Pease family (Darlington)

The Pease family was a prominent English and mostly Quaker family associated with Darlington and County Durham and descended from Joseph Pease of Darlington, son of Edward Pease (1711–1785).^[1] They were 'one of the great Quaker industrialist families of the nineteenth century, who played a leading role in philanthropic and humanitarian interests'.^[2] The family earlier came from Fishlake, Yorkshire. They were heavily involved during the 19th century in woollen manufacturing, railways, coal mines, and politics. Notable events in their history include the establishment of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the 1820s and the failure of the family bank in 1902. The latter forced several of them close to bankruptcy. Nine members of the family were Members of Parliament, including the first Quaker MP.

Joseph Pease (1737-1808) founded Pease Partners Bank (1761). His children included

• Edward Pease (1767–1858), railway promoter and woollen manufacturer.
• Joseph Pease (1772-1846), a founder of the Peace Society in 1807 and abolitionist.

Edward Pease's descendants

Edward Pease had five sons and three daughters, including:

• John Pease (1797-1868), eldest son
  • Sophia Fry née Pease (1837-1897), philanthropist and political activist, married Theodore Fry

• Joseph Pease (railway pioneer) (1799-1872), second son. Railway owner, industrialist and first Quaker Member of Parliament. He had five sons and three daughters by his wife Emma Gurney, a first cousin of Joseph John Gurney, including:
  • Joseph Whitwell Pease (1828-1903) - eldest son. 1st Baronet of Hutton Lowcross and Pinchinthorpe. Businessman and Liberal Member of Parliament (1865-1903). His two sons and six daughters by his wife, Mary Fox (daughter of Alfred Fox who created Glendurgan Garden), include
    • Alfred Edward Pease (1857-1939) - second baronet. Businessman and Liberal Member of Parliament (1885-1903). Settler and big game hunter in British East Africa. Married three times.
      • Edward Pease (1880-1963) - 3rd Baronet
      • Christopher York Pease (1886-1918) - killed during World War I
      • Alfred Vincent Pease (1926-2008) - 4th Baronet
      • Joseph Gurney Pease (1927-) - 5th Baronet
    • Joseph Albert "Jack" Pease, 1st Baron Gainford 1860-1943). Member of Parliament (1892-1917). Married Ethel, daughter of Sir Henry Marshman Havelock-Allan.
      • Miriam Blanche Pease (1887-1965), HM Inspector of Factories
      • Joseph Pease, 2nd Baron Gainford (1889-1971) Major, Lovat Scouts WW1, served Gallipoli, Bulgaria, France. Businessman. Married 1921 Veronica Margaret (1900-1995), daughter of Sir George John William Noble, 2nd Baronet (1859-1937), son of Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet
        • Joseph Edward Pease, 3rd Baron Gainford (1921-)
        • George Pease (1926-)
        • John Michael Pease (1930-2007)
      • Faith Muriel Pease (1902-1935), married 1924 Major Michael Wentworth Beaumont (1903-1958)
        • Timothy Beaumont, Baron Beaumont of Whitley (1928-2008)
    • Lucy Ethel Buxton née Pease (1868-1940) OBE, married Gerald Buxton
      • Rebekah Mary Buxton, who married Ralph Clarke (British politician) (1892 - 1970)
  • Elizabeth Lucy Pease (1833–1881), married John Fowler, an engineer who invented a steam plough.
  • Edward Pease (1834-1880) - founded Darlington library.
    • Beatrice Mary Pease (1866-1935) - married in 1885 the 6th Earl of Portsmouth, Newton Wallop. After her marriage, she lodged a lawsuit against her uncle Joseph Whitwell Pease alleging that his bank had mismanaged her inheritance. He lost the suit and had to pay 500,000 pounds which caused the bank to be effectively bankrupt.^[3]
  • Arthur Pease (1837-1898) - third son, Member of Parliament for Whitby (1880-1885) and Darlington (1895-1898)
    • Arthur Francis Pease (1866-1927) - first baronet. Coal owner. He was not involved in the collapse of the family bank, J. and J. W. Pease, in 1902 and was later a director of Lloyds Bank and the London and North Eastern Railway. Created baronet in 1920. He had a son and three daughters.
      • Richard Arthur Pease (1890-1969), second baronet
        • Richard Thorn Pease (1922-), third baronet, director and vice-chairman of Barclays Bank
          • Carolyn Thorn Pease, married to John Silvester Varley, former Chief Executive of Barclays Bank
          • Nichola Pease, married to Crispin Odey^[4]
    • Herbert Pike Pease, 1st Baron Daryngton (1867-1949). MP for Darlington 1898-1910, 1910-1923)
      • Jocelyn Arthur Pease, 2nd Baron Daryngton (1908-1994) (Peerage extinct upon his death)
  • Gurney Pease (1839-1872) - fourth son of Joseph Pease. His children include
    • Wilson Pease (1867-1923) - ironfounder
    • Katherine Maria Routledge née Pease (1866-1935) - archaeologist associated with Easter Island
• Isaac Pease (1805-1825)
• Henry Pease (1807-1881) - Fifth son. Railway owner. Founded the seaside resort of Saltburn-by-the-Sea. Member of Parliament for South Durham (1857-1865), President of the Peace Society. He had one son by his first wife, Anna Fell, and three sons and two daughters by his second, Mary Lloyd.
  • Henry Fell Pease (1838-1896) - eldest son. Member of Parliament for Cleveland, Yorkshire

