Some original Blencowe documents

Douglas Bain (who has re-located from Canada back to New Zealand) spotted an advertisement of the sale of some Indentures relating to land purchases in Buckingham by the Blencowe family. He bought them and kindly donated them to the Association.

Three handsome documents arrived, beautifully inscribed on vellum. I had assumed they would have concerned Benjamin Robert Blencowe who was born in Brackley in 1807, and became a wine merchant in Buckingham before emigrating to Australia where he died in 1895 — the forefather of the Blencowes of Armidale NSW.

The documents were Deeds to property near Castle Hill in Buckingham: an 1801 feoffment, an 1837 lease and release, and an 1843 release, documents concerning the ‘local brewer’ William Blencowe .

Though these three adjoining properties can't be identified just from their location ‘near the Castle Hill’, it should be possible to identify them from the succession of occupiers ‘for many years in the tenure or occupation of Job Wilson ... and late of Abraham Wheeler, a messuage or tenement some time since in the occupation of John Jones, late of Geo Elborough and now of Robt Holt ...’

It turned out to be quite a different Blencowe connection: it is clear that William was a brewer, not of Buckingham but of Brackley, where there were three of that name who lived: 1783-1866, 1827-1896 and 1857-1888. The youngest William died unmarried; his younger brother Robert 1858-?1900 continued in the business but is believed to have died unmarried in Australia. The family brewery interests continued in the Midlands well into the 1920s. (One of their breweries was on the Castle Mill Stream in Oxford less than half a mile from my home; it has been converted to residential apartments). It is not clear who carried on the business after the death of William Snr in 1896.

Daphne Austin has taken over the care of our archives and I have mailed the documents to her for eventual transcription and placement at the Northampton County Records Office. However, just the transcription at Northants would suffice. Would Marcia Hatfield, one of that branch of the family, like to have the originals and perhaps tell us more of the Blencowe brewers?