52 Ancestors 2022 - Week 7
Landed
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| Fancroft |
This is Fancroft, family home of the Whittens, my mother’s family, from the late 18th century until it was sold out of the family in 2016.
My earliest
record of it is as the home of my third great grandparents, William and
Prudence Whitten (nee Clery, (or Cleary).
William and Prudence were married in 1780, and by the time their son
Edward was born in 1795, they were living at Fancroft, just outside Roscrea in County
Tipperary.
Edward was
their sixth child and he and his bride, Martha Lucas also lived at Fancroft. Death records are not clear, but Whitten
family historians think that Edward was the oldest surviving son at the time of
his father’s death.
Edward and
Martha had 12 children. Little is known
about the first two sons, Robert (b 1822) and William (b 1823) The next three
children were girls – Matilda, Eliza and Mary, and then the next son, Edward,
died at the age of three.
Edward
senior died in 1850, and perhaps Robert or William may have inherited Fancroft
on his death, but it was John (b.1833) who eventually took over the property,
and his family line which remained.
The five
children who were younger than John all emigrated to Australia, but Fancroft
remained strong in their memories, and they passed this on to succeeding
generations.
The first to
return were Anthony’s sons, Alfred and Albert, who visited in the summer of
1912. Alf kept a diary which describes
the house and many of the family they met while they were there. #
The story in
the family is that John Whitten’s third son, Joseph Abraham Whitten was named
as his father’s heir, but that the eldest son, Edward, who had gone to Canada,
returned, burned that will and claimed Fancroft for himself. Edward was married to Charlotte Wallace and
had seven children and it appears that the first two sons both emigrated to
Canada when quite young.
(When I met
Marjorie in 1977, I asked her about all the emigrations to Canada and the USA
in the family. She said, “every time
there was a family fight, someone emigrated”, so perhaps these two sons were at
odds with Edward?)
I think that
the third son, George Washington Whitten must have taken over the farm after
Edward’s death in 1930. There is a record
of George and Lily and their son Eddie travelling back from Canada to Ireland
in 1933, but I don’t know if they had been resident there or if it was a short
visit.
George died
in 1951 and I assume that this is when Marjorie took over the running of Fancroft
At some stage she was joined by Billy Williams, son of her sister Frances, and
he inherited the property on Marjorie’s death in 1977.
When
Billy died in 2016, Fancroft was put on the market and when I was there in 2017
it presented a sorry site. We were told
that the new owners had wanted only the land and had no interest in the house,
which was empty and abandoned. After 300
years in the Whitten family, it is slowly falling into disrepair.
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#Monday 5th
In the morning we went out to Joe Whitten’s and had dinner. He has 45 Irish acres of land. Irish acres are 1¼ acres. Had tea there and met Francis Rorke who asked us to her (his?) place.
Went into town and had a good look through the co-operative bacon factory. Killing, scraping and singeing etc. The we called on John Mason once more. Had dinner at Luttrells, called on Daley the C of E curate who was out then back to tea at Luttrells where we met old Mrs Drought who knew Father well. After tea we went to the old Roscrea Castle. This seems to be a very old stronghold from the top of which one could see all the district round about. Singing and home.
Morning quiet time at Fancroft.
Afternoon shooting. Evening chatting in the Home.
Attended the Fair in Roscrea. It seemed strange to see cattle sheep and horses, pigs in the streets and the buyers and sellers chatting and driving a hard bargain. There was a fine little mob of Irish ponies, rounded up in the streets. 42 publicans in Roscrea...
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