By the 12th century Heywood was identified
as a hamlet in the township of Heap, and the Heywood Family can be traced
back to 1164 when a Peter Heywood was living here. In 1286, it was recorded
that Adam de Burgo (or Bury) ‘granted land in Heywood, in the parish
of Bury county of Lancaster,’ to Peter de Heywood. Heywood Hall,
the family seat, was built in the 13th Century and rebuilt in 1611.
The Heywood family were Royalists in the Civil War and their fortune
much reduced. As a result in 1717 the Hall was sold to John Starkey
of Rochdale. One of the officers that apprehended Guy Fawkes in the
vault of Parliament House on 5th November 1605 was a Peter Heywood.
And yet another Peter Heywood was a midshipman on board the Bounty’
when the crew mutinied. (A model of the ship is in Heywood Library).
St Luke’s church, which dominates the centre of the town, started life
as a chantry chapel for the Heywood family. Robert Heywood rebuilt the
chapel in 1640. Regrettably, though the Starkeys left the Heywood Hall
to Heywood Council, it was finally demolished in 1960.

Another Heywood
family, possibly related to those in Heywood, lived at Little Lever
in Bolton. Of this branch, Sir Benjamin Heywood was elected MP for
Lancaster in 1832 and knighted in Queen Victoria’s Coronation Honours.
The family were by then merchant bankers in Liverpool and Manchester.
John Heywood and his son Robert (1786-1868) had founded a successful
cotton quilt manufacturers firm, in Bolton in 1803. Difficult to establish,
but much written of were suggestions that the Heywoods were involved
in slavery, though some years later, Robert Heywood gave a public
lecture in Bolton deprecating the practice of slavery, and was indeed
on the list of subscribers for an anti-slavery publication published
in 1842.
The Heywood family however contributed greatly to the improvement
of Manchester during the nineteenth century. The family’s latest wealth
was derived from banking, Heywood’s Bank in St Ann’s Square being
one of the city’s best-known banks. Oliver’s father, Benjamin Heywood,
was a key figure in the establishment of the Manchester Mechanics’
Institute and the movement to provide public parks. In 1888 Oliver
Heywood’s work was recognised when he was made Manchester’s first
Honorary Freeman. In the same year he as made High Sheriff of Lancashire.
Heywood died in 1892 and was buried at St John’s, Irlam-o’-th’-Heights.
A statue to honour him is located in Albert Square facing the Town
hall.

Hibbard or Hibberd
is a surname of Norman origin, and is most likely an early medieval
English form of a Norman personal name “Hildebert” or “Hilbert”.
Other altyernatives include Ilbert Hibbert, Hibberd and Hibbard. It
almost certainly arrived in England with the Norman Conquest of 1066,
though a reference is made in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles to an Archbishop
Hibbert during the reign of King Offa in the 8th century. The Hibbert
family emerged as an important and influential family name in Cheshire
where their manor, county seat and estates were located. Following
the Conquest Normans adopted the name from an old Germanic given name
“Hildeberht”, from “hild” and “berht”,
somewhat crudely translated as “battle famous”. The personal
name is also recorded in its Latin forms as “Ylebertus”
around 1150 and as “Hildebertus” in 1160, both occurrences
in Lincolnshire. Various other corrupted forms are found elsewhere:
Hilbert (1283 in Suffolk), Hileberd (1327 in Somerset) and Heebarde
(1568 also in Suffolk). The name has also been variously spelled Hibbet,
Hibbott, Hibert, Hibberte and Hibot.
Early records of the name mention Johannes Frere et Hibbott who was
listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. An Edward Hibberte appears
in Yorkshire in 1400, and William Hhibert was documented in Lancashire
in 1473.
St Catherine’s Church in Over Alderley, Cheshire was built as a private
chapel by Thomas Hibbert of Birtles Hall in 1840. The Hibbert family
collected valuable oak carving, stained glass and brass from various
sources. Much of this, being hundreds of years older than the building
itself, gives the interior of the church a unique appearance. It became
the parish church of Birtles and Over Alderley in 1890. Nowadays the
church is a Grade II listed building and features in Simon Jenkins’
book “England’s Thousand Best Churches”.
Birtles Hall is an impressive Grade II listed country house which
was built in 1790 for the Hibbert family. In more recent times the
Hall has been sympathetically restored, retaining most of its original
features and has been converted into six ‘luxurious’ apartments.

The old family
of de Hoghton (or Houghton) and their country seat at Hoghton Tower,
sometimes known as Houghton Castle, dominate the area of central Lancashire
around Darwen and Preston. This old family is of Norman descent, tracing
its history back to before the Invasion of 1066. It is reputed that
a Houghton came over on the same ship as William the Conqueror himself,
and that the Houghton coat of arms is the oldest in Cheshire and the
second oldest in England. By the mid-16th century the Houghtons were
fervent covert supporters of Catholicism, at a time when the Catholic
Faith was outlawed. It is believed that none other than William Shakespeare
stayed with the Houghtons for a while in the role of school teacher.
Richard de Hoghton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I.

