THE STOWELL MAIN BRANCH

The Stowell line is the paternal line of my ancestry, and so starts with my late father Bertram Stowell⁽¹⁾ (1910-2003), who married Alice Thorburn Briggs ⁽²⁾ (1909-1999). The origins of the Stowell name are not altogether certain, and are discussed on a separate page.

Stowell generations

The generations of direct Stowell ancestors so far identified are:

Stowell family members

Bertram STOWELL

My father Bertram Stowell ⁽¹⁾ was born on 21 Jan 1910 at 3 Hanover Square, Broughton, Lancs., the second son and third child of Percy Stowell⁽¹⁹⁾ and Rose Emily Bertram⁽²⁰⁾.

1       Bertram Stowell(1)

I do not know how his early years were spent, but in the Lent term of 1919 he went to the Junior School of Greshams, at Holt in Norfolk, and was in Old School House. His elder brother, Leonard, joined the school in the same term, and the reason for their being sent was the separation of their parents when my grandmother went away with the then Vicar of Holy Trinity, Southport, the Rev. Parkyn. The photo is of Bertram Stowell aged about 9 or 10 presumably around the time he was sent to boarding school.

At school, he won both football (rugby) and hockey colours. He left school in 1928 and became a management trainee with the Bleachers' Association in Manchester. He continued to play both club hockey for Alderley Edge and county hockey for Cheshire, having decided against continuing to play rugby. He became a hockey international, playing in 13 matches for England between 1931 and 1935. His advent as an international player provoked an article in the Hockey Weekly in March 1931.

On 03 Oct 1933 Bertram married Alice Thorburn Briggs ⁽²⁾, of Carolside, Upper Park Road, Didsbury, Manchester. His address at the time was 102 Wilmslow Road. The wedding took place at St. Aidan's Presbyterian Church, Didsbury.

In 1935, Bertram was sent as an assistant manager to the Bleachers' Association works at Luncarty, on the River Tay a few miles upstream of Perth. The early and unexpected death of the manager resulted in Bertram being made manager, later managing director, a position he retained until he retired in 1975.

Bertram and Alice had five children.

Children of Bertram Stowell⁽¹⁾ and Alice Thorburn Briggs ⁽²⁾

Following his retirement in 1975 Bertram and Alice Stowell moved to Almondbank, just a few miles away from Luncarty which had been their home for so many years. Alice died on 17 Apr 1999, aged 89, and Bertram died on 26 May 2003.

Percy STOWELL

Percy Stowell ⁽¹⁹⁾, my paternal grandfather, was born on 2 Oct 1872 in Salford, Lancashire. According to the baptismal register (Vol.2, no. 109), he was baptised by his father Thomas Alfred Stowell⁽⁶⁸⁾ at Christ Church, Salford, on 17 Nov 1872, his father being by then Rector of that church. I have not managed to find an entry for him in the GRO births index. I don’t think I ever met Percy, as he died on my third birthday, 23 Dec 1942 at Southport (his death was registered in the December quarter or 1942 at Southport, vol.8b, p.711). According to my father, Percy was at one time a cadet on the training ship HMS Conway, and sailed to Tasmania. That he was a cadet is confirmed by the records of HMS Conway, kindly supplied in photocopy by the Merseyside Maritime Museum, which show that he joined on 9 Sep 1886, just before his 14th birthday, having previously been at Manchester Grammar School.

Percy left HMS Conway in July 1888, to join the Sierra Madrona, belonging to Thompson Anderson & Co. of Liverpool, and it is possibly with this ship that he went to Tasmania. Certainly it cannot have been with HMS Conway, as that ship was moored in the Mersey permanently. I have yet to track down any records of crew and voyages of the Sierra Madrona.

Later, Percy must have decided that the merchant marine was not for him, and by the time of the 1901 census he was back in Broughton, Salford, boarding at 51 George Street, and an Assistant Secretary. Eventually he became a director and company secretary of A & S Henry, jute manufacturers of Manchester, with offices in Portland Street.

