Nat Gould

Joseph Gould 1757-1819

Joseph Gould was the youngest child of William Gould 1704-1757 of Brownhill in Warslow parish in Staffordshire and his wife Elizabeth Grindon 1723-1790.

He was born in 1757, probably at Lower Brownhill, and was baptised on 3 January 1757 at Alstonefield in Staffordshire.

Joseph Gould was only a tiny baby when his father died in 1757. His future must then have been uncertain, for little provision was made for him. His father had made his Will just before he died aged only 53 years. Young Joseph Gould was to be given £100 when he attained the age of 21 years, and another £50 was "to be applied by my Executors to put my said Son Joseph Gould to a Trade so soon as my Executors shall think him prepared for the same".

As he grew into manhood, Joseph Gould might have been justified in feeling that he had not received his due inheritance. Most of his wealthy father's property went to his half-brother "Gentleman" William Gould, whose executors sold the valuable estate in Staden and Buxton Green, adjoining the developing spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire, to the Duke of Devonshire (1). This property was an inheritance from the Morewood grandmother of all the children of William Gould including Joseph Gould.

Seventy-five years later, his second cousin William Gould of Hanson Grange was telling another second cousin Thomas Bateman that he had lived in London and died a bachelor (2). Bateman's draft of his Gould family tree shows Joseph Gould as "ob. coelebs" (3). That was a mistake. Joseph Gould did not die unmarried and childless. Perhaps William Gould had not remembered correctly. He was an old man when Bateman was noting down the family recollections in the early 1840s (4).

Part of Bateman's draft of his Gould family tree

Possibly Joseph Gould did take himself off to London, to enter some trade there. Little is known of his later life. However, before disappearing from the known record, he went to live at Grindon in the Staffordshire moorlands.

He married Mary Chadwick on 5 March 1787 at Alstonefield.

She was born at Grindon in 1760, the daughter of John Chadwick and his wife Mary Eaton, and baptised there on 11 May 1760.

They had a son John Gould, who was born in 1793 and baptised on 24 July 1793 at Grindon church (5).

Joseph Gould died in 1819.

(1) Devonshire Estate Archives at Chatsworth L/72/5/1-21.
(2) Thomas Bateman was particularly interested in the antecedents of the Gould family, as he was himself a great-grandson of the first William Gould of Pilsbury Grange, who had taken the lease in 1684. He was thus the second cousin of William Gould of Hanson Grange and of all the children of William Gould 1704-1757.
(3) Derbyshire Pedigrees by Thomas Bateman, the unfinished manuscript volume now in Devonshire Estate Archives at Chatsworth. The draft family tree is among the loose sheets within the volume, and the portion shown is published by kind permission of the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement.
(4) Bateman had already corrected his entry for brother Richard Gould.
(5) Mary Gould nee Chadwick may have died young. The date and place of her death have not been found. Nor do there seem to have been any more children.