Rev. Thomas Staniforth

Church of England clergyman, grandson (and almost certainly son - see below) of a Liverpool slave-trader, not a claimant of slave compensation but a beneficiary as heir of his uncle-by-marriage John Bolton (q.v.), from whom he inherited Storrs Hall.

1. John Bolton reportedly left his country seat, Storrs Windermere [Cumbria], to Harold Littledale [another nephew-by-marriage] but changed his will and left it to Rev. Thomas Staniforth with reversion to Littledale on failure of male heirs.

2. Rev. Thomas Staniforth was the son of Samuel of Liverpool [and of Mary Littledale, daughter of Henry Littledale of Whitehaven], and matriculated Christ Church Oxford 1826, BA 1830, of Storrs Westmoreland and Darnhall Hall Yorks, rector of Bolton-by-Bolland Yorks 1831-59, d. 1887. A Samuel Staniforth appears as a participant in 13 slave-trading voyages between 1795 and 1806: Thomas Staniforth appears in 79 such voyages, including almost all of those in which Samuel Staniforth was a partner. The will of the slave-trader Thomas Staniforth (who died in 1803 but whose will was not proved in the Probate Court of Canterbury until 1826) shows two Samuel Staniforths, Thomas' son (1769-1851, the father of the Rev. Thomas Staniforth of this entry) and Thomas' brother (who reportedly d. 1820). It is not yet clear which of these Samuel Staniforths was the slave-trader, but it appears highly likely to have been the son, the father of Rev. Thomas Staniforth, who is known to have been in business with his father for a period. This is strengthened by some limited information on Samuel Staniforth the brother (d. 1820), which places him in Sheffield for much of his life.

3. Staniforth left £150,492 16s 8d (resworn from £149,667 16s 8d at probate). His executors were his great-nephews, Charles Staniforth Greenwood and Edwin Wilfrid [sic] Greenwood. The latter, as Edwin Wilfrid Stanyforth, left £168,321 7s 7d in 1939: his son Ronald Thomas Stanyforth captained the England cricket team in South Africa in 1927/8.

1. Hughes, Liverpool Banks p. 130. Hughes' version of the succession is not entirely borne out by an examination of the will of John Bolton, under which he left Storrs Hall to his wife with discretion to bequeath it where she chose provided the legatee assumed the arms and name of Bolton, PROB 11/1877/34; a codicil dated 31/01/1837 did however make Rev. Thomas Staniforth Bolton's principal heir.

2. Ancestry.com, Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database online]; will of Thomas Staniforth of Liverpool Lancashire proved 09/03/1826, PROB 11/1710/132; Frances Margery Hext, Staniforthiana (1863) p. 44 states: 'Samuel, the youngest son of Samuel and Alethea Staniforth, was baptised at Sheffield on the 19th of July 1739. He was only eleven years old when is mother and last surviving parent died, so he and his sister Mary were taken to his eldest sister Mrs Younge. For the great part of his life Samuel Staniforth lived in Sheffield, but after Mr Howard [previous tenant] left Darnall he became his brother's tenant there, and died unmarried on 26th September 1820, aged 81. He was the last survivor of that generation, having outlived his older brother 17 years.'

3. National Probate Calendar 1887 and 1939.

We are grateful to the Rev. John Schild for his help with this entry.