Thomas Crookenden

Nephew and main heir of Langford Millington (q.v.). Awarded the compensation for the River estate in Barbados and Millingtons on St Vincent as owner-in-fee.

1. Thomas Crockendon, of independent means, was living at 8 Louisa Terrace, Littleham, Exmouth, Devon, with Mary Ann Crockendon, age 56 and Louisa Crockenden age 20 in the census of 1841. (Louisa Crockendon (born 1820) went on to marry Revd George Lowe who became Vicar of Upottery, Devon. She was confined to asylums, she believed as a result of her being a Spiritualist and wrote about the inadequate lunacy laws of the time.)

2. Will of Thomas Crookenden of Rushford or Rushford Lodge, Suffolk/Norfolk proved 23/6/1842. Under the will he left his wife an annuity of £900 p.a. secured on his River estate on Barbados and on 'all my real estate' in St Vincent, and £40,000 between his four surviving children. The death of a Thomas Crookenden was registered at Cheltenham Q2 1842, presumably the same man as the Thomas Crookenden aged 81 buried at St Luke Chelsea 04/06/1842 as of Lansdown Terrace Cheltenham.

3. The Court of Probate case of Crookenden v Fuller, concerning the validity of a will made in France, provides details of the family. Mary Ann Crookenden (née Fuller), who had lived with her husband at Bushford [sic] in Suffolk until his death in May 1842 and the sale of the estate in September 1842, then moved to Woodthorpe near Wakefield with her son-in-law W. Chamier [the husband of her daughter Emily]. She had 4 surviving children, two sons (the elder [Edward] of whom died in 1843) and two daughters. 'Her property consisted of £900 per annum from an estate in Barbados, £800 per annum, the interest of money in the funds, two shares in the Great Western Railway, money at her banker's, plate.' In 1846 her son the plaintiff returned from a visit to the West Indies, and she gave him a lease on a house in Eaton Square so that he could 'settle in London as a physician.' She died in Cannes 3/1/1858, leaving £3000. Henry Crookenden, the surviving son, died in 1875 of Lincoln House Upper Phillimore Place leaving £8000: the composer Charles Parry was at the same address from 1876 onwards.

T71/897 Barbados no. 2868; St Vincent no. 604. The awards are tied together by T71/1593 6/2/1836 Mrs Crookenden of 49 Gloucester Place, Portman Square inquiring about the process on uncontested claims, which gives Barbados no. 2868 and St Vincent no. 604 as references.  Two different representatives signed at the NDO for the two awards, but Thomas Crookenden of Rushford's will refers to property on St Vincent as well as in Barbados.

1. 1841 census online; Louisa Lowe, The Bastilles of England; or, The lunacy laws at work (1883).

2. PROB 11/1963.

3. Monthly Reports of cases decided in the Court of Probate, and in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes commencing Michaelmas Term 1859 (London: Stevens & Norton, 1860), pp. 3-19; National Probate Calendar 1858; Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online] identifies Arthur (d. 1840) and Edward (d. 1843) as son and heir and second son respectively of Thomas Crookenden of Rushford Lodge. The plaintiff in Crookenden v Fuller, the third son, was Henry Crookenden, who appears in the 1851 census (as a visitor in the Harrington Square house of Walter K. Kelly) aged MD Edinburgh not practising born Rushford Suffolk. He died in 1875 leaving £8000 [National Probate Calendar 1875]; Lewis Foreman and Susan Foreman, A London Musical Gazetteer, 'Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918)', p. 274.

We are grateful to Peter Selley for his assistance with this entry.