On 2 December 1903 Percy married Rose Emily Bertram⁽²⁰⁾. The marriage took place at St. Pauls, Portman Square, Marylebone, near Rose Emily’s home in London. The celebrant was Reginald Stowell, the groom’s brother, and the witnesses were Emily Templeman, Leonard Tatham, Emma T. Stowell, presumably Percy’s older sister, and Rhoda Bertram. I have a photocopy from microfilm of the original parish marriage register for this marriage. It would be interesting to know how Percy and Rose Emily met.

Percy and Rose Emily lived initially at Broughton, but later I think mainly in Southport, on the Lancashire coast. They had three children:

Children of Percy Stowell⁽¹⁹⁾ and Rose Emily Bertram ⁽²⁰⁾

In the index of Grants of Probate it is noted that Percy Stowell’s address at the time he died was 23 Cavendish Road, Southport, Lancs., and he died at The Infirmary, Southport. His will is dated 27 Nov 1939. I also have the brief obituary which appeared in the local paper (the Southport Visitor of Tues. 29 Dec 1942) which says that he was a freemason, and in more than one lodge. My father remembered him spending hours of an evening learning and practising his words for the Masonic ceremonies. He was cremated at the Manchester Crematorium.

Rev.Thomas Alfred STOWELL

Thomas Alfred Stowell⁽⁶⁸⁾ was born in Salford in 1831. He was a Bridgman Exhibitioner at Queens College, Oxford and took his BA with honours in Lit. Hum. and Law in 1855 and his MA in 1856. He was ordained Deacon (in the Church of England) in 1857, and a Priest of the Diocese of Ripon in 1858. He was curate of Bolton, Yorks. until 1860, when he was appointed Perpetual Curate at St. Stephen Bowling, Bradford. He is so described in the 1861 census, when he was living at 6 Lansdowne Place, Bradford, aged 29 and as yet unmarried.

2       Canon T A Stowell(68)

In 1865, on the death of his father Canon Hugh Stowell⁽⁷⁰⁾, he was appointed Rector of Christ Church, Salford, his late father's living. There he remained until 1890, when he became Rector of Chorley, having been made an honorary Canon of Manchester Cathedral in 1889. His life, but not of course his marriage and family, up to the point where he removed to Chorley, is described in an article in the publication Manchester Faces and Places of July 1890. He retired from the living of Chorley in 1907, and there is in existence a family photograph taken I understand in 1911.

4       T A Stowell and family

Thomas Alfred Stowell died at Southport, Lancs., on 10 Feb 1916, where his address was 10 Morley Road. An obituary appeared in the Manx Quarterly of Feb 10, 1916. Probate on his estate was granted in London on 25 March 1916 to Leonard Tatham gentleman, his brother-in-law, Alfred Stowell merchant his eldest son, and Richard Tatham Stowell solicitor.

On 8 Oct 1861,when he was still at Bradford, he married Emma Tatham⁽⁶⁹⁾ at Thornton-in-Lonsdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Keeping up the family productivity, Thomas and Emma had thirteen children, eight sons and five daughters.

Children of Thomas Alfred Stowell⁽⁶⁸⁾ and Emma Tatham⁽⁶⁹⁾

About most of the children in the table above I know very little, and in his later life my father did not have good enough recall to sort out his many uncles and aunts. The first three chidren were born while Thomas Alfred was curate at St. Stephen Bowling, Bradford, and were presumably baptised there though I have not yet had sight of the baptismal register for that church. The remainder seem to have been baptised by their father at Christ Church, Salford, after he took over as Rector following his own father’s death in 1865.

