Nat Gould

William Cantrell 1800-1876

Kniveton village

William Cantrell was born in 1800 at Mickleover in Derbyshire, the son of William Cantrell 1768-1822 and his wife nee Sarah Fox (born 1766). He was baptised on 10 December 1800 at Mickleover.

His father was the schoolmaster at Kniveton in Derbyshire, who had lost his hand in an accident while playing in the Shrovetide football game in nearby Ashbourne, and moved to Mickleover. His mother was the daughter of a lawyer at Bakewell in Derbyshire.

"William, after a row with his older sister, ran away from home and joined a travelling bookseller. He travelled all over England, then worked for a surgeon called Edward Hennessy, who suggested that he should study medicine. So William went to London, where he qualified in 1822.

He then returned to Derbyshire and first hired two rooms in the Red Lion pub in Kniveton. When Squire Wright of Bradbourne was injured in a hunting accident the young doctor looked after him. Then in May 1825 he married the squire’s daughter, Millicent, who sadly died in March 1826, following the birth of their son, William, who also did not survive. (1)

William Cantrell married Millicent Wright at Bradbourne in Derbyshire on 19 May 1825. She was the daughter of John Wright 1752-1840 of Bradbourne and his wife nee Elizabeth Adams 1761-1844. He practised as a surgeon at Wirksworth in Derbyshire (2).

They had a son, also named William Cantrell, who died on 21 March 1826 aged only five days.

His mother Millicent Cantrell died eight days later on 29 March 1826, and was buried at Kniveton in Derbyshire on 3 April 1826 (3).

William Cantrell married Elizabeth Frost (4) of Calver in Derbyshire on 8 July 1829 (5). She was the only daughter of Matthew Henry Frost 1781-1849 (6), the Land Agent of the so-called Earl of Newburgh of Hassop Hall (7).

They had a son Matthew Henry Cantrell 1830-1915 born at Calver on 11 September 1830. He lived at Winster in Derbyshire.

When the 1841 Census was taken, they were living at Town Head, but by 1851 their address had changed to West End in Wirksworth and they were still there in 1871. By 1873 he was also a surgeon at the Derby Royal Infirmary (8).

Elizabeth Cantrell died on 13 September 1873 at the Causeway, Wirksworth aged 63 years (9).

William Cantrell died in 1876 aged 75 years.

(1) Winster Local History Group Newsletter 33 (February 2006): information of Mrs Cynthia Carmichael of Liverpool, great-great-granddaughter of William Cantrell 1800-1876. www.winster.org/History/Newsletters/Newsletter33.pdf
"Much of the material derives from anecdotes communicated by word of mouth from one generation of the family to another, so verification of all details has not been possible." Most of the valuable anecdotal material is nevertheless confirmed from parish registers and census returns. However his first father-in-law John Wright of Bradbourne was not the village squire.

(2) Ince Pedigrees 1600-1860 transcribed by John Palmer, Kathryn Farrell and Sonia Addis-Smith. http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/INCE.htm

(3) In the Kniveton parish register she is recorded as "Melicent" and as aged 23 years. However the Bradbourne register records her name as Millicent and her birth on 21 April 1805. Also the Kniveton register records the burial of her son William Cantrell as taking place on 24 March 1826 and his age as being seven days. The dates given in the Kniveton register conflict with those given in the Bradbourne register and in the Ince Pedigrees personally given to Thomas Ince by William Cantrell himself, and so the Kniveton records seem to be incorrect.

(4) Elizabeth is said to have lived up to her surname and to have been always cold towards Matthew Henry Cantrell, her only child. Winster Local History Group Newsletter 33 (February 2006).

(5) Derby Mercury 15 July 1829.

(6) He died on 15 December 1849 aged 68 years at the house in Wirksworth of his son-in-law William Cantrell: Derby Mercury 19 December 1849. The Frost family were Roman Catholic, as were the Eyre family of Hassop Hall by whom Matthew Frost was employed. There is a memorial to the parents of Elizabeth Frost in the Roman Catholic church at Hassop in Derbyshire.

(7) When the 5th Earl of Newburgh died in 1814 without an heir, the title reverted to another descendant of his grandmother Charlotte Maria Livingston, 3rd Countess of Newburgh in her own right. The descendant of her first marriage was Prince Giustiniani, an Italian and thus not capable of inheriting the title. So it was assumed that it would pass to the grandson of her second marriage, namely Francis Eyre 1762-1827. When he died it passed successively to his sons Thomas Eyre 1790-1852 (as 7th Earl) and Francis Eyre 1794-1852 (as 8th Earl). Both these brothers had no heirs, so their sister Mrs. Maria Dorothea Leslie 1788-1853 was regarded as being the Countess. However the Eyre claim proved to be erroneous. In 1857 the heir to Prince Giustiniani, Maria Bandini Giustiniani, was naturalised as a British subject, and her claim to be Countess was allowed in 1858. When she died in 1877 the title passed to her son who became the 8th Earl of Newburgh.

(8) Derby Mercury 30 April 1873.

(9) Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald 27 September 1873.