Lupton family

The Lupton family achieved prominence in the Northern English city of Leeds in the Georgian and Victorian eras. They were successful woollen cloth merchants, and later manufacturers, who flourished during the Industrial Revolution. They traded throughout northern Europe, the Americas and Australia, but also contributed substantially to the civic life of their home town. Several members were so active in local politics and philanthropy that they rose to be Mayor and later Lord Mayor of Leeds. Many were progressive in their views,^[1] and were associated with the Unitarian church in England and elsewhere. The Lupton family are paternal ancestors of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.^[2]

Early Luptons

The earliest record of the name is of Roger Lupton, Vicar of Skipton, in 1430. Lupton was born in Sedbergh in 1456 and was a Doctor of canon law and a Canon of Windsor. He was Provost of Eton for 30 years, and the prominent tower in the School Yard is named for him.^[1]

The earliest recorded member of the Leeds family is Francis Lupton (1658–1717), who married Ester Midgeley of Breary in 1688. Francis was appointed clerk to the parish church (now Leeds Minster) on 31 August 1694. Many memorials to the Lupton family lie within the church.^[3] (More recent memorials can be found in St John's Church in the suburb of Roundhay,^[4][5] as well as the Unitarian church in Leeds City Square, Mill Hill Chapel, where a stained glass window commemorates the Lupton family.^[6])

Francis and Ester had nine children.^[1]

Georgians

Their second son, William I (1700–1771), became a successful farmer and clothier with business connections in Germany and the Netherlands. He was the chief cloth-dresser ("the highest paid and most skilled artisan in the woollen industry") to Sir Henry Ibbetson,^[7] sometime High Sheriff of Yorkshire. William later managed his firm. He had three sons, all of whom attended Leeds Grammar School. The eldest, Francis II (1731–1770), was sent to Lisbon to trade, especially English cloth, and was caught up in the devastating earthquake of 1755. His second son, William II (1732–1782), became ordained, pursuing a ministry in the Church of England.

The third son, Arthur I (1748–1807), was sent at the age of 15 to the school of Leopold Pfeil in Frankfurt where he studied High Dutch and French. (In 1764, Wolfgang von Goethe was a pupil at the school and wrote of his schoolmate.^[1]) Arthur returned to England in 1766 before leaving for Lisbon. In 1768, he took on two partners and then was joined by John Luccock with whom he set up a subsidiary, Lupton & Luccock, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1773 Arthur founded William Lupton and Co. and married Olive Rider. He sat on the original committee of the Cloth Halls, regulating their activities; see by way of comparison the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers in London. In 1774 the leading merchants came together to organise the construction of the 3rd White Cloth Hall. The trade directory of 1790 refers to Lupton & Co. Merchants, in the district of Leeds known as Leylands. He built new woollen cloths works as the Industrial Revolution brought cottage weaving to an end, and passed the business to his son, William III.^[1]

William III (1777–1828) and his wife Ann lived at Gledhow Mount Mansion, near Leeds.^[8] He initially shared the responsibility for the business with his brother, Arthur II, and the business prospered until 1819. John Luccock, their cousin, sought to expand the business in New Orleans in 1822 but was forced to give up in 1823. The South American trade opened up again, albeit with difficulties in Peru.

Early Victorians

Joseph Lupton

Several of the Luptons were supporters of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, a learned society founded in 1819, which established the city's museum. They subscribed generously to its building fund.^[9]

William III's son Darnton (1806–1873) was Mayor of Leeds in 1844^[10] and a magistrate.^[11] He was also a director of the Bank of Leeds, which eventually became part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.^[12] Darnton lived in Newton Hall in Potternewton, just north of Leeds ,^[13] and from the 1860s in the Victorian Gothic villa known as Headingley Castle^[14]

