Arthur Howe Holdsworth

Arthur Howe Holdsworth (1780-1860), was a Devon merchant named Governor of Dartmouth Castle, a position held by his father Arthur from 1760 to 1777, in 1809. He was elected member of Parliament for Dartmouth in 1812, 1818, 1829 and 1831 during the period, before Parliamentary reforms, in which Dartmouth had fielded two seats.

Holdsworth was from a Devon mercantile and trading family and resided at Widdecombe House and Mount Galpin in Dartmouth located near Kingsbridge within the Stokenham Priory estate, owned by the Holdsworth family for many years. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=fOkVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=%22Widdecombe+House%22+holdsworth&source=web&ots=jBZsSRTmUY&sig=NBHWTEFQb1tuvv6cRTtD_htlkNk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result Kingsbridge and Its Surroundings, Sarah Prideaux Fox, G. P. Friend, Plymouth, 1874] ] He served as the last Governor of Dartmouth. [ [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp02223&rNo=0&role=sit Arthur Howe Holdsworth by William Brockedon, National Portrait Gallery, npg.org.uk] ]

Holdsworth was a well-known politician in Devonshire, his father Arthur having been a prominent shipowner, merchant and member of Parliament. [ [http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg63/gg63-61390-prov.html "Arthur Holdsworth Conversing with Thomas Taylor and Captain Stancombe by the River Dart, 1757", Arthur Devis, Paul Mellon Collection, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., www.nga.gov] ] The son, Arthur Howe Holdsworth Holdsworth, was an active businessman with interests in shipping and an inventor with many patents to his name, most relating to shipbuilding and boats. He was a shareholder in the Bristol and Exeter Railway and was a prime force behind Devon's expansive shipping interests.

The Holdsworth family's roots lay in Yorkshire, and a vicar ancestor moved to Devon in 1620. The vicar's son Arthur entered trade and, aided by the Champernowne family [The Champernownes had been a fixture on the West Country mercantile and social scene for generations. Kat Ashley, nee Champernowne, was a close friend and governess to Queen Elizabeth I. Her niece Catherine Champernowne was the mother of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert. At the heart of the family dynastic influence lay Sir Arthur Champernowne, who served as Vice-Admiral of the West, while residing at Dartington Hall in Devon.] , began a lucrative trade with Newfoundland. By 1672 he was mayor of Dartmouth and an imposing figure on the local business scene. In the following two centuries the Holdsworth family came to dominate the mercantile and cultural life of Dartmouth. They were leaders in the trade with Newfoundland and with Portugal, where they owned estates. Their interests extended into trade with the Baltic, the West Indies and America. [ [http://www.dartmouth-history.org.uk/content_images/upload/AHHoldsworth.htm Arthur Howe Holdsworth, 1780-1861, dartmouth-history.org.uk] ]

"The family continued to prosper," according to David K. Brown in his book "The Way of the Ship in the Midst of the Sea", "helped in 1725 by the award of 'The Waters of the Dart' from the Duchy of Cornwall in 1725 which entitled them to levy tolls on all goods landed between Salcombe and Torbay, a rich perquisite which lasted until 1860. The Holdsworths and their relations held most of the important posts in and around Dartmouth, Freemen, Mayors, Governor of the Castle since 1725, Rector of Stokenham and Brixham, etc. The family home was Widdicombe House, near Torcross, built in 1785 and enlarged in 1820. They also owned Brooke Hall, Dartmouth." [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=7Iimx-zvWccC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%22Widdicombe+House%22+holdsworth&source=web&ots=wCtMQUoa2d&sig=bgmX2blgSkvXgxN25rKyOY_i4B8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result The Way of the Ship in the Midst of the Sea, David K. Brown, Periscope Publishing Ltd., 2006] ]

At his death in 1860, Holdsworth left an enormous estate. [ [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cannf/unknown_wills_arthurholdsworth.htm Will of Arthur Howe Holdsworth, CanadaGenWeb.org] ] Following Holdsworth's stinging defeat for his Parliamentary seat in 1832 by Sir John Henry Seale, 1st Baronet, whose family had challenged the Holdsworth family's hold on the Corporation, all the Holdsworth family members left Dartmouth. The acrimony between the Holdsworths and their Seale family even forced the move of the 1839 marriage between Holdsworth's daughter Catherine Henrietta Elizabeth Holdsworth and civil engineer William Froude from Dartmouth, where the Holdsworths had long worshipped, to the Brixham parish church instead.

Arthur Howe Holdsworth was married to the former Henrietta Eastabrook. His middle name was a tribute to the British Admiral Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, a family friend who served as one of two members of Parliament from Dartmouth from 1757 to 1782, overlapping the service in Parliament of Arthur Howe (1780-1786). The Holdsworth family later intermarried with other prominent West Country families, including the St. Aubyns of St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, the improbably named Bastard family of Devon (who also furnished Parliamentary contemporaries of Arthur Howe Holdsworth) and others.

Arthur Howe's Holdsworth's eldest son Arthur Bastard Eastabrook Holdsworth lived at Widdicombe House after the death of his father. [ [http://ngb.chebucto.org/Wills/holdsworth-arthur-3-527.shtml Will of Arthur Bastard Eastabrook Holdsworth, 1877, from Newfoundland Will Books, ngb.chebucto.org] ] Arthur Bastard Eastbrook Holdsworth's daughter Alice Mary married Edmund St. Aubyn at Dartmouth, Devon, in 1847; his daughter Georgina married in 1868 at Stokenham, Devon, Thomas Levett-Prinsep, eldest son of Thomas Levett-Prinsep JP of Croxall Hall, Derbyshire. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=JdYNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA500&lpg=PA500&dq=arthur+holdsworth+levett+prinsep&source=web&ots=BvvWwsNfYo&sig=vo5knbCL98skKObdKV9qP97wiaQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, Kelly and Co., London, 1882] ]

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