Mary Littledale (née Dawson)

Mary Littledale of Bolton Hall Lancashire counterclaimed for the compensation for the enslaved people on Retrieve in British Guiana as mortgagee: the award was the subject of a suit in Chancery. Daughter of Pudsey Dawson of Liverpool, Mary Dawson had married Anthony Littledale in Liverpool in 1809. She was the sister-in-law of Johnson Littledale (q.v.) and Elizabeth Bolton (nee Littledale) (q.v.).

1. In 1851 Mary Littledale widow aged 71 landed proprietor born Liverpool was living at Bolton Hall with her son Henry Anthony Littledale aged 41 and his family. She was buried at Bolton by Bowland 09/11/1855 aged 75.

2. Mary Littledale had reportedly bought Bolton Hall from John Bolton (q.v.) in 1832. Other sources show her as inheriting the estate, which had certainly previously been in her family. To date no will or probate records have been found for her or for her husband.

T71/887 British Guiana no. 2349, counterclaim from Mary Littledale of Bolton Hall, N Yorkshire [sic], widow by Messrs Bell Brodrick Bell her agents, mortgage or charge £10,000.

1. 1851 census online; Ancestry.com, Lancashire, England, Deaths and Burials 1813-1986 [database online]; Ancestry.com, England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1940 [database online].

2. Gentleman's Magazine Vol. 169 (1841) p. 584; Burke's Landed Gentry p. 388 says of Mary Littledale nee Dawson 'this lady inherited, in 1867 [sic], the estates of Bolton Hall from her father.' Her father Pudsey Dawson had died in 1816. John Bolton was however also a relative of the Littledales by his marriage to Anthony's sister Elizabeth.