Henry Lupton

His younger brother Francis III (1813–1884) was 15 when his father died but he had already acquired an extensive knowledge of the cloth trade. He joined the board of the Bank of Leeds, became a West Riding magistrate and overseer of the parish of Roundhay. He was chairman of the finance committee of the Yorkshire College of Science, created in 1874 (later part of the federal Victoria University, and from 1904 the University of Leeds). In 1847 he married Frances Greenhow, niece of writers and reformers Harriet and James Martineau. Frances' entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography focuses on her pioneering work expanding opportunities for female education, not least in co-founding the Leeds Girls' High School. The married couple lived first at Potternewton, and later established the family home at Beechwood,^[15] a Georgian country house in Roundhay, which they bought from the politician Sir George Goodman.^[16] Francis ran a successful farm there until he died suddenly at the age of 70.^[1] Their sons Francis Martineau, Arthur, Charles, and Hugh, whose lives are detailed below, all contributed to the eminence of Victorian Leeds.

William III's son Joseph (1816–1894) was a committed Liberal, on the executive of the National Reform Union. Like many of his family, he was a leading Unitarian, serving as president^[17] and later vice-president^[18] of Manchester New College, the training college for ministers, during the 1880s and 1890s, helping to plan and finance its move from London to Oxford. He was a passionate anti-slavery campaigner, joining with the minister of Mill Hill Chapel, Charles Wicksteed, in being "ardent admirers" of the campaigner William Lloyd Garrison,^[19] who advocated immediate, not gradual, abolition. (See Anti-Slavery Society.) He also supported the campaign for votes for women, sitting on the committee for the National Society for Women's Suffrage.^[20] Joseph married Eliza Buckton (1818–1901) in 1842. Their son, Henry (1850–1932), a cloth merchant, married Clara Taylor (1860–1897). They in turn had five surviving children,^[1] see Twentieth Century section below.

Late Victorians

Brought up at Beechwood alongside the brothers was their first cousin Mabel Greenhow, following the death of her mother. She grew up to write prolifically, under the name Mrs Murray Hickson.

Francis Martineau and descendants

Francis (Martineau) IV (1848–1921), Francis III’s eldest son, attended Leeds Grammar School before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge reading history and then entering the family business. From 1870 to 1880, he was a member of the Leeds Rifles. From the 1880s, he and his fellow directors adapted Wm. Lupton & Co. significantly by moving the business from just merchants to manufacturing, in response to the restructuring of the economics of cloth making. They acquired mills and power looms and gradually converted their mills to be driven by electricity. They took advantage of new sources of supply from American and Australia. The family's textile mills were in Whitehall Road, Leeds.^[1] He lived with his children in a large stone house called Rocklands in Newton Park.^[21]

Francis devoted his life to the business and civic work. A Liberal, he broke away from Gladstone over Home Rule (of Ireland) and became a Liberal Unionist. In 1895, he became a Unionist alderman and remained one until 1916. Impressed by the ideas of housing reformer Octavia Hill, he served as Chairman of the Unhealthy Areas Committee, later the Improvements Committee, addressing the legacy of 100 years of slums. Halfway through this period, he wrote a book on this experience, Housing Improvement: A Summary of Ten Years' Work in Leeds (1906). He was an active member of the West Riding bench and took great interest in Cookridge Hospital. During the Great War he served on the Pensions Committee. As a Unitarian, he took a large share of the work and activities of Mill Hill Chapel.^[1]

In 1880, he married Harriet Albina Davis (1850–1892), the daughter of Thomas Davis, a Church of England clergyman,^[22] but she died in 1892, two weeks after the birth of their youngest son. All three of their sons died in the Great War. Maurice was the first to be killed in action by a sniper bullet in the trenches at Lille on 19 June 1915. Lionel Martineau was wounded, mentioned in dispatches twice and, after recovering, was killed during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. Francis Ashford V (Fran) was reported missing at Miraumont on the night of 19 February 1917 when he went out with one man on reconnaissance and was later found dead. At this point, Francis Martineau turned the family home at Rocklands to an institution for the children of soldiers, and moved with his daughters to Roundhay.^[21]

