Sheffield 'Founding' Families

[Floridablade]

I can't remember a house on the corner of Cherry St. and Bramall Lane and I went to the oldest football ground in the world for the first time in 1938. Arnold Laver had his woodyard on one corner and a brick wall on the other corner with turnstiles in it.

[mrsmills]

I assumed the name simply fitted in with the general theme of 1950's and particularly 1960's urban re-generation, where projects like were seemingly intended to give the city and other cities a sense of general and homogeneous urbanisation, i.e. to an extent what Hillsbro is saying. I'm only speculating.

 

Did the 'big' Sheffield families always live in the suburbs or did they ever retain houses in the city centre? Were they all industrialists or was there 'old money' in Sheffield, was it that that that developed much of Broomhill, Crookes, etc.?

[hennypenny]

It depends how far back you want to go - Earl Waltheof, Roger de Busli and William de Lovetot were instrumental in founding Sheffield. Vickers claims William de Lovetot as the real founder of Sheffield as it was when he built the first castle in around 1150 and later the first cornmill and then a hospital that the town of Sheffield began to grow. When the estates were left to the 7 year old daughter Maud de Lovetot, she was made a ward of King Henry II then when she was 16 she was married to Gerard de Furnival, whose family held the Lordship for 180 years, and are now remembered in Furnival Street, Furnival gate and Furnival House. During a rebellion in 1266 the town was destroyed, with both the wooden castle and the Parish church being burned to the ground. Thomas de Furnival rebuilt the castle in stone, and it existed for 378 years until being demolished by the Parlimentarians in 1648. The third Lord Furnival granted a charter to the people of Sheffield to hold a market on Tuesday of every week, and also created the "Burgery of Free Tenants" granting freehold to tennants in return for a yearly fee. This made the tenants a free independant body of self governing people. The tenants took over various public duties such as improving roads and mending bridges.

By way of female descent and marriage the Furnival estates passed into the hands of John Talbot, later created 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. The Talbot family was very much associated with the growth of Sheffield in later years.

 

I have taken the above from a book called "A popular History of Sheffield" by J Edward Vickers, which pretty well covers every person who has been influential in the making of Sheffield - fascinating stuff.

 

There is also a list of useful books here:-

 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~engsheffield/webpages/books.htm#vickers

 

The Wikipedia article for Sheffield is quite interesting too:-

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sheffield

[Greybeard]

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[Albert T Smith]

I understand that ' Lady's Bridge ' is the oldest structure in Sheffield and it was previously called ' The Bridge of Our Lady ' because a church or something was close bye and near the ' then ' Castle. Is this fact or fiction?

 

Mrsmills:- Most of the wealthy families of Sheffield lived on the North/Western, Western or South Western side of the city because all the industrial smoke from their factory's chimneys was carried by the prevailing wind, to where the workers lived.

 

A good example of this is the last air vent of Totley Tunnel. It should have been sited in Longshaw or near Grindleford. Instead its sited at the highest point on Totley Moors allowing its smoke to take advantage of the prevailing wind and take it over the city.

[wolfstalin]

No I don't think that's right Albert.

 

Ladies Bridge got its name from the fact that is where the ladies of the castle would have their walks, being considered the least effective direction of attack give that the area to the left of the bridge was swamp land.

[gemma86]

Sorry to chip in without contributing much (it's a really interesting thread, btw!), but I'd have to agree with Albert - can't say I've heard about the 2nd origin, but have of Albert's. Wikipedia agrees too although there is no source attributed to that information. I believe several resources on the subject do cite that origin although I can't be specific in which ones.

[Albert T Smith]

Putting both the above posting together. At that peiod the Church would have been involved somewhere so the lady's from the Castle may well have been Nuns!!

Has anyone else something to add?

[wolfstalin]

Its been called Ladies Bridge since it was built, that article refers to the church being built over three hundred years later.

 

Besides wikipedia is very unreliable.

[wolfstalin]

Sorry, over 400 years later.