Family/Spouse: Ralph (of Balterley) Thicknes. Ralph (son of Rawffe (of Balterley) Thicknes and Catherine Wolferston) was born about 1616; was christened on 8 Sep 1616; died after 1640. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Thicknesse's (Is ralp, b1663 his son? Below)) ancestors were active in the Newcastle area of Staffordshire in the thirteenth century. They acquired a property at Balterley, about six miles away, and supplied Members for the borough in the late fourteenth century.

Ralph Thicknesse of Balterley (b.?1663), a non-juror, married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas Stockton of The Oaks, Cheshire. His son, successor and namesake, who was born in 1693, married Alethea, daughter of Richard Bostock (1690-1747), a physician of Shrewsbury. He apparently 'squandered idly away' his patrimony and left his children 'wholly unprovided for'. His eldest son, another Ralph Thicknesse, was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford. (He has sometimes been confused with his father's cousin, Ralph Thicknesse (1709-41), of Farthinghoe, Northamptonshire, who was educated at and became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge.) He qualified as a physician and, having disposed of Balterley, settled and practised in Wigan. His marriage to his kinswoman Anne Bostock was financially advantageous to him. In 1749 he published A Treatise on Foreign Vegetables. On his death, 12 Feb. 1790, he was variously described as 'a man of the nicest feeling, and of a compassionate disposition'; and as 'a victim ... to the blue demon of dismay', who 'as an acquaintance ... was capricious; as a master, a tyrant; and as a physician, trifling, unscientific, and generally unsuccessful'.2

By then his only son, imaginatively named Ralph, was established as a banker in Wigan. He was subsequently in partnership with Thomas Woodcock of Bank House, who presumably was his brother-in-law. He had a residence at Beech Hill, just to the north of the town centre, and became 'extensively engaged in the coal trade' at Birkett Bank and Ince; he was a co-proprietor of the lucrative Kirklees colliery.3 His politics were liberal, and on 10 Mar. 1831 he chaired a Wigan meeting called to express support for the Grey ministry's reform bill. He said that while the measure might have disappointed the advocates of the ballot and universal suffrage, it 'exceeded' the expectations of most reformers, whom he called on to back the king and his ministers against the boroughmongers. A few days later he announced his intention of standing for Wigan when the bill had become law.4 As it happened, he came forward as a reformer and the opponent of the Balcarres interest at the general election precipitated by the defeat of the measure. At the nomination he declared that 'a moderate reform, such as had been proposed by the enemies of the present bill, would never meet with the confidence of the nation'. He advocated free trade, and in particular abolition of the East India Company's monopol

Ralph married Bridget Egerton in 1663. Bridget (daughter of Sir John (2nd Bt) Egerton and Anne Wintour) was born in 1642 in Wrinehill, Staffordshire, England; died in 1701. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

(Research):Recorded by Margaret Dundas as Frances Bucknesse

Family/Spouse: Charles Fletcher. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

(Research):Possibly the John Fletcher of Lichfield (qv) whose daugher and co-heir Mary Fletcher married John Muckleston of Merrington. This John Fletcher was the son of Frances Thicknesse and Charles Fletcher of Balterley (Batterley). Frances is the daughter of Ralph Thicknesse of Balterley (b 1640) who married (1663) Bridget Egerton (dau of Sir John Egerton, 2nd Bart of Wrinehill)

Lease and Release: for ?135: Rev. John Fletcher Muckleston and Martha Lister widow both of the Cathedral Close Litchfield (heirs of John Fletcher dec'd.) to Sir Robert Lawley of Canwell;
16-17 Dec 1799

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]