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Healds in UK Trade Directories: Additional Notes

Matthew Heald, Saddler

The following are taken from Eric Youle's Family history reference material, mainly about Sheffield.

"Reminiscences of Old Sheffield, Its Street & Its People" - R.E. Leader, Sheffield 1896

CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD TOWN HALL, HIGH STREET.

Scene-The 'Beehive." Host, Mr. LEIGHTON. Period-1873.
Present-LEIGHTON, TWISS, LEONARD, EVERARD and WRAGG.
...

LEONARD: Between Mulberry street and George street, but entered by a passage from High street, is the " Victoria " inn, formerly the "Bay Childers", which was kept by Thomas Amory, who died in 1772, and by his wife after him. There may be no better opportunity than this of noticing the recent stoppage of the old thoroughfare across the yard at the back of the "Victoria," leading from Mulberry street into George street. No doubt the name of the inn was changed about the time of Her Majesty's accession. There was a "Bay Childers" in Bridge street also, which disappeared about the same time.

TWISS : I am not sure that you are correct in saying that Mr. Amory kept the Bay Childers; I have always understood that it was the Blue Bell. However, in front of what is now the Victoria, where are the shops of Mr. Gray, saddler, and Mr. Travell, clothier, there was in the last century a saddler named Heald. His daughter married in 1776 it workman of her father's, Joseph Cecil, who afterwards, through some property left to him, became Lord of the Manor of Dronfield.

According to the IGI

Eliz. /HEALD/ -- 15 Aug 1751 -- C150641 -- Matthew /HEALD/ -- Saint Paul's, Sheffield, YKS link

m. -- 26 Sep 1776 -- M007757 -- Joseph /CECIL/ -- Elizabeth /HEALD/ -- Cathedral Saint Peter, Sheffield, YKS link

"Reminiscences Of Sheffield In The Eighteenth Century" by R.E. Leader

CHAPTER XIII.
HIGH STREET, SHEFFIELD

IN Gosling's plan (1736) High Street is called Prior Gate, and as late as 1800 it was recorded that the north side "still retained, amongst the oldest inhabitants, the name of Prior Row." ...

And this part of the street was never without its saddler. Matthew Heald was the first we can with confidence (1774) identify. His daughter, in 1776, married one of her father's workmen, Joseph Cecil, who ultimately succeeded to the business. Afterwards, through the extinction of the Rotherams, he inherited their estates and became Lord of the Manor of Dronfield. ...

A shop conveyed from Claudius Lord to Matthew Heald (1788) is spoken of as "adjoining to the houses of Benjamin Steer and Elizabeth Dale, widow, one of these known by the name of 'The Duke of Norfolk's Arms', but then of James Edmonson and known by the sign of the 'Blue Bell'." Edmonson was a saddler.

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