There were two daughters. The eldest, Olive Christiana, was educated at Roedean and married solicitor Richard Noel Middleton in 1914.^[23] Their son Peter Middleton was the grandfather of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.^[24][25]

The younger daughter, Anne, wanted to enter the family business, but women were excluded, so after the war she travelled abroad. She never married, but on her return to England, she set up a home in Chelsea with Enid Moberly Bell, a sort of Boston marriage. The daughter and biographer of The Times editor Charles Frederic Moberly Bell, Enid was vice-chair (to Lady Frances Balfour, former president of the National Society for Women's Suffrage) of the Lyceum Club for female artists and writers.^[26] Enid was also second mistress at Lady Margaret School in nearby Parsons Green, and in 1937 Anne financed the purchase of one of the Georgian properties, Elm House, in which the school is located.

Arthur and descendants

Arthur V (1850–1930) was Francis III’s second son. Educated at Leeds Grammar School, he entered the family business at the age of sixteen. He was elected to the board of governors of Yorkshire College at 25 and, after his father’s death, took over his position as Chairman of its Finance Committee. At 36, he was elected to the City Council and in 1889 became its Chairman. Arthur negotiated the separation of Yorkshire College from the federal Victoria University. The new redbrick Leeds University received its royal charter in 1904, which named "Our trusty and well-beloved Arthur Greenhow Lupton, chairman of the Council of the Yorkshire College" as its first Pro Chancellor. He held this post for sixteen years before returning to the Council, promoting co-operation between the University and industry, especially the Clothworkers Company.^[1]

Recognising the changing need for large scale generation of electricity, Arthur founded the Yorkshire Electric Power Company and Electrical Distribution of Yorkshire Ltd, being Chairman until nationalisation. He promoted the House to House Electricity Company, which was eventually taken over by Leeds Corporation. With friends, he started the Wetherby Water Works, was concerned with the Yorkshire Waste Heat Company, a Director of the North Eastern Railway and a West Riding Magistrate.^[1] During the Great War, he established a shell filling factory at Barnbow. In 1921, he took over responsibility for Wm. Lupton & Co. on the death of his brother, Francis.

He married Harriet Ashton, but she died in 1888, shortly after giving birth to their daughter Elizabeth (Bessie). Their second cousin Beatrix Potter created watercolour Christmas cards for the two little girls, Elinor (1886–1979) and Bessie; there are surviving examples from 1890 to 1895.^[27][28] The sisters never married; their brother Arthur VI survived the Great War only to suffer in a riding accident with the Bramham Moor Hunt in 1928 and die of his injuries the following year.^[29]

Elinor was awarded an honorary degree in 1945 for services to the University^[30] – for 23 years she had chaired its Women's Halls Committee; the Lupton Halls of Residence were named after her and her father.^[31] (Her father and uncle had also been granted the honorary LLD, Arthur in 1910 and Charles in 1919.^[32]) In 1942-3, Elinor was the Lady Mayoress (ceremonial companion) to Jessie Beatrice Kitson,^[25][33] hosting several visits from Royalty, including the Princess Royal, the Duchess of Kent and Lady Louis Mountbatten. The Yorkshire Evening Post reports that the sisters were campaigning for the preservation of open land in Asket Hill in Roundhay in the 1970s.^[34] After Elinor's death, the Leeds Girls' High School acquired a substantial Grade II listed building and named it after her.^[35]

Charles and descendants

Sir Charles Lupton OBE (1855–1935) was Francis III's fourth son, the third (Herbert) having died young. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School, Rugby School (both the preparatory and senior school) and then followed his elder brother to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read history. He qualified as a solicitor in 1881^[36] practising mainly at Dibb & Co., later Dibb Lupton, and now DLA Piper, the world's largest law firm.^[37] In 1888 he married Katharine, sister of Thomas Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde. One of Katharine's sisters, Marion, married James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, the British Ambassador to the United States. Another of Katherine's sisters, Harriet, was married to Charles' brother Arthur.^[1][38]

Charles was elected to the Board of Management of the Leeds General Infirmary, and in 1900 was appointed Treasurer and Chairman of the Board as the Infirmary evolved into a modern hospital. The Medical School was integrated with the Yorkshire College (later Leeds University). He retired from the appointment in 1921 and remained on the Board. He became a member of the Court and Council of the University and Chairman of the Law Committee.

