From out of Raisgill and Oughtershaw comes Marsett & Stalling Busk

It was 1669. Newton was busy building his new reflector telescope and LAWRENCE HEBDEN was becoming the father of son ARTHUR HEBDEN in Marsett
Arthur, farmer of Marsett, married ALICE THWAITE around 1689 and together they had four sons, ANTHONY (named after Alice’s father), LAWRENCE, JOHN and ARTHUR.
Arthur's will showed that by the time he died in 1700, his father LAWRENCE was still alive, though it would only be for another year.


Of the children, Anthony and Lawrence had died the same years in which they were born and only John and Arthur jnr survived. Both were mentioned in his will

Arthur's will - After the usual preamble – stated
Item : I give to my wife Alice all my wordly goods and lands lying at Marsett until my son John come at one and twenty years of age and then my son John to enter to that land which was my father(inlaw) Anthony Thwaites and two cattle gates in the cow close
Item: I give to my younger son Arthur that land which was my father's Lawrence to enter half of it at one and twenty years of age and the other half at his mother's decease.
Item: I give to my father Lawrence Hebden the sum of three pounds during his lifetime and for want of payment of the money to enter to the one half of that estate which was his own" etc
Witnesses : Jeffrey Hebden, Jeffrey Parker, Ann Hebden

So, John, the eldest, received Thwaite land, (had Alice been the only surviving child ?) and Arthur jnr was to receive Hebden land. The witnesses were interesting too. Jeffrey Hebden was a cousin though who Jeffrey Parker was is unknown. Possibly the first name might indicate some relationship. As for Ann Hebden, she could have been a cousin, unmarried sister or wife/widow of another Hebden.

So now we are in 1700. The French had invaded Egypt and the British were in India. Coke was shortly to be developed which would turn Europe in the the workhouse of the world and Arthur Hebden senior died. His father Lawrence died the following year. Alice Hebden was left with two boys aged seven and four and the additional responsibility of tending the land she held in trust for her sons until they were 21. Arthur barely made the age of 21, dying in 1718 at aged 22. Presumably the land he had just received was passed on to either his brother or mother.

JOHN HEBDEN, the sole surviving son, born in 1693, married ELIZABETH TOMLINprobably around 1720. The couple went on to have four surviving children. Their only daughter ALICE HEBDEN married a local man, JOHN FAWCETT in 1755, Stalling Busk. John died in 1778, having seen most of his grandchildren grow to adulthood.
JEFFREY HEBDEN, (b. 1725) married THOMASINA BARKER in 1770 in Clapham, presumably where she came from. Jeffrey died in 1809 in Stalling Busk. Any descendants of Jeffrey are unknown.
Then there was the second son, LAWRENCE HEBDEN(1727 - 1819)
And finally
JOHN HEBDEN who was born in 1737 and died by the age of 24 in Stalling Busk.

LAWRENCE HEBDEN had married a woman called Alice but nothing further is known of her. They married presumably around 1753 when Lawrence was in his mid-twenties and were rather prolific, having ten children though, judging by Lawrence’s will he outlived many of his children and his wife.

Will of Lawrence after preamble states:
"and I give to my grandson John, son of my late son Francis,the sum of £10 and I give and devise & bequeath unto my son Jeffrey all my estates both real and personal whatever nature or kind the same may be and where ever situated with their apportenances to hold to him, his heirs and {?} forever. (The above legacy of £10 to John Hebden only excepted) and Ihereby constitute, nominate and apointsaid son Jeffrey Hebden sole executor of this my last will and testament and lastly revoking all former and other will or wills by me(?) .......7th Jan 1813. The mark and seal of Laurence Hebden. Witnesses Henry Fothergill, Jane Fothergill, William Fothergill
The first question that springs to my mind is – just who are these Fothergills ? They may perhaps be a neighbouring family or convenient witnesses at the solicitors but I cant help wondering if perhaps, Lawrence’s wife was a Fothergill.

The will shows that FRANCIS HEBDEN who had been the eldest son had married and produced a child John but had predeceased his father. He had infact also had two daughters but presumably they did not survive to any great age. We know that Francis has been born in 1754 but when he died is unknown.
Lawrences’s daughters AGNES, ELIZABETH, MARY, ELLIN and ALICE were not mentioned in the will and we know that at least Elizabeth outlived her father. The fate of Agnes is unknown but the other girls had all, more or less, married at some stage. Mary wed a Joseph Metcalfe when she was 26 (in 1786) in Stalling Busk. Ellin married Stephen Metcalfe. Metcalfe is a common name in that area and these two girls contributed to the Metcalfe population by providing ten more little Metcalfes between them. At least one of Mary’s children went to Utah, USA.

ELIZABETH HEBDEN did not actually marry (or so it appears). She was born in 1757 and went on to produce 5 children. Who the father was is unknown, though possibly someone called Hodgson. ELIZABETH’s DESCENDANTS

Their brother JOHN HEBDEN only lived to age four and LAWRENCE HEBDEN died when he was 22 so there were no more generations from these two sons. Another son JEFFREY (1778-1865) appeared to have remained single and childless.
ARTHUR HEBDEN however, born in 1773 in Stalling Busk, married ELIZABETH PICKERING in Aysgarth in 1799. Before Arthur and Elizabeth died around. 1856 they had four children.
JOHN HEBDEN came first and according to the 1881 census he was born in Thoralby in 1800. He died in 1882 in Burnley, Lancashire.
BETTY HEBDEN married yet another Metcalfe, ( William) in 1823.
ALICE HEBDEN remained a spinster of the parish of Stalling Busk, until she died in 1885 aged 69.
ROBERT HEBDEN b. 1807, Stalling Busk, Yorkshire; d. 1873, Stalling Busk, Yorkshire. The above named JOHN married MARY ANN PLEWS in 1822 and had seven children:
JEFFREY HEBDEN,(1823-1912).
JAMES HEBDEN, (1826-1885) married Elizabeth and had six children and the whole family moved to Muker.
JOHN HEBDEN, b. 1837, Raydalside. He married ELEANOR KEARTON and had a daughter Mary who was born in Thwaite.
Of their children ELIZABETH, WILLIAM, ROBERT and ELEANOR nothing else is known except that they were born in the 1850s in Burnley. As their father died in Burnley in 1882, it seems most of the family moved there around that time, though the 1881 census shows John visiting his sons James and Jeffrey.

The above ROBERT, son of Arthur, born in 1807, married CHRISTIANA PEACOCK from Redmire.
They only had two sons ROBERT(1831-1901) and JOHN(1832-1905) although Robert senior lived to age 66 Robert and Christiana were the last of this line to be buried in Stalling Busk as their two sons left the vicinity, probably after their parents died.

This JOHN (born 1832), married ANN HODGSON in 1853 in Stalling Busk. Of their children, Martha, John& William died young, Christiana married a William Preston, Alice Ann married a John Hodgkinson and Elizabeth married Henry Wells. Their son Robert married Ada Pickles in Burnsall in Craven, Yorkshire and had two sons, Sidney and Ernest and a daughter Elsie. Sidney died in 1923 and Ernest died in 1974. Ernest had two daughters and Elsie married Alan Newbould. I believe that these families still remain in the area.

Robert and Christiana’s son ROBERT was born 1831 in Stalling Busk. He married ANN PALEY on July 13, 1854 in Stalling Busk They had eleven children all born in Stalling Busk but by the time the 1880s had gone, the family had moved lock, stock and barrel to BURNLEY