Way Back - Yealand Conyers (updated 29/04/08)

One of the earliest cluster of Hubbersteys that I have found so far, lived around Yealand Conyers, near Lancaster, in Lancashire. Just type it into Google Earth and you can zoom right down to see how small of a place it is/was?.

In Over Kellet (just south of Yealand Conyers) we have one of the older mentions of the Hubberstey name from this area.

"John Port held the grange there in 1450 and Robert Hubbersty in 1460; ibid, iii, 1286. A rent of 20s. was paid at that time and 24s. in 1501 when Robert Lucas was tenant; ibid, iii, 1287. Lucas was still there in 1537, but Peter Burton was to succeed him; ibid."

The Parish of Warton has records that go back into the early 1500's. Here is a link to the records for St Oswalds. Just click on the links on the left hand side to get births, deaths, and marriages.

I have gone through all of the records that are online and set up a spreadsheet that attempts to link the births, deaths, and marriages. If you would like a copy, email me and I will send you the file.

One of the things that makes researching "Hubberstey" difficult is that there are so many variations of the name in the records. It is impossible to get by just searching for one of the spelling variations. Sometimes I have found new variations just by going through page after page and ignoring the search function.

These first records are no exception. We have Hubberstei, Huberstei, Huberstay, Hubberstey, Hubberstye, Hubborstey, Hubberstic, Hubbersty, Hubersty, and possible Hubberstone and Hubberthorne.

The earliest record here is the death of a William Hubberstey in 1571. The earliest birth recorded is that of Robert Hubberstey in 1577. The latest birth recorded is Nathan Hubberstey in 1720.

It is interesting to note that by the 1841 census there are no more Hubbersteys in the area. By 1841 most of the Hubbersteys are living in the Preston/Blackburn region with a few down around Wirksworth, Derbyshire or in Middlesex.

One has to wonder why the Hubbersteys disappeared from this area and ended up in other areas. One would have to assume that the Civil War had something to do with it. From 1577 to 1642 there is a steady stream of births. But around 1642 the number of births drops off noticeably. There are only 2 between 1642 and 1660. After 1660 the majority of the surviving children recorded are female. From 1660 only three males, Richard 1660, Thomas 1680 and Nathan 1720, appear to have survived childhood. (This is pure speculation but Nathan 1720 could very well be the ancestor of Nathan in Wirksworth (born 1767) as first name do seem to continue down the line..There is a link here to Nathan's line.)

The earliest records I have seen for Hubbersteys in the Preston/Blackburn area are in the early 1700s. It may be that some Hubbersteys moved from the Yealand area at the time of the Civil War or thereafter. In fact the battle of Preston (1648) was fought after the army of Hamilton had passed through Kendal, then Lancaster, before moving on to Preston. Of course this is only speculation, so far.

There is an interesting account of some of the goings on in the area around the time of the Civil War in Sir George Middleton of Leighton and his Tenants in the Civil War Period. It even mentions a 13 year old Thomas Hubberstey, who seems to have been a tenant of sorts.

Then there is also the possible impact of the plague. There is this quote from the Preston records from 1631:

...that those books show us that in the year 1631 not a quarter, but a third of the inhabitants of Preston were slain by an outbreak of plague. In November, 1630, there are entered in the burial registers these words, pregnant with the horror with which the people of Preston were to be struck: " Heare begineth the Visitation of Almighty God, the plague," and before those blessed words " plague ceased " were written exactly a year later, a thousand and seventy-five names were to be entered in the burial list. With what feelings would those words of Psalm 91 be chanted through the town: " Thou shalt not be afraid ... for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day," almost certainly, at least on that black Sunday, July 24th, when twenty people were buried. Twenty in one day, in a town of about three thousand inhabitants where the average number of deaths at that period was six a month. Whole families were eliminated...

Subsequent to originally writing this post, I've come across some evidence of more recent Hubbersteys living in the area. For example we have this from 1870:

In 1870 a Mr. Derome sold 79 acres of pasturelands in Borrowdale in the township of Tebay forauction. The auction was held at the Kings Arms Hotel in Kendal on Friday 23rd of September at 3’oclock in the afternoon. Along with the lands in Borrowdale were the Freehold and Customary estates in the township of Patton, Docker and Borwick Fold in Nether Stavely and cattlegates in the parish of Orton, all in the county of Westmorland, devised by the Will of John Hubbersty, late of Haygarth in Docker, Gentleman, deceased. Cattlegates refer to each eligible tenant of the manor being given a fixed ‘gate’ on the commons, that is the number of animals he was allowed to pasture.

Docker is just to the north east of Kendal.



Another topic that peeks in here is the Quakers and the possible role they may have played. That will be covered in the next post.