The
Mill at Badsey:
The Thorp family
As part of the History of the Mill here are some notes on the Thorp family who were owners of the Silk Mill. See also Deeds for the Mill Buildings.
Mrs Kate Pearce (née Thorp), the great-great-granddaughter of John Thorp’s cousin, John Thomas Thorp, has supplied the following information about the Thorp family:
John Thorp (1773-1834) was the son of John Thorp (1742-1817) of Manchester, a well-known Quaker Minister of the period. John Senior was married twice and John was his son by his first marriage to Martha Goodier. John had three half-brothers by his father’s second marriage to Martha Cash: Thomas (1780-1848) of Overbury, William (1781-1828) of Fallowfield and Samuel (1791-1860) of Macclesfield. They all owned cotton and silk mills in Macclesfield, Manchester, Badsey, London and elsewhere; John Thorp also had a ribbon factory in Coventry and a silk mill in Gutter Lane, London.
John Thorp had an illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth, born in Coventry on 14th February 1819, of whom he was very fond. Three years later, John married Frances Maria Atkins, the daughter of a liquor merchant of Evesham, who owned property in the Evesham area, including The White Hart Inn at Evesham. They had a daughter, Frances Maria, in 1824, but sadly, Frances, the mother, died on 28th April 1824. John brought up the two little girls at his home at Greenhill, Evesham, with the help of a housekeeper, Elizabeth Hopkins. John died in 1834 and was buried at Chipping Campden. In his will, he said of Elizabeth that she "… has been carefully educated and brought up by me with all the love and affection that it is the duty of a parent to give to his dutiful child which she is and always has been to me …" He left her the Mill, and his half-brothers, Thomas Thorp of Overbury, and Samuel Thorp of Macclesfield, were executors. John had envisaged the housekeeper and the two girls remaining at Greenhill, but Thomas moved them all out, sold the house and its contents and took them all to live with him at his house, where they were very unhappy.
Four years after her father’s death, Elizabeth, aged 19, married her cousin, Henry Thorp, son of Thomas, who was then managing one of the Thorp silk mills at Pickford Street, Macclesfield. He may have gone to manage the Badsey mill when Elizabeth inherited it at the age of 21. Elizabeth and Henry had four children: Eliza (born 1839), Arthur (1840-c1841), Frank (1842) and Fanny (c1844-c1851). Henry Thorp died in 1847 and was buried in the Quaker burial ground at the Friends’ Meeting House, Cowl Street, Evesham. Henry’s father, Thomas, died in 1848, and there is a large tombstone in the churchyard of St Faith’s, Overbury, with the following inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Thomas Thorp late of this parish and formerly of King Street in the City of London who died January 28th 1848 aged 68 years".
Widow Elizabeth Thorp married widower Robert Mansell Stratton in September 1851 at Evesham. In 1841 and 1851, Robert, an Evesham-born man, had been living in Eastington, Gloucestershire, working as a surveyor of taxes. Possibly after the death of his wife, Jane, he returned to Evesham, where he met Elizabeth. Regretfully, they had only two years together, as Elizabeth died on 14th October 1853. Her widowed husband, Robert, was living in Badsey in 1861, close to The Pool House (possibly The Firs?), together with his son, Frederic Thomas. Robert was described as a Late Surveyor of Taxes and Inspector of Stamps. Robert and Elizabeth had not been in Badsey in 1851, but possibly had moved there after their marriage.
Elizabeth’s daughter, Eliza Thorp, who sold the Mill in 1863, never married; in 1871, she was living in Macclesfield with an elderly aunt, Ann Airey, a widow, and then may have moved to London.
Kate Pearce
kathleen.pearce@onetel.com