All Saints Parish Church, Great Stainton

Great Stainton

As may be expected, there were of course many other humbler branches of the Ord(e) family, perhaps descended from those, in an age of primogeniture, fortunate enough to be male but not the first born.( I am one such )

We can start in that area of northern Northumberland so well populated with Ord(e)s. In about 1500 Gawen Ord was born and according to the Muschamp pedigree married a daughter of the Muschamps of Barmoor Castle. We do not know much about him except that he was the father of Oliver who was a tenant in Fenwick in 1560. Oliver married Ann Atkinson at Norham in 1526. They had a son John who married Marjorie Willey, and his grandson Bertram/Bartram began the Holy Island line of Ords. Burkes and IGI and the Ancestral file all give Oliver and Ann as also the parents of Lionel but this appears to be wrong.

Lionel is important because he is our earliest confirmed link. He was born in about 1548 and later married Lucy. His parents may have been Lionel and Janet of St. Andrew Aukland. Lionel was buried there in 1579 and Janet by her will of 1586 left her possessions to Lionel ( presumably her son) and her grandsons Mark and Ralph. In 1608 Lionel and a cousin John bought land at Fishburn which had previously been owned by the dissolved college at Aukland. In 1609 Lionel and John granted this land to Mark, first son of Lionel. Within a few years the family had moved south from Fenwick, perhaps in response to the aftermath of the battle of Flodden Field, which had taken place on their doorstep in 1513 to Fishburn. Both Mark and his brother Ralph born in the 1570s at Winnhouse, Fishburn, remained in Co. Durham as did most of their descendants for the next 300 years.

The area was predominantly rural, agricuture being the main industry, particularly the raising of sheep for the wool trade, which was Britains biggest industry until the 17th C. Fishburn was a sleepy place - even in 1801 the population was only 154. Marks grandson Thomas born about 1640 was recorded as a freeholder ‘ of Northumberland’ in Fishburn in 1686

During the 17C the Ralph Ord side of the family moved a few miles south to Sands near Sedgfield where they lived at Fastwell House. Benjamin Ord, Ralphs grandson, born 1678, either built Sands Hall or rebuilt Fastwell House in 1738. Pevsner reported on the house, see 1953 edition , when it was owned by Ralph Ord

The Sands estate was used for point to point horse racing from about 1730. Races there were officially recorded after 1846. When Richard Ord, born 1849, died without a male heir in 1920 the estate was sold and what is now Sedgfield Racecourse was established. The Hall still stands adjacent to the course

The Sands branch of the Ords was clearly of some note in their day. There is a stained glass window in St Edmunds Church, Sedgfield dedicated by Mark Ord b. 1800 died 1863

Several other branches of the family spring from the son of Thomas b.1640 . Our interest lies with George born 1669 who married Ann Benton of Newton Ketton in 1695 and who who lived at Grangefield. Thomas’ will of 1693 makes no mention of son George but in an after death inventory dated 13th Sept 1694 Thomas is described as a yeoman of Grangefield, Norton. (This area is now part of Stockton )

It appears that the children of George and Ann were all baptised at the High Street Presbyterian Church, Stockton. Their sons George b. 1700, Benjamin b. 1712 and John b. 1717 produced families whose ultimate fortunes were quite different. George’s son John b.1717 married Jane Bignall in 1742 and settled in Aycliffe His grandson John, born 1784, married a distant cousin Elizabeth Ord and his family appears on the 1851 census as living in Brafferton. His sons appear in the 1881 census - Thomas b. 1824 is unmarried living with his two unmarried sisters as an ‘annuitant’ at ‘Coatham Big House’, Coatham Mundeville, Robert Benton Ord is a farmer of 356 acres at Brafferton and John Robert is a farmer 256 acres and quarry owner living at Haughton Hall, Haughton le Skerne. Johns brother Benton and his family lived at Clarence Cottage north of Aycliffe village which property is clearly marked on an 1858 map of the locality. The location is now covered by an industrial estate part of Newton Aycliffe. Other members of the family appear as living at ‘Coatham House’, Haughton le Skerne

There is today still an Ord family plot in the graveyard of St Andrews church in Aycliffe village. Fourteen headstones make reference to twenty-five members of the Ord family ( see photographs ). The oldest grave is of George’s wife Ann Benton who died in 1744.

George’s son George b. 1700 married a local girl Frances Page from Heighington and they settled in ‘Newtown’ near Aycliffe. George lived to age 88 and Frances to 85, good ages in an era when the average life expectancy was probably only 36. His son lived at Farewell House, a village near Durham. A grandson of George, Robert born 1842 lived at Stainton Grange, Great Stainton a property which still today appears on maps and in aerial photographs. Roberts family appear on the 1881 census, one is a farm labourer, another two have left the district lured by the excitement of the steam age and are working as a ‘railway clerk’ and a ‘freight clerk’George’s son Benjamin b.1712 lived with his family at Viewley House, Great Stainton.He was a farmer under the Pennyman family who were Lords of the Manor there.There are some inconsistences between the gravestone dates and the baptismal registers for Benjamin and his siblings. In 1726 Benjamin was farming 72 acres of land owned by Sir William Pennyman Bart. in Great Stainton ( See NA/DOL). He died in 1762 aged 50 according to a gravestone to his memory in the graveyard at All Saints Church, Great Stainton.( see photograph). His widow moved to Cowpen and later remarried twice.

