Heysham Tower in the 19th century

The Baines Directory of 1825 records that Heysham was ‘a place of fashionable resort for sea-bathing’, ... but that ‘visitors were more select than numerous’. It is against this scene that the story of Heysham Tower is set. It was an 18th/19th century neo-Gothic Heysham building on a prominent site just south of St Peter’s school. The postcard photograph taken early in the 20th century is from the south. The main drive to the house came from the north just by the school. In the old walls to the south of the school you can make out where the entrance gateway would have been.

The second photograph is of the back entrance to the Tower through the castellated arch. This can still be seen today at the junction of School Road and Middleton Road, together with the Tower cottages to the right of the arch. Parts of the Tower can be seen in the background.

The story of the Tower is bound up with two families of ‘landed gentry’, the Knowlys from the London area and the Heskeths of Lancashire. (See  Burke’s Landed Gentry 1833 p.523)

Newman Knowlys was Recorder for London from 1803 -1822 and consequently was frequently seen at the Old Bailey. His brother Thomas Knowlys had a son,  Thomas John Knowlys,  b.1803. In the 1820s Thomas John was educated at Trinity College, Oxford.

The Hesketh family have historical connections with Rufford Hall, near Leyland, but later with Rossall. Robert Hesketh was born at Rossall in 1764 but after  marriage to Maria Rawlinson in Lancaster in 1790 lived first at  Wennington Hall (rented from the owner)). John Marsden had owned Wennington Hall before he moved to Hornby Castle where George Wright, subsequently of  Heysham Lodge, was his steward.

Six (all?) of Robert and Maria’s children were born at Wennington and baptised at Melling  but at some point after that he moved to Heysham. There are documentary references in the Lancaster Gazette for him being in Heysham from 1809-18 and he had a bookplate referring to Heysham  (click here to see it)  Where he lived was not the Old Hall which had been Heysham Hall from the time of its construction in 1598. We  assume from subsequent events that where he lived eventually became Heysham Tower. Robert finally moved to Rossall when he became head of the family following the death of his elder brother in 1819.

On the 1838 Tithe Map for Higher Heysham there  is a building on the site of Heysham Tower which is the same shape as Heysham Tower but without the tower. When Robert Hesketh died in 1824 this property passed to his only surviving aughter Anna Maria Martha Hesketh.  Anna’s elder brother Peter, who succeeded his father, is well known for founding Fleetwood and bringing the railway there in the 1840s. He later changed his name to    Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood . He was MP for Preston , a Tory with liberal views, and was made a baronet in 1838. More importantly for our purposes he was also educated at Trinity College, Oxford in the 1820s. There he clearly formed a friendship with Thomas John Knowlys and in September 1828 Thomas John and Anna Hesketh were married  at  Poulton le Fylde where her elder brother had a short time earlier become the Vicar. Peter was a witness at the wedding.

Thomas John and Anna lived in Heysham and over the next twenty years had ten children, four sons and six daughters, eight of whom were baptized at St Peter’s Church. In 1838-1840 their house was presumably extensively refurbished and the tower added. In the 1841 census the Knowlys family are shown as living at Heysham Hall which ties in with Robert Hesketh having lived at this Heysham Hall. When Thomas John and Anna added the tower and  other rooms to the property (the date usually stated for this is 1838-40) it became known as Heysham Tower which then enabled Thomas Rawsthorne, when he substantially enlarged his nearby house, to call it Heysham Hall.

Thomas John unfortunately died from the effects of a pistol shot in late 1850 and is buried in St Peter’s churchyard. Anna and her family understandably soon left the Tower and in the 1851 census she is found with five of her children in North Meols, a country area between Southport and Preston where her brother Rev Charles Hesketh had been Rector since 1835. Another two of Anna’s children were staying at The Rectory. There is a transcription error in this copy of the census (Knowley for Knowlys); it also appears to suggest that some of their servants in Heysham went with them. By the 1861 census she was living in Clifton, Bristol and in the 1871 census she was in Eton, Buckinghamshire. In the 1881 census she was back living in Clifton, Bristol. with her youngest daughter Florence Everilda and husband Louis Goodeve. She died there in 1886.  Florence Goodeve was a well known composer of music for popular songs, e.g. ‘Fiddle and I’. (Previous versions of this paragraph contained errors due to misinformation, which have now been corrected with reference to various 19th  century  censuses. We apologise for this  mistake.)

An interesting link with the present day is that Robert Hesketh, and later Peter Hesketh and Thomas John Knowlys were all members of an exclusive gentleman’s club, the John of Gaunt’s Bowmen; this was limited to 30 members and had Rules and Regulations which had to be strictly observed. They had annual ‘shoots’ at Fairfield in Lancaster in the 1850s watched by large crowds. The Society still exists in this area today but is now open to all comers and has summer meets on the Vale of Lune ground in Torrisholme.
In about 1840 T J Knowlys opened a school in  Carr Garth . An 1851 Directory referring to Heysham states:

 Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood    by William Charles Ross,  1826