, died of peritonitis aged 38 in Lisduff, Benburb, on 26th July 1891.
In 1901 the widowed Sam Fulton was living at 41 Frome Street in Belfast with three of his children, Martha L., John and Sarah.  They gave their religion as Salvation Army.
Sam Fulton, died of pneumonia at 41 Frome Street, Co. Down, on 1st August 1907.  Daughter Martha Fulton married William Hewitt on 20th April 1907.

My mother and I link very strongly via DNA to a James Fulton who also links strongly to my Millar matches, George Millar and Sharon Farmer née Lavery, but who hasn't provided an online family tree.  I presume he descends from the family of Samuel Fulton and Rose Anne Dickson.

(The Ruth Dickson who married Andrew Ferguson, son of William Ferguson, on 1st March 1875, was the daughter of an unrelated Henry Dickson who was farming at Donaghmore, Co. Tyrone, ten miles north of Drummond, the home of the Dickson family discussed in this post. )

A Tithe Proctor Murdered, 1815, Tipperary

The following newspaper extract illustrates the unpopularity of the tithe system in early 19th century Ireland. The Tithes were a tax imposed on the Irish population, regardless of their religion, by the Church of Ireland which was the established church of the state. 
The tithes were collected by proctors - in this case, Mr. Hartnett was the proctor for the Rev. John Pennefather of Glebe House, Newport, Tipperary.

This newspaper extract comes from an 1815 edition of 'The Examiner' which was, I believe, an American publication.

‘Cashel, Dec. 23^rd - This day, at noon, one Hartnett (the Tithe Proctor of Rev. John Pennefather, Rector of Newport in this county) was murdered by two men at the gate of Monagee, about one mile from this city on the Camas road. As far as we can collect the facts, they are as follows: It has been a general complaint, that notwithstanding the fall of corn, and the distress of the Farmer, the Clergy have been this year rather more greedy in their exactions as ever. Tithes of an enormous amount are at this moment levied; and, where the wretched Cottier is indigent or contamacious, he is summoned to that dread Tribunal ‘The Bishop’s Court’ and there decreed and condemned to pay. The Tithes of Mr. Penefather’s parish (about 30 miles distant) have exceeded the means of some of his Parishioners, and his Proctor, Hartnett (not the most merciful of his tribe) summoned a number of them to the Metropolitan Court in this city, where a Surrogate constantly sit to do ‘justice’. Hartnett, and these poor creatures, had been in attendance here for some days past, several altercations, and much bitterness appeared on both sides. Finally, the Proctor had the good fortune to succeed in all his complaints, and obtained heavy decrees in all his cases. The wretched defendants cried out that they must leave their homes, their wives and children, that they were hardly used, that they must go to America. Hartnett left Cashel, on his return to Newport, accompanied by two other Proctors, who had been upon similar errands. They were met by two men, supposed to be from Newport, who produced blunderbusses, ordered the two other Proctors to return to Cashel, and detained Hartnett as the most obnoxious. They then fired three shots at Hartnett and left him for dead. The surgeon and other persons came out from Cashel and afforded every aid but the Proctor died in three hours. We understand, however, that he had sufficient strength to relate the particulars, and to name the murderers who were well known to him. Persuit was made but, for the present, they have contrived to escape. The weather was dreadful at the time, blowing a dreadful storm, and accompanied by cold heavy rain. The country people were all in their cabins, and no person visible on the road or in the fields, save the parties we have named. Though this outrage hasw occurred in Middlethird Barony, or in a corner of it, yet it is plain that the inhabitants are free from imputation. No precaution on their part could have prevented it. The Tithe System and the ravenous practices employed by the Clergy, are the causes of this and many other calamities. In truth, as Judge Fletcher has briefly expressed it, ‘The Tithe System is not fit for Ireland. The deliberation and effectual care with which this murder was perpetrated are peculiarly calculated to awaken the most serious reflections and to shew, that when the laws become severe in the extreme, they either fail to be effective, or they excite a horrible re-action. These murderers must have been, for some days past, in Cashel, or in its immediate vicinity, watching their victim and waiting their opportunity.’

Thomas Williams, First Secretary to the Bank of Ireland

I researched the following Williams family in order to rule out a possible family link to my own ancestor, Richard Williams (1812 - 1885), who worked for this family for many years.  I do not believe we are related in any way, but publish my research into them for the benefit of fellow researchers.