His son George was a religious eccentric, a self proclaimed Shiloh, who neglected his farming interests at Preston-on -Tees and his family to wander claiming himself to be the chosen minister of God ( Stockton news article 1803).

Excerpt from an article reprinted in December 1803 in ‘ Local Records of Stockton’

‘Johanna Southcott paid a visit to Stockton and the neighbourhood, and remained there several weeks, but she did not make many converts to her opinions. At this period and for many years preceeding, another eccentric being named George Ord was accustomed to frequent the markets of Darlington, Stockton, Yarm and other towns, (athough frequently subjected to ill treatment from the rabble ) with a number of religious and other tracts for sale, many of which were his own composition. He had an interview with Johanna, but two of a trade do not usually agree, George considering himself to be the true Shiloh. He called himself the chosen minister of God, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace and many more exalted names. He travelled the three Kingdoms, and when his finances were low, was conveyed in a pass cart from one township to another.'

George was born in 1755 in Great Stainton where his father occupied a farm under the Pennyman family, and on whose death his widow removed to Cowpen. After this George took a farm at Preston-on -Tees, where for want of attention everything went wrong. He left a great many descendants, and was buried at Seamer in Cleveland, maintaining to the last the belief that he was a true prophet’George married twice and had two families with firstly Mary Preston who died young and then Mary Coates. The identity of this George is the weakest part of my family tree. I am reliant on the existence of a son Benton born to a George Ord and Mary Coates at Cowpen, Billingham in 1796 to prove the connection.There are several Bentons in the tree, all it appears named for Ann Benton married to George b. 1669. Otherwise Benton appears to be very rare as a forename.

Benton’s family, brought up largely in Middlesborough, were variously employed as a boarding house keeper, a slater, a station master and a railway clerk , according to the 1881 census clerk.

But it is William born to George and Mary Coates ( both of whom died at Grenside and were buried at Seamer -1836 and 1842) in Cowpen with whom we are mostly concerned as he continues our own branch of Lesser Ords.

William Ord was born in 1790 at Cowpen, Billingham. He married Mary Readman of Egglescliffe in 1820. Their daughter Jane was born in Egglescliffe in 1821 but the family moved back to Great Stainton where he was a husbandman living at ‘Hawkesley House’. Another three children were born there according to the parish register. (But see map for Hauxley Farm to the west of the village). Mary died young on 27th April 1829 and was buried at All Saints Church on the same day as her daughter, Mary, was baptised. William remarried in 1831 to widow Phillis Fairburn and had two further children, but he died young in 1834 aged 44. In the 1841 census Phillis is shown as a pauper with two children living with her. Her four step children, aged 20, 15, 14 and 12, are not living with her a this time; where were they?. John was born in 1826 in Gt Stainton.But possibly due to the family breakdown or maybe attracted by the exciting new railway technology, he left the agricultural scene and his home village, and by his twenties John was an engine stoker living in Mansfield, Notts. He later became an engine driver. On 22/01/1854 he married Isabella Pilkington ( see Pilkington below ) whose father was a bottle maker at or near Belper, Derbyshire. The wedding was at St James’, Riddings, nr Alfreton. They had two sons John ( my greatgrandfather) and William and a daughter Mary. The family appears in the 1861 census in Mansfield and the 1871 census of Gorton, Lancs ( later part of Manchester)

Ther is some mystery over the relationship between John and Isabella.

In 1891 Isabella is found on the census as a widow living alone in Stockport ( She died in 1895) despite the fact that John was alive in 1901 and appears on the census of that year. He died in 1902.

Their son John was born 30/10/1854 at Portland Square, Mansfield

In 1881 he was living in lodgings in Gorton, Manchester and was working as a Turner in an Iron works. He married Sarah Jane from Ardwick in about 1883/4. In 1891 the family incldg three children George Arthur known as Arthur ( my grandfather), Florence and John, were at 64 Lucas Street, Bradford, Manchester where they kept an outdoor beer licence known as the Haughton Arms.

Sarah Jane died in about 1895 when Arthur was about eleven. For the third time in three generations the family was disrupted by an untimely death. John remarried to Emma, born in Shropshire. In 1901 they lived at 44 Vernon Street, Gorton.

(The whereabouts of John b.1827 after his fathers death in 1834 are not known. Neither he nor his siblings are shown in 1841 as with their stepmother and stepsiblings He next appears in 1854 when he lived in Mansfield .I cannot find him on the 1881 census. The 1901 census shows him as a retired engine driver living aged 74 with his son in Gorton.)

Arthur trained as an electrician and whilst working at Affleck and Brown, a Manchester department store, he met Gwendoline Bass, who was a drapery assistant there. ( For details of the Bass family history see seperate notes ) They married at St Johns Church, Longsight, Manchester in May 1913 and took a rented house at Vesper Street, Failsworth . They had two children - Emily and Ronald b. 1917