In 1915, Sir Charles served as Lord Mayor of Leeds, raising money to enlarge Beckett’s Park Hospital, which was then a military hospital.^[1] Newsreel footage survives of him inspecting troops in this role, travelling with his three brothers to Colsterdale in the Yorkshire Dales to show support for the Leeds Pals battalion.^[39]

Starting as a Liberal, he also became a Liberal-Unionist at the time of the First Home Rule Bill. In 1918 he was Deputy-Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire;^[40] his Lord Lieutenant being Lord Harewood, the father-in-law of Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood. He was granted the Freedom of the City in 1926, alongside e.g. Stanley Baldwin and David Lloyd George.^[41] He became the City Council's Chairman of the Improvements Committee and promoted the ring road in the post-war years and led the widening of Upper and Lower Headrows. He left his art collection to the city.

Hugh and descendants

Hugh (1861–1947) was Francis III’s fifth son and followed Charles to Rugby School before attending University College, Oxford, reading modern history. He was then apprenticed to Hathorn Davey & Co., makers of heavy pumping machinery, before joining the firm in 1881 and rising to managing director, only to see the Great Depression force the firm into a takeover by Sulzer’s of Zurich.

He sat on the Roundhay and Seacroft Rural District Council and, for a year, was Chairman of the Board. When the RDC became a ward of the City in 1913, he was elected to the City Council and served as a councillor until 1926. During most of this time he was Chairman of the Electricity Committee. In 1926, he became Lord Mayor, with his wife Isabella Simey as Lady Mayoress.^[1] In these roles, they hosted visits by Mary, The Princess Royal, and her husband Lord Harewood; a film of one such visit, captured on British Pathe newsreel, was discovered in July 2013.^[42][39]

Two of Hugh's sons survived the Great War: Hugh, who married Joyce Ransome (sister of the Swallows and Amazons author Arthur), and Charles Athelstane, known as Athel, who wrote a book on the family.^[43]

Twentieth century

Barbara Lupton (later Lady Bullock) at Cambridge c1913

Henry's eldest son, Geoffrey Lupton (1882–1949), was a significant figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Henry's middle daughter, Barbara May Lupton (1891 -1974), attended as an early pupil at the innovative Bedales School, then Newnham College, Cambridge (1910–1913) and the London School of Economics (1913–1914). She worked with the Ministry of Munitions during the First World War. In April 1917, she married Sir Christopher Bullock, whom she had met at Cambridge; he was a powerful civil servant at the British Air Ministry, rising to Permanent Under-Secretary from 1931 to 1936. Sir Christopher, a descendant of Thomas FitzMaurice, 5th Earl of Orkney, and Lady Bullock had two sons, Richard Henry Watson Bullock C.B.^[44](1920–1998) and Edward Anthony Watson Bullock, both of whom entered public service, in the Home Civil Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office respectively.

Two other grandchildren of Darnton, the brother and sister Agnes and Norman Lupton, left a substantial bequest to the Leeds Art Gallery in 1952. Their donation, "one of the finest collections of English watercolours in private hands", included works by John Sell Cotman, Thomas Girtin, and J. M. W. Turner.^[34][45][46]

The family business, Wm. Lupton & Co., was sold to Hainsworth in 1958.^[47] Much of the estate land at Beechwood, the childhood home of the brothers described in the previous section, was sold in the 1950s, but the house itself remained in family hands into the 1990s.^[24]

Other Luptons

• Dilworth Lupton, minister of the Cleveland Unitarian Church and instrumental in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous^[48]

References

Further reading

• The Lupton Family website
• Gentlemen Merchants: The Merchant Community in Leeds, 1700–1830 by Richard George Wilson. Manchester University Press, 1971