Nat Gould

Heathcote Edensor Wedding

The marriage of Rachel Edensor to Michael Heathcote (1) was traditionally the occasion at which the millwright and canal pioneer James Brindley was introduced to the Lancashire colliery owner John Heathcote, uncle of the bridegroom. The wedding took place on 13 March 1750/1751 (1751 new style) at Youlgreave in Derbyshire (2).

John Heathcote was the owner of the Wet Earth Colliery near Worsley in Lancashire. The mine was well named and had become severely flooded. James Brindley solved the problem by ingenious waterworks, and the colliery could then be worked commercially. It was situated only a short distance from the Worsley coal mine of the Duke of Bridgewater (3).

The person who made the introduction may have been Richard Edensor 1700-1776 of Congleton, a brother of the bride. James Brindley visited him at Congleton (4). Brindley constructed the water wheel in the silk mill erected there in 1752 for John Clayton of Stockport, who was joined in partnership by Nathaniel Pattison in 1754 (5). How Richard Edensor 1700-1776 was also associated with that mill is uncertain. Brindley worked for him on the mill in what seems (from surrounding entries) to have been 1755, but that may have been when he complied the list of outstanding accounts. After the Brindley visit Richard Edensor disappears from known records. Perhaps he had retired, or was in failing health. He made his Will 1764, although he did not die until 1776.

However other relatives of the bride who also knew James Brindley, and who may well have been present at the wedding celebrations, were the brothers Thomas Gilbert 1720-1798 and John Gilbert 1724-1795. They had married cousins of the bride. Her mother Elizabeth Gould 1676-1753 had a brother William Gould 1677-1772 with two sons who married sisters of the Gilbert brothers. Richard Gould 1711-1762 married Elizabeth Gilbert 1717-1776 and Joseph Gould 1715-1777 married Ellen Gilbert 1722-1792. The Gould and Gilbert families thus became intertwined. Not only did Joseph Gould 1715-1777 marry a Gilbert, but so did a son and a grandson. The surname Gilbert became a favourite forename in the Gould family.

Yet another Gould likely to have been present at the Heathcote-Edensor wedding was Hannah Goodwin nee Gould. She was a daughter of William Gould 1677-1772, and was married to Anthony Goodwin of Great Rocks in Derbyshire. Their farm adjoined the hamlet of Tunstead in Wormhill parish where James Brindley was born and lived as a child (6). Great Rocks Farm was admired by the historian Stephen Glover. In 1856 he wrote “Last week I was with my friend Mr. Bateman of Lomberdale Hall whose grandfather purchased the Greatorex Estate in Wormhill, now one of the finest farms in England” (7). The Batemans also descended from William Gould 1655-1725 of Pilsbury Grange.

Though still largely unrecognised by canal historians, the Gould family were important participants in early canal construction and the industrial development that followed. Nathaniel Gould 1756-1820 was the executor of the Will of John Gilbert 1724-1795 and had married his granddaughter Lydia Gilbert 1768-1798 (8). Edmund Gould 1782-1833 worked on the Rochdale Canal with John Gilbert the younger, son of John Gilbert 1724-1795. He became ill during work on the canal, and had to recuperate back at the Gould family home Pilsbury Grange near Hartington in Derbyshire (9). He was also his agent and assistant at Clough Hall (10).

James Brindley visited Timothy Hollis on 2 March 1762 at his address in St Mary Axe while in London when the Bridgewater Canal act was being debated in Parliament, and was with him again on 12 March in the same year (11). This was probably in connection with canal developments in Sheffield where Timothy Hollis had interests through the cutlery trade (12). He was the grandson of Thomas Hollis 1634-1718 whose sister Mary Hollis 1654-1713 was married to William Gould 1655-1725 of Pilsbury Grange. That he kept in close touch with his Gould relatives is shown by his friendship with his second cousin Richard Edensor 1700-1776 of Congleton (whose mother was a Gould) leaving him a legacy of fifty guineas in his Will.

(1) The importance of the occasion of the marriage was noted in Lives of Individuals who Raised Themselves from Poverty to Eminence or Fortune by R.A. Davenport (1841) pages 322-323, and then in Brindley and the Engineers (abridged from his Lives of the Engineers by Samuel Smiles (1864) pages 141-143.

(2) It has been erroneously assumed by the authors of several biographies of James Brindley that the wedding took place in 1750 and at Hartington in Derbyshire:

"Michael Heathcote, of Buxton and Hartington ... married in 1750 Rachel Edensor, of Hartington ..." A History of the Borough of Stoke-úpon-Trent by John Ward (1843) page 563. Although the bride and groom are correctly named, the year is incorrect. Furthermore he gives the owner of the colliery as Sir Nigel Gresley.

"In the same year that James Brindley opened his Burslem workshop (1750) colliery owner John Heathcote travelled the 40 miles from Clifton, north-west of Manchester, to Hartington to attend the wedding of his nephew Michael ..." James Brindley : Canal Pioneer by Christine Richardson (2004) page 17.

"Tradition has it that Brindley's name was mentioned at a wedding celebration in 1750, when the owner of a coalmine told of flooding in Wet Earth Colliery at Clifton, between Manchester and Bolton ... John Ward, writing his History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, correctly named the bride and groom as Rachel Edensor and Michael Heathcote, who married at Hartington, on the Derbyshire border." James Brindley : Canal Engineer : a New Perspective by Kathleen M. Evans (2007)page 27.

(3) A full and authoritative account of the Wet Earth colliery is given in Brindley at Wet Earth Colliery : an Engineering Study by A.G. Banks and R.B. Schofield (1968).

(4) James Brindley's Notebooks transcribed and edited by Victoria Owens (2013) page 10.

(5) Congleton Past and Present by Robert Head (1887) pages 146-148.

(6) Great Rocks Dale was then a beautiful rural valley, but it became increasingly marred in the 1800s by the development of the Tunstead limestone quarry. Until the 1980s the quarrying was confined to the western edge of the dale, but was later permitted on the eastern side of the valley. As Tunstead Quarry extended there, Great Rocks Farm had to be abandoned, and the site has now been entirely quarried away.

(7) The Name of Greatorex : a History from Domesday to Millenium by Joan Greatorex http://www.winster.org/pages/History/Greatorex/The%20Name%20of%20Greatorex.htm

(8) Agents of Revolution : John and Thomas Gilbert - Entrepreneurs by Peter Lead (1989) page 139.

(9 "We are all of us hear well only your bror. Edmund has been with us 7 or 8 weeks he came home very ill indeed, they thought he would have gone of before he came home, but thank God he is got very well again & returned to Rochdale about a fortnight ago." Letters from Pilsbury Grange Letter 1 dated 4 November 1806 from Richard Gould 1741-1820 to his son John Gould 1784-1814.

(10) Agents of Revolution : John and Thomas Gilbert - Entrepreneurs by Peter Lead (1989) page 146.

(11) James Brindley's Notebooks transcribed and edited by Victoria Owens (2013) page 81.

(12) Rather than "giving thanks at the church of St Mary Axe in the City of London" for recovery from illness. James Brindley : Canal Pioneer by Christine Richardson (2004) page 47. The church had been demolished in 1561.