Records show a
Robert de Holden owning lands around Haslingden in Rossendale from
the 13th century. The Holdens were to remain one of the most prominent
and influential Lancashire families in the area until the 19th century.

Holden Hall, their home in Haslingden, was built in the 15th century
and is said at one time to have been named “Haslingden Hall”
and the residence of Robert de Haslingden. The hall was demolished
at the beginning of the 19th century to allow expansion of the adjacent
cemetery. The Holden family lived at Holden Hall for over five centuries
until Ralph Holden, the last male heir of the family line, died in
1702. For many years the family made a living from the management
of surrounding mature forests, but by the middle of the 19th century
very little woodland was left.

The Hollands (or de Hollands) have
a long and influential history around the districts of Clifton and Prestwich,
north of the present day City of Manchester. In 1341 Sir Thurstan de
Holland purchased a piece of land, known as Roden, (or Rooden) in Prestwich
– land nowadays known as Heaton Park. In 1666 a William Holland inherited
the estate of Heaton (or Heton) just outside Prestwich township. William
was buried in Prestwich in 1682. His daughter Elizabeth eventually inherited
the estate and upon her marriage to Sir John Egerton ownership passed
to the Egerton family at Heaton Hall which was extensively rebuilt in
1777. William de Holland also came into possession of the Clifton Hall
in Salford on the borders of Prestwich, and the Holland family retained
the property for over three centuries. Later, in the English Civil Wars,
the Hollands, particularly Thomas Holland and son William, who had supported
the Royalist cause, suffered extreme punishments for their bad fortune.

The Hollingworth
family were Lords of the Manor of Hollingworth in Longendale from
the mid-thirteenth century until the early 18th century, and were
the most prominent and influential family in the Longendale area for
more than five centuries. The family held two major properties in
the area, Hollingworth Hall and the Old Hall and by the late 17th
century held almost 700 acres of the surrounding lands including five
farmsteads. In 1734 the family influence and prosperity declined and
its properties passed to Daniel Whittle, before, in 1831, being sold
to one Robert de Holyngworthe, who claimed to be a descendant of the
original Lords of the Manor. His ownership was short lived however,
and the larger of the estates passed through a variety of hands until
in 1924 it was sold to Manchester Corporation Waterworks. The Hall
was demolished in 1943, having previously served as a school and a
mental asylum. The remainder of the estate, based on the Old Hall,
was sold by the Hollingworth family in 1800 to Samuel Hadfield.

It is recorded
that Iorweth and Madoc Hulton, came to Bolton from Wales in 1167.
In 1304 Richard de Hulton, of Hulton Park south-west of Bolton in
Westhoughton, is recorded as having freehold of lands in the districts
of Hulton, Ordsall, Flixton and Heaton. At Hulton he built Hulton
Hall, which, by the late 19th century was surrounded by a 1,316 acre
park of plantations and pleasure grounds with 4 acres of water. The
estate which is rich in coal mines was the sole property of the Hulton’s
of Hulton Park.
The old Hulton family was highly respected, influential and long lasting.
The last surviving member of the Hulton family, Sir Geoffrey Hulton,
died only a few years ago after more than eight centuries dominating
the land west of Bolton. It was in 1819, at the infamous “Peterloo
Massacre”, that magistrate William Hulton ordered the Yeomanry
Cavalry in to arrest Orator William Hunt as he addressed the great
demonstration at St Peter’s Field in Manchester, thus setting off
a train the events which were to go down in history as a less than
glorious event. One spelling of the family has it as Hilton, both
versions have existed over the centuries and some of the earliest
references use the Hilton spelling.

The township of Hyde in modern Tameside
bears local name of one of its oldest and most distinguished families.
It began with one Matthew de Hyde (or Mathaeus de Hide) whose son Robert
acquired the title Robert de Norbury from King Edward II, as well as
Lordship of the Manors of Hyde and Newton in Cheshire, Shalcross in
Derbyshire and of Halghton in Lancashire. The family is related by ancestry
to the Hydes of Wiltshire at Tisbury and West Hatch and to Edward Hyde,
the Earl of Clarendon. The Hydes (or Hides) held estates at one time
comprised of one hundred and ninety one acres. Their county seat was
at Hyde Hall, a sixteenth century building, much altered in subsequent
centuries by brick face work. Probably the most famous member of the
Hyde family was Anne, wife to King James II and mother of Queen Anne.

During the 13th century, ‘Irrewilham’ as the district
known was in the possession of the de Irlam family. Two centuries
later the de Irlam’s lived at Irlam Hall but by 1688 this seat had
become the property of Thomas Latham who played a major part in bringing
William of Orange to the throne. The Irlams were an influential family
in what is modern-day Trafford, though they seem to have disappeared
into antiquity and little trace of them seems to have survived. We
do know that, later, Irlam Hall was in the possession of John Greaves
– when he died in 1848 he bequeathed land and money for a church and
vicarage to be built in Irlam – the present day St John the Baptist
Church.

Google Search Custom Search