Yorkshire (Brotherton Collection)

Description

The series comprises documents relating to land and property in Yorkshire. It includes surveys, rentals, leases, letters and accounts. The majority of the material dates from the mid to late 17th century.

Many of the documents concern the Fairfax and Buckingham estates. The majority of them relate to transactions facilitated by the company of Sir Robert Clayton and John Morris. Clayton and Morris were scriveners, merchant bankers and estate agents operating in the 17th century. Many are unsigned and are probably drafts.

Other documents are from the library of W. T. Freemantle, an antiquarian, from Sheffield.

Some deeds in this series have not been catalogued.

Biography or history

Sir Robert Clayton (1629-1707) was born in Northamptonshire and moved to London. John Morris (c.1627-1682) was the adoptive son of an Abingdon baker and was elected to a Bennett's scholarship at Abingdon School in 1641. Clayton and Morris were apprenticed to Robert Abbott of Cornhill, London, in the 1640s. Clayton was Abbott's nephew.

When Abbott died in 1658 Clayton and Morris took over the business. They developed it as a merchant bank and also practiced conveyancing, land valuation and estate management. The company was known variously as Robert Clayton and Partner, John Morris and Partner, and Morris and Clayton and Company. Clayton became Lord Mayor of London from 1679-80. He was knighted in 1671. He is buried at St. Mary's, Bletchingley, Surrey. Morris was MP for Bletchingley 1679-82.

Clayton was directly connected to the transatlantic slave trade, the plantations business, and colonialism. From 1658 he owned land in Bermuda and controlled a plantation there until at least the 1690s. Clayton was a principal member of the Royal African Company, a slave trading corporation, from 1672 to 1681. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Clayton is not known to have critiqued the slave trade.

Provenance

Some documents are from Sir Robert Clayton's and John Morris's business as scriveners, merchant bankers and estate agents. They were purchased by Lord Edward Brotherton in the late 1920s. Brotherton also bought papers from W. T. Freemantle, an antiquarian, of Sheffield.

System of arrangement

The titles of the bound items have been taken from the spines of the bindings. The bound volumes have been arranged in date order.

Access and usage

Access

This collection is fully accessible and not subject to protection under the Data Protection Act