ORD OF FENHAM AND WHITFIELD
John Ord was originally said by Hodgson to be the first of this line. He was a wealthy merchant in the prosperous trading port of Newcastle, which became famous for mining and exporting coal and lead to the south of England. In 1536 he held the important and influential office of Sheriff of Newcastle. In those days the Mayors and Sheriffs were elected from the most wealthy, most powerful and often the noblest of the Town.
But Raines differs. His opinion was that there was probably no connection between that John ( probably a member of the Ord of Ord/e family ) and the John in Newcastle who married Jane Bowes in 1601 and his grandson John born 1655, who was a Solicitor and Under-Sheriff of Newcastle in 1685 and who founded St. Johns School in Newcastle.
His own wealth enabled John Ord 1655 to buy an estate at Hunstanworth, for his first family with Ann Preston whom he married in 1680. She died and he remarried Ann Hutchinson of Leeds who brought him a considerable fortune with which he was able to buy Newminster Abbey and Fenham. He lived at Fenham Hall in Fenham village which was subsumed by the urban spread of the city in the 19th century and the Hall has long gone. ( After the Ords had moved on Fenham Hall was occupied briefly by the Clarke-Grahams. Their daughter Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived at the Hall until eventually moving to Sidmouth in 1828).
John’s son Thomas born in 1685, was highly successful in exploiting the family interests in coal mining and was well known as one of the ‘Grand Allies’ of early 18th century Northumberland . We will return to Thomas shortly.
In all John had perhaps twenty-two children:--
Robert born 1700 succeeded to the Hunstanworth estate and became Chief Baron of the Scottish Exchequer in Edinburgh and his son became an MP, Treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn and Attorney General of Lancaster. Henry, born 1704, of the Kings Remembrancers Office, had a succesful family having married Anne Hutchinson of Founchen in Suffolk. His eldest son John took holy orders and was Rector of Fornham, Suffolk. His youngest son Craven Ord became a famous Antiquitarian and one of his grandsons Major General Sir Harry St. George Ord b.1819 known as Ord of Fornham, had a long career in colonial administration culminating in his appointment as Governor of South Australia in 1877.
On the death of Thomas his first son, John, succeeded him. He was MP for St Michaels, Cornwall and was Mayor of Newcastle in 1745. He died whilst holding that office and the estate passed to his brother William b.1722. Following his marriage to the heiress Ann Dillingham of Langton, Fenham was no longer satisfactory for William and he bought in 1748 the estate at Whitfield from the ancient but then impoverished Whitfield family who had held it for over 600 years.
William was High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1747. His two sons William b. 1752 and the Reverend James cemented the family fortunes by marriage to two daughters of the Brandling of Gosforth dynasty. William succeeded to the Whitfield estate and James eventually to the estates inherited from the Lords Pickering by his wife’s grandfather in East and West Langton, Leicestershire.
William born 1781 was MP for Morpeth and Newcastle but his son William Henry was the last of the line. A barrister and MP for Newport, IoW, he died childless in 1838 at the age of 35. His widow Frances Vere, daughter of Sir William Vere remarried in 1851 to Sir Edward Blackett of Matfen. The estate in due course passed to her niece who married the Rev. John Alexander Blackett. The family name was changed to Blackett-Ord and their Blackett successors are still at Whitfield today. They continue the traditional use of the Blackett-Ord name.
The Ords and Blackett families interacted on another interesting occasion.The Blacketts of Hoppyland, another wealthy Newcastle family of merchant traders of which Matfen was a branch, acquired the Wallington estate from Sir John Fenwick in 1688 and Sir William had Wallington House rebuilt. His son the 3rd baronet died in 1728 and his only issue was his natural daughter Elizabeth Ord. The estate passed by his will to his cousin Sir Walter Calverley but only on condition that he marry Elizabeth and change his name to Blackett. Sir Walter Blackett died childless and the estate passed to his sisters son, a Beaumont, and later to the Trevellyans, and thus into the hands of the Wentworth-Blackett-Beaumont family, the Lords Allendale from 1842.
Thus whilst the line of Thomas 1685 was effectively ended those of his brothers James and Henry continued to prosper
ORD OF FORNHAM
William Ord of Hunstanworth, brother of John Ord of Fenham was the head of another important branch of the Ord family.
His son Henry of the Kings Remembrancers Office married Ann Hutchinson of Founchen. Their sons were the Rev. Craven, also of the Kings Remembrancers Office and of Greenstead Hall, Suffolk a famous Antiquarian, and the Rev. John DD, of Christ College, Cambridge and Vicar of Fornham St Martins.
The sons of the Rev. John were both Rectors of Wheathampsted, Suffolk and his grandson John Thomas b 1807 was a gentleman farmer at Fornham House, Fornham St Martins, Suffolk. Fornham House which dates from the 1730s is now a residential care home.
The family of the Rev. Craven took the cloth or became soldiers, the most famous being Major General Sir Harry St. George Ord, b. 1819 Governor of the Straits Settlement ( Singapore), Governor of Dominica 1857/61 and who was granted a baronecy on his appointment as Governor of South Australia in 1877.