Thomas Williams, 1747- 1832, the first secretary of the Bank of Ireland. I have managed to patch together bits and pieces of information about Thomas from the internet, and also from the Dublin street directories available in Pearse Street Library.

Thomas Williams was born on 30th December 1747 to the tailor, Richard Williams, and his wife, Mary Williams, of Leighton Buzzard.

The children of Richard and Mary Williams of Leighton Buzzard were as follows:
Hutchins Williams born 26th December 1740 in Leighton Buzzard.
John Williams born 29th September 1742 in Leighton Buzzard.
William Williams born 31st March 1746 in Leighton Buzzard.
Thomas Williams born 30th December 1747 in Leighton Buzzard.
Richard Williams born 29th December 1749 in Leighton Buzzard.
Mary Williams born 12th September 1751 in Leighton Buzzard.
Watkin William Williams born 28th December 1753 in Leighton Buzzard.
Watkin Win Williams born 1761 in Leighton Buzzard.

On the day that the Bank of Ireland opened for business, 25th June 1783, Robert Watson Wade resigned as Accountant General and Thomas Williams was appointed in his stead. In the year 1788, Hill Wilson died and Thomas Williams was promoted to the post of Secretary, a post which he held for almost forty years.
In the 1780s, James Gibbons (the father of James Gibbons of Ballynegall, Westmeath?),  was appointed as notary to the bank, since Hill Wilson and Thomas Williams could not obtain the necessary legal qualifications due to the opposition of certain notaries of the city. At this time, you needed recommendations from merchants or stockbrokers to be appointed to the post.
 James Gibbons would go into business with Richard Williams, Thomas Williams' son, and would operate as notaries to the Bank of Ireland, with premises at 38 Dame Street.

It seems that the Williams family arrived in Dublin prior to Thomas William's marriage in 1777 - a deed exists in the Registry of Deeds which records a property deal in Dublin, dated 25th February 1782.  (Ref:248/143/232624)
The deed was executed by Thomas Williams on belhalf of himself and of Henry Lyons and Clifford Boldock of the City of Dublin and concerned the sale of their property of 5 Dame Street to William Shannon, public notary.  No. 5 Dame Street was described as a new dwelling-house with yard and offices, bordered on the east by Peter Wilson's holding and on the west by Daly's Chocolate House and by Mr. Keating's holding.  The deed was witnessed Watkin Wynne Williams, gentleman of Dublin, and by Edward Hamerton of Dublin and Frederick Kane, also of Dublin.
   Watkin Wynne Williams was the brother of Thomas Williams and both had been born in Leighton Buzzard to the merchant tailor, Richard Williams and his wife Mary.  Henry Lyons, Clifford Boldock and William Shannon were all associated with the Bank of Ireland.
Although Clifford Boldock originated in York, England, he was apprenticed in 1770 to the linen-draper, William Ward of Hanover Square, London;  Clifford married a Miss Drury in Ireland in 1777 and died in Dublin in 1790.
Edward Hamerton lived at 11 Castle Street and was the Clerk of Ship Entries for the Port of Dublin.
   It appears from the street directories that the above Thomas Williams started out as a haberdasher in Dublin, in business with Clifford Boldock and with Henry Lyons.  This Thomas Williams continued in business alone until 1787, four years after Thomas Williams was appointed as accountant general to the Bank of Ireland in 1783.  Could this be possibly be the same man?  Could he have run a business and worked for the bank at the same time?   Here are the entries in the Dublin street directories:
   1776 - Williams and Lyons, Haberdashers, 18 Castle Street.
   1777 -  Williams, Lyons and Boldock, Wholesale Haberdashers, 5, Dame Street.
   1778 - Williams & Boldock, Wholesale Haberdashers, 5, Dame Street.
   1778 - Williams & Boldock, Wholesale Haberdashers, 5 Dame Street.
   1779 - Williams &  Boldock, Wholesale Haberdashers, 5 Dame Street.
   1780 -  As above.
   1781 - As above.
(From 'Saunders Newsletter of 2nd August 1782 we learn that Clifford Boldock, formerly in partnership with Mr. Thomas Williams had moved from Dame Street to 25, Stafford Street.)
   1782 - Thomas Williams & Co., Merchants, 5 Dame Street.
(From 'Saunders Newsletter' of 2nd July 1782, we learn that Thomas Williams & Co, have moved from Dame Street to 17 Eustace Street;  all persons indebted to Williams, Boldash [sic] & Co, should make payment of the same to Thomas Williams & Co in Eustace Street.)
   1783 - Thomas Williams & Co., Merchants, 17 Eustace Street.
   1784 - Thomas Williams & Co., Merchants, 17 Eustace Street.
   1785 - Thomas Williams & Co., Merchants, 17 Eustace Street.
   1786 - As above.
   1787 - As above.
    There were no further entries for Thomas Williams & Co., Merchants after 1787.  (NB: The father of Thomas Williams of the Bank of Ireland was a tailor of Leighton Buzzard, and this trade seemed to have passed down through the Williams family since Roger Williams of Penrhyn and Merchant Taylors, London. )

