merchants and coaching inns, were narrow alleyways and courtyards crowded with back-to-back cottages and workshops. Conditions were squalid and insanitary, as there was no proper drainage or sewerage, and there was terrible pollution. Cholera was rife and there was a high death rate. Body snatchers ransacked cemeteries and rioting was common. Dickens described it as ‘the beastliest place, one of the nastiest I know’.
While Mary was well acquainted with the less salubrious areas of Leeds, her husband could afford to offer her a better lifestyle than her father had been able to provide. So, after they got married, they moved northwards, settling in a house in St George’s Terrace, a street on the outskirts of the town.
It was there that John – Kate’s great-great-grandfather – was born on Valentine’s Day 1839, almost a year to the day since his parents had got married. Over the next decade, the couple went on to have another seven children – Edwin, Anne, Leonard, Arthur, Robert, Charles and Margaret. All their children were scholars, a rarity in Victorian England, where most people were uneducated and illiterate, but not surprising for the offspring of a professional man.
As he became more successful, William craved a house that befitted his new social status and decided to move to the wealthy suburb of Gledhow, just east of the village of Chapel Allerton, which was fast becoming a popular retreat for the middle classes. Gledhow Valley, a strip of unspoiled woodland through which a stream runs into a lake, is now a conservation area. By 1851, the family had moved into Gledhow Grange, a substantial house in Lidgett Lane, which ran northwards out of the heart of the village.
Down the road was the magnificent seventeenth-century Gledhow Hall, now a listed building, which was built on monastic land once owned by Elizabeth I and was the subject of a painting by J.M.W. Turner. When the Middletons moved to the area, Gledhow Hall was owned by Thomas Benyon, 50, a flax mill proprietor who employed 652 flax spinners and linen, canvas and sailcloth manufacturers. He and his wife Anne, 36, lived in great luxury, with 13 servants including a butler, housekeeper, lady’s maid, two housemaids, cook, kitchen maid, laundry maid, footman, coachman, governess and two nursery maids. The couple had bought the Hall after their marriage in 1835, a lavish affair for which Anne wore a £140 dress – a staggering £11,000 in today’s money – and the cake weighed 335 lb. They had five sons and daughters – Jane, thirteen in 1851, Anne, twelve, Mary, nine, William, eight, and Joseph, seven – who were roughly the same age as the Middleton children, and the families became close friends. They were devastated when Mary died as a result of a perforated stomach ulcer in 1854.
Four years later, there was great excitement in the village when Queen Victoria came to Leeds to open the new town hall, designed by Cuthbert Broderick, the architect of a series of imposing public buildings in the city centre. Little did William Middleton realise how closely the paths of his and the Queen’s descendants would one day cross.
Sadly, the Middleton siblings’ idyllic childhood was brought to an end on 15 June 1859, when their mother Mary died at the age of 48 after a short illness that left her with an obstructed bowel and peritonitis, a blood infection that was untreatable in the days before penicillin. John had yet to reach his 21st birthday; his youngest sister, Margaret, was just nine. Mary was buried three days after her death in the graveyard of St Matthew’s Church, Chapel Allerton, leaving the family bereft and rudderless.
Unable to care for eight children on his own, William cast around for another wife. Within two years, he had married his sister-in-law, Sarah Ward, who was twelve years younger than him, and she had moved into the family home, becoming stepmother to his brood. The couple were comfortable enough to have two servants: a
While Mary was well acquainted with the less salubrious areas of Leeds, her husband could afford to offer her a better lifestyle than her father had been able to provide. So, after they got married, they moved northwards, settling in a house in St George’s Terrace, a street on the outskirts of the town.
It was there that John – Kate’s great-great-grandfather – was born on Valentine’s Day 1839, almost a year to the day since his parents had got married. Over the next decade, the couple went on to have another seven children – Edwin, Anne, Leonard, Arthur, Robert, Charles and Margaret. All their children were scholars, a rarity in Victorian England, where most people were uneducated and illiterate, but not surprising for the offspring of a professional man.
As he became more successful, William craved a house that befitted his new social status and decided to move to the wealthy suburb of Gledhow, just east of the village of Chapel Allerton, which was fast becoming a popular retreat for the middle classes. Gledhow Valley, a strip of unspoiled woodland through which a stream runs into a lake, is now a conservation area. By 1851, the family had moved into Gledhow Grange, a substantial house in Lidgett Lane, which ran northwards out of the heart of the village.
Down the road was the magnificent seventeenth-century Gledhow Hall, now a listed building, which was built on monastic land once owned by Elizabeth I and was the subject of a painting by J.M.W. Turner. When the Middletons moved to the area, Gledhow Hall was owned by Thomas Benyon, 50, a flax mill proprietor who employed 652 flax spinners and linen, canvas and sailcloth manufacturers. He and his wife Anne, 36, lived in great luxury, with 13 servants including a butler, housekeeper, lady’s maid, two housemaids, cook, kitchen maid, laundry maid, footman, coachman, governess and two nursery maids. The couple had bought the Hall after their marriage in 1835, a lavish affair for which Anne wore a £140 dress – a staggering £11,000 in today’s money – and the cake weighed 335 lb. They had five sons and daughters – Jane, thirteen in 1851, Anne, twelve, Mary, nine, William, eight, and Joseph, seven – who were roughly the same age as the Middleton children, and the families became close friends. They were devastated when Mary died as a result of a perforated stomach ulcer in 1854.
Four years later, there was great excitement in the village when Queen Victoria came to Leeds to open the new town hall, designed by Cuthbert Broderick, the architect of a series of imposing public buildings in the city centre. Little did William Middleton realise how closely the paths of his and the Queen’s descendants would one day cross.
Sadly, the Middleton siblings’ idyllic childhood was brought to an end on 15 June 1859, when their mother Mary died at the age of 48 after a short illness that left her with an obstructed bowel and peritonitis, a blood infection that was untreatable in the days before penicillin. John had yet to reach his 21st birthday; his youngest sister, Margaret, was just nine. Mary was buried three days after her death in the graveyard of St Matthew’s Church, Chapel Allerton, leaving the family bereft and rudderless.
Unable to care for eight children on his own, William cast around for another wife. Within two years, he had married his sister-in-law, Sarah Ward, who was twelve years younger than him, and she had moved into the family home, becoming stepmother to his brood. The couple were comfortable enough to have two servants: a
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