Rev.Canon Hugh STOWELL

Now we come to Hugh Stowell jun. ⁽⁷⁰⁾, probably the best known Stowell, at least in the family because his portrait used to hang in my father’s house. Hugh appears in the Dictionary of National Biography and I also made a transcript of the obituary which appeared in the Manchester Guardian of October 9^th, 1865. This was sourced from a not very good microfilm copy at Manchester Central Library, and a few of the words I have not been able to decipher. Anyway, it tells you more about Canon Hugh than you probably want to know.

There is also quite a lot about Hugh on the web. There is a description of Christ Church, Acton Square, with pictures, on the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal Website. Hugh jun. was also a hymn writer, and you can find some of the hymns he wrote on the web, where there is also a portrait of him.

1       Rev. Hugh Stowell(70)

More recently an assessment of his work has appeared on a Salford Local History website.

In 1828, as his obituary says, Hugh married Anne Susannah Ashworth⁽⁷¹⁾, the eldest daughter of Richard Ashworth. My cousin John Arthur Stowell has a photocopy of the entry in the marriage register of Eccles, which gives the date as 3 Dec 1828, the marriage being by licence. The names of the bride and groom's parents are not given. The witnesses were Thomas Alfred Ashworth, B.A., Sarah Thackeray and William Evans Ashworth. Thomas Alfred Ashworth was the second son of Richard Johnson Daventry Ashworth (see below), and so the bride's brother. Sarah Thackeray was possibly the Miss Sarah Thackeray, a parishoner of Hugh Stowell's, referred to in the brief biography of Hugh Stowell which was posted on the web as part of a Salford Local History page. I have not at present found out who William Evans Ashworth was.

At the time of his marriage in 1828 Hugh will have been the incumbent at St. Stephen's, Salford and Anne’s father Richard is said to have been a barrister living at Strawberry Hill, Pendleton.

Canon Hugh and Ann Stowell had nine children, six daughters and three sons. Their youngest child, a son, died in infancy.

Children of Hugh Stowell⁽⁷⁰⁾ and Ann Susannah Ashworth⁽⁷¹⁾

Hugh Stowell jun. died at Salford on 8 October, 1865 and was buried  in a vault below Christ Church, Salford. A detailed description of his elaborate funeral and burial is given in a pamphlet of unknown authorship which is in the local studies section of the Douglas Library, in the Isle of Man.

Rev. Hugh Stowell (the elder)

Hugh Stowell⁽⁷²⁾ was christened at St. Mathew’s, Douglas, Isle of Man, on 7 Dec 1768. He was the son of Thomas Stowell⁽⁷⁵⁾ and Ann Brown⁽⁷⁶⁾. Hinton Bird writes that Hugh received his education in his early years at Ramsey, and then went to Castletown Grammar School at the age of 13 in 1782. He was awarded an academic scholarship in 1786. He turned to divinity rather than classics. Later he took Anglican orders, as the first in a series of Stowell clergymen, and was serving as a supplementary clergyman at Arbory (a neighbouring parish to Malew, Malew being the parish within which Castletown lies), when he was appointed to be Master of the Grammar School in Douglas in 1792. His health was not good, and after being confined to bed for seven weeks by a "putrid fever", followed by the death of his brother Joseph in 1801, he requested a country parish and moved to Lonan. In March 1808 he founded a Sunday School at Lonan, and led the Sunday School movement in the island.

Hugh married Amelia Callow ⁽⁷³⁾ on 20 Sep 1796 at Santon. There are baptismal records quoted in the IGI for six children,and a pedigree drawn up by John Arthur Stowell in 1995 contains two others.

Children of Hugh Stowell⁽⁷²⁾ and Amelia Callow ⁽⁷³⁾

The first two of these children were christened at St. Matthew’s Douglas, and the remaining four at Lonan.

In April 1814 Hugh became Rector of Ballaugh, where he died in 1835 at the age of 67. He was buried in Lonan Old Yard on 11 Oct 1835.

Thomas Stowell

Aside from the uncomplimentary note in his manuscript Manx Families that Thomas's only claim to fame, or notoriety, was that he fathered 16 children, A. W. Moore adds as a footnote (at least I assume it is his):

Edward Stoile married Anne Casement 1727 and had issue....Thomas born 1733.