   In 1857 some of the properties of Richard Williams, the son of Thomas, were put up for sale through the Encumbered Estates Court.  Among these properties were the neighbouring houses of 15 and 16 Gardiner Place, both of which had been leased by Thomas Williams in the year 1792.
   Gardiner Place is off Mountjoy Square, as is Belvedere Place where the family of Thomas Williams later lived.  The first mention in the Dublin directories of a member of the Williams family at 2 Belvedere Place occurs in 1814, when Charles Wye Williams, Thomas' son, was noted here as a barrister.

It appears that No. 39 Dame Street was also owned by Thomas Williams - his relation, Hutchins Thomas Williams, was operating here at this address as a banker/stockbroker when his business, Gibbons and Williams, went bankrupt in 1835.  39 Dame Street was put up for sale in 1857 as part of the estate of Thomas' son, Richard Williams.

For Sale in 1857: 39 Dame Street - Indenture of demise, dated 13th December 1786, from James Williams to Henry Wilme for 999 years.  The interest of James Williams became vested in Thomas Williams, and the interest of Henry Wilme became vested in Benjamin Poyntz....23rd December 1824, an indenture of lease was executed between Thomas Williams of the first part, John Weldon, silk mercer of the second part, and Benjamin Poyntz of the third part.   This property was offered up for sale in 1857 as part of Richard Williams’ estate.  The tenants using the premises in 1857 were the West of England Insurance Company.
(39 Dame Street - Lease: Indenture of lease dated the 13th December 1786 from James Williams to Henry Wilme for 999 years , from 1st January 1787, at the yearly rent of £100....an indenture of lease dated 23rd December 1823, was made and executed between Thomas Williams Esq., of the 1st part, John Weldon, silk mercer, of the 2nd part, and Benjamin Poyntz, hosier, of the 3rd part, whereby the said Thomas Williams (in whom the interest of said James Williams, in said premises, was then vested) demised said premises to Benjamin Poyntz (in whom the interest of said Henry Wilme therein was also vested) for the term of 961 years...with liberty of carts, cars, horses, carriages, labourers and servants to pass and repass from and through the passage then and now called Dame-lane, at the rear of said house and premises, at all hours and times, and liberty was thereby reserved to the said Benjamin Poyntz...at the expiration of every seven years of said term, to surrender said premises on giving six months previous notice in writing.
And by deed of 14th June 1842, William Hodges and others (in whom the lessee’s interest in said indentures of 13th December 1786 and 23rd December 1823 was then vested)  assigned their interest to Samuel Page, who executed a declaration of trust  that he held in trust, and for and on behalf of The West of England Insurance Company.)
   Benjamin Poyntz, named above, started out as a hosier and glover at 62 Dame Street, before being listed at  39 Dame Street on the Valuation of Dublin in 1830, and finally settled at 106 Grafton Street.

   An R.Williams, which might be Richard Williams, the second son of Thomas Williams, was noted as an attorney of 2 Summerhill in 1807 and 1808.  (Summerhill being in the same North Dublin area as Mountjoy Square.)
   The firm of notaries to the Bank of Ireland, 'Gibbons and Williams', appears in the directories from 1799 under the heading for the Bank.

Thomas's father, Richard Williams, who had been born on July 17th 1719 at Carnarvon,  claimed descent from Griffith Williams the first Baronet Penrhyn (1661) whose family seat is close to Anglesey in Wales.
 The eldest son of Richard and Mary was Hutchins Williams who was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedford, in 1740. We possibly descend directly from this Hutchins Williams who was, of course, the brother to Thomas Williams of the Bank of Ireland.


