Henry Atherton

Brother of William Atherton of Jamaica (d. 1803). William Atherton left his estates in Jamaica to his brother John for life and thereafter to his brothers Richard and Henry. Richard died in 1804 and Henry in 1816; William's estates thus passed to Richard's eldest son Edward and Henry's two daughters Eleanora and Lucy when John died in 1820.

Henry Atherton's daughter Eleanora appears in the ODNB as a philanthropist. This gives Henry as a barrister of Lincoln's Inn (although he doesn't appear in Foster's Men at the Bar), born in 1740 and died in 1816. No will has been found for Henry Atherton. The same source gives his wife as Ann (1751-1826), daughter of Edward Byrom (1724-1773) of Manchester and his wife Eleanora Halstead (1727-1758) of Lymm, Cheshire. Henry's daughters Eleanora and Lucy were heirs of their grandfather Edward Byrom and their aunt Eleanora Byrom of Manchester as well as their uncle William Atherton of Jamaica.

Records of Henry Atherton, solicitor of Lincoln's Inn, appear from as early as 1790.

"[Death] In Great James's-street, Bedford-row, 76, Henry Atherton,a very eminent conveyancer, of Lincoln's Inn."

Memorial inscription in the Collegiate Church, Manchester: "In memory of Henry Atherton, Esquire, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law, who died August 17th 1816, aged 76". An inscription for the Byrom family gives Henry's date of birth as 30/07/1740, Ann nee Byrom's date of birth as 14/07/1751 and her death as 09/01/1820.

Will of William Atherton, PROB 11/1403/224.

Joyce F. Goodman, ‘Atherton, Eleanora (1782–1870)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56094 [accessed 12/09/2012].

Lincolnshire archives, REEVE 3/3/22 (1790), Lancashire Archives, DDCS/26/44 (1810).

Monthly Magazine: Or, British Register Vol. 42 (September 1816) p. 180.

Samuel Hibbert et al, History of the Foundations in Manchester of Christ's College, Chetham's Hospital and the Free Grammar School (1834), Vol. 2 pp. 318-319, 313.