There is a Maughold baptismal record in the IGI for a Tho. STOEL, son of Edwd. STOEL and Ann, on 20 Jan 1733, and this is possibly the Tomas to whom Moore was referring. Moore has this branch of the Stowells as being of Ballastowell in Maughold. A property of that name is shown on the 1870 County map of the UK Ordnance Survey, and in the Manorial Rolls, Ballastoale is listed as a quarterland in the treen of Ballure. On the island, the parishes are divided into treens and the treens into quarterlands.

Thomas Stowell⁽⁷⁵⁾ and Anne Brown⁽⁷⁶⁾ married at Braddan, on 28 Oct 1759, which would make him 26. The LDS microfilm is of transcrripts Registry of Deeds - Official Copy, not of the original register. The transcript says:

Thomas Stowell (widower) and Anne Brown both of the town of Douglas within this parish were marryd in this Church by Lycence this twenty eighth day of Oct^r in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty nine by me Joseph Cosnahan vicar. This marriage was solemnized between us Thos. Stowell, Ann Stowell late Ann Brown in the presence of Geo. Stowell, Ann Cosnahan.

The Rev. Joseph Cosnahan was Anne's uncle, who had succeeded his father (her grandfather) the Rev. John Cosnahan as Vicar of Braddan on the latter's death in 1749. The witness Ann Cosnahan could have been her aunt or even her grandmother.

There is some uncertainty over the 16 children (15 sons and 1 daughter) Thomas and Ann are supposed to have had, but so far as I can make out, and with the help of information collected by Brian Kneen and Liz Newland, they are listed below.

Children of Thomas Stowell⁽⁷⁵⁾ and Anne Brown ⁽⁷⁶⁾

All of the first 11 children for whom there are baptismal records quoted in the IGI were christened at St. Mathew’s, Douglas. Margaret and Redman were christened at Ramsey, which is in the parish of Maughold where their mother died in 1783, worn out I would say. I have found no record of Joseph’s baptism, nor of the three missing and possibly unnamed sons.

Thomas Stowell died in 1807. Ann Brown was the second of his three wives. The first was Catherine Radcliffe, whom he married in about 1757. Catherine Radcliffe was born in about 1737 and died at sea in 1757. There were no children by this marriage. Thomas's third wife was Elinor Gawn (1751-1816), the widow of Thomas Bowes Austen, and this third marriage took place at Braddan on 26 Jul 1796 when he was 63 and she 44. There were no children.

EdwardSTOWELL

There is no Maughold record of an Edward Stole (or Stoil) being christened at about the right time, but there is an unnamed male, son of Jon Stole, who was baptised on 9 Dec 1694 which could possibly be Edward. Alternately, he may have been christened in another parish. For the moment I have guessed 1694 as his birth year.

An Edward Stoil married Ann Caisment at Maughold on 2 Jul 1726. An Anne Caisment, daughter of Jon Caisment and Ann Callow, was baptised at Maughold on 23 Jun 1695, and the IGI quotes the parish register for this marriage. I have not yet checked the original source. There are baptismal entries for three possible children of this marriage.

Possible children of Edward Stowell⁽²¹⁹⁾ and Anne Casement (Caisment)⁽²²⁰⁾

That pretty much takes us to the limit of what can reasonably be put down at the moment. Parish records may enable me to trace back for about one more generation and otherwise I hope to be looking at wills and manorial rolls when we visit the Isle of Man later this year (2004) And it now looks as if this Edward Stowell and Ann Casement are not in the direct line. Anne's will is on microfilm at the Library of the Manx Museum and it seems pretty clear that she had only one son, Edward, or at least only one son at the time her will was drawn up in February 1772 (she died on 21 May 1772). So other parents for Thomas Stowell must be sought.

© John Stowell 2007             Last updated on 06 Oct 2008.

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