Thomas Williams was married to Mary Ann Quin/Quine who was a descendant of the second Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1667 to 1668, Mark Quine.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/11/collection-of-quins.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/01/mary-anne-quin-wife-of-thomas-williams.html

The couple married in St. Thomas's, Dublin, on 26th March 1777 - they were married by Rev. Mr. Wye, who was the bride's grandfather.  Mary Anne Quin appears to have been the daughter of Thomas Quin and Mary Wye.

https://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/2013/02/links-between-williams-bellinghams-wyes.html

 

Thomas and Mary Ann Williams had three known sons - Charles Wye Williams 1779 - 1866, shipping magnate of Dublin and Liverpool;  Walker Williams who didn't survive childhood, dates unknown;  Richard Williams 1778 - 1868, a notary of Dame Street and Drumcondra Castle, who was married to Anne Palmer.


Thomas Williams and Mary Ann Quin had a daughter, Mary Williams, who married George Simpson Carleton in April 1834. The papers of the day noted her as the eldest daughter of Thomas Williams of Hampton Lodge, which of course means that there must be either one, or more, daughters floating about somewhere.
  Deed 1857-27-21, dated 14th September 1857, records that, on the occasion of the marriage between Mary Williams and Carleton, Mary Williams granted to Richard Williams and Francis Carleton a sum of £2000.  A sum of £1000 was also lent to George Simpson Carleton by Richard Williams for a house in Eustace Street.  Mary Carleton, née Williams, died without children;   the deed of 1857 records that Richard Williams of Dame Street was the surviving trustee of the earlier marriage settlement of April 9th 1834.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/11/carleton-family-of-eustace-street.html

From 'The Treble Almanac' of 1815: 
Williams (Thos. Esq.) 2 Belvedere Place.  

'Saunders's News-Letter' of 19th February 1803 noted the marriage of the youngest daughter of Thomas Williams and Mary Ann Quin to attorney William Farran of Eccles St.

'MARRIED. Wm Farran, of Eccles-Street, Esq, to Miss Eliza Williams, youngest daughter of Thomas Williams, of Belvedere-Place, Esq.'

An announcement in 'The True Briton' confirmed Eliza as the daughter of Thomas Williams of the Bank of Ireland:

Thomas and Mary Ann Williams later moved north to Hampton Lodge in Drumcondra  - their son, Richard Williams,  lived nearby in Drumcondra Castle.
Drumcondra Castle had been built in 1555 by a Meath man, James Bathe, on land which had originally belonged to the Priory of the Holy Trinity.  In 1591, the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill, married Mabel Bagenal there. In 1677, James II granted the Drumcondra lands to a Giles Martin. The castle had several owners over the centuries including Captain Chichester Phillips and Edward Newenham. It was sold to its current owners, St. Josephs School for the Blind, in 1859.

Following her husband's death in 1832 or 1833, Mary Ann Williams continued to live in  Hampton Lodge in Drumcondra and can be seen there on Griffiths Valuation of 1852.

Thomas's son, Richard, was one the executors of his will, the other being the widowed Mary Anne Williams.  In 1836, a deed was drawn up (1836-3-67) by which Richard and Mary Anne transferred the mortgage on a house in North Sackville Stree  to Elizabeth Burgh of Clogrennan, Carlow. This property had been sold in 1818 to Thomas Williams by Nathaniel Sneyd.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/p/index-to-williams-posts.html

(An interesting aside:  The Williams family of Cochwillan, the Williams of Meillionydd, the Williams-Bulkeley family of Penrhyn  and the Griffiths family of Penrhyn (amongst other North Wales families) descend directly from  a Welsh nobleman named Sir Tudor ap Ednyfed Vychan who was married to Adlais, the granddaughter of Griffith ap Cynan, the King of North Wales.
This Ednyfed Vychan later married a second woman, Gwenllian, the daughter of Rhys ap Griffith, a Lord of South Wales.  Their grandson was Tudor ap Grono of Penmynedd, who built the priory at Bangor and did homage for his lands to Edward I at Chester.
 Tudor's great-great- grandson, Sir Owen Tudor, married Catherine de Valois, the youngest daughter of Charles VI, the King of France. Catherine was the widow of Henry V of England, and the mother of Henry VI.
Catherine and Sir Owen Tudor, who was beheaded in 1461 for his role in the Wars of the Roses, had a son, Edmund Tudor, who was created the Earl of Richmond in 1452 by Henry VI.  Edmund married Lady Margaret Beaufort, the daughter and heir of John, Duke of Somerset and died in 1456, leaving an only son, Henry VII who was the King of England and the founder of the royal house of Tudor. )