Joseph Pease's descendants

The second Joseph Pease married Elizabeth Beaumont of Feethams and had two children:

• John Beaumount Pease (1803-1873) - married Sarah Fossick and had four sons and two daughters.
  • John William Pease (1836-1901) married Helen Mary Fox (1838-1928) (daughter of Alfred Fox of the Fox family of Falmouth who created Glendurgan Garden). With his brother-in-law Thomas Hodgkin founded the Newcastle bank of Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease, Spence & Co that became part of Lloyds Bank in 1902.
    • John William Beaumont Pease (1869-1950) - first Baron Wardington. Chairman of Lloyds Bank (1922-1945). Amateur golfer ^[5]. He married Dorothy Charlotte Forster and had two sons
      • Christopher Henry Beaumont Pease (1924-2005) - second Baron Wardington. A noted bibliophile; he was succeeded by his brother
      • William Simon Pease (b. 1925), third Baron Wardington; he is married but has no issue, so this title is doomed to extinction.
  • Edwin Lucas Pease (?1838-24 Jan 1889) - [1] Mayor of Darlington, killed while hunting at age 50.
    • William Edwin Pease (3 Jun 1865 - 23 Jan 1926) - MP for Darlington and chairman of Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company
• Elizabeth Pease Nichol [née Pease] (1807-1897) - abolitionist, anti-segregationist, woman suffragist, and anti-vivisectionist^[6] In 1853 she married Dr. John Pringle Nichol (1804-1859), Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow, much against her family's wishes.

More distant relations

Related but not considered Darlington Peases were descendants of the first Joseph Pease's brother, Thomas Pease (1743-1811). His grandson Thomas Pease (1816-1884) married thrice and had many children, with his third wife, Susanna Ann Fry, sister of the judge Edward Fry and aunt of Roger Fry. These children included

• Edward Reynolds Pease (1857-1955), a founder and long time secretary of the Fabian Society. He in turn is father of
  • Michael Pease (1890–1966), geneticist at Cambridge University and member of the Cambridge County Council. He was also interned at Ruhleben during the First World War. After the war he married Helen Bowen Wedgwood daughter of Josiah Wedgwood (later the first Lord Wedgwood). They were parents of, among others
    • Rendel Sebastian (Bas) Pease, nuclear physicist, FRS (1922-2004, died aged 81). He was thrice married and twice widowed, and had two sons and three daughters by his first wife Susan (died 1996). His third wife Eleanor survives him with all his children.
    • Jocelyn Richenda (Chenda) Pease (d. 2005 as Lady Huxley), wife of the biologist Andrew Huxley; they had several children together who survive her, along with her widower.
  • Nicolas Arthington Pease (1896-1983), received a Military Cross (with a bar) during WWI. Married Muriel Pullen. They were the parents of
    • Veronica Pease (1924- )
    • Martyn Edward Pease (1927- )
• Marian (May) Fry Pease (1859–1954), educator, ^[7].

Joseph Pease's sister Ann (?-1826) married Jonathan Backhouse (1747-1826) founder of Backhouse's Bank in 1774 and was mother of

• Jonathan Backhouse (1779-1842) - banker father of
  • Ann Backhouse mother of Jonathan Backhouse
    • Jonathan Backhouse Hodgkin (1843-1926) father of
      • Harold Olaf Hodgkin (1879-1981) Married Lydia Grubb
        • Ernest Pease Hodgkin (1906-1997) Married Mary McKerrow (died 1985) and was nearly disowned for doing so. Ernest became an expert on Mosquito breeding habits and moved to Malaya to further his studies. He was interned in a civilian POW camp from 1942 to the end of the war and he and his family moved to Australia. He became a very well known marine biologist in Western Australia. He is survived by four children, Christopher Graham, Patricia, Jonathan and Michael who all have children and most of them have children of their own.

References

1. ^ Men of Business and Politics. M. W. Kirby. George Allen & Unwin. 1984. ISBN 0-04-941013-X. A study of the rise and fall of the Quaker Pease Dynasty of North East England, 1700-1943.
2. ^ Clare Midgley, ‘Nichol, Elizabeth Pease (1807–1897)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 2 May 2011
3. ^ A Wealth of Happiness and Many Bitter Trials. Joseph Gurney Pease. (1992) ISBN 1-85072-107-6 The life and journals of Sir Alfred Edward Pease Bt.
4. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/07/banking-newstarassetmanagementgroup
5. ^ Kirby, M. W., "Pease, John William Beaumont", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/47702 
6. ^ Midgley, Clare, "Nichol, Elizabeth Pease", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/55204 
7. ^ Thomas, John B., "Pease, Marian Fry", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/ 

Sources

• Tomorrow's History. A regional local history site for the North-East of England.

See also

• Pease Baronets

External links

• Draft chapter for the Victoria County History of Durham, Darlington section: BANKS AND BUILDING SOCIETIES by Gillian Cookson