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Introduction |
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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway |
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A dynasty of Craven cattle drovers Perhaps
the most iconic feature of the Yorkshire Dales is its dry stone walls,
largely built to cater for an influx of Scottish droving animals in the
second half of the 18th century. Few records survive of the
drovers whose arduous task it was to bring their animals into Craven, but THE
BIRTWHISTLES OF CRAVEN AND GALLOWAY describes the story of an extraordinary
dynasty of Craven drovers whose records do survive. Their records provide
therefore a memorial to both the Birtwhistles and to the many other drovers
whose lives were never recorded. For nearly three quarters of a century, John
Birtwhistle and his three drover sons ran possibly the largest cattle
business of their time, bringing Scottish and Irish animals into Craven on
their way to southern markets. The profits from this business enabled them to
become significant industrialists in the early decades of the Industrial
Revolution. Other
members of the Birtwhistle family had equally illustrious if less
conventional careers. John Birtwhistle’s son-in-law, John Vardill, was
rewarded by George III for his enterprising and successful spying activities
against the French and Americans during the wars with France and America, and
John Birtwhistle’s grand-daughter, Anna Jane Vardill, who inherited much of
the Birtwhistle estate in Craven, was a prolific writer in Regency London;
some of her published work on a Craven theme was written when residing at the
top of Skipton High Street, and is
reproduced for the first time since the beginning of the 19th
century in this book. Much
of what we know today about the lives of the Birtwhistle family comes from
one of the most lengthy and celebrated inheritance disputes of the 19th
century. The eventual judgement in the House of Lords in Birtwhistle versus Vardill was sufficiently important to have
changed the law of inheritance in England, and to have been built into the
constitutions of a number of other countries, including the constitution of the United States. |
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Introduction |
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