As of May, 2001 there are 15 Tresham listings in Canadian phone directories. One family group is living in Alberta; the remainder are scattered throughout southern Ontario. All Treshams in Canada are descended from three brothers who emigrated from England in the late 19th century, viz. Maurice Arthur Chapman Tresham, Frederick William Chapman Tresham and my great grandfather, Alfred Chapman Tresham (1866-1943). A fourth brother, Herbert Chapman Tresham, married but had no issue, and a younger sister, Violet, lost the family name through marriage to William Bryan Ireson in 1897.
Alfred Tresham and his siblings were all adamant, some would say boastful, in claiming descent from the medieval Tresham family of Northamptonshire (Northants), England. Indeed Alfred’s eldest daughter, Ella Agnes (Tresham) Manewell (1893-1971), my maternal grandmother, maintained that her father was directly descended from the notorious Francis Tresham, a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The plot was an attempt by a handful of persecuted Roman Catholic gentry to assassinate King James I by igniting as much as five tons of gunpowder in the cellars of the House of Lords while the House was in session.
It must be noted that Ella Manewell, though she took enormous pride in the Tresham name, was not well informed of Tresham history. Family tales, often embellished in the retelling, must certainly have contributed to Ella’s belief that Francis Tresham was some sort of national hero in England. In her colourful version of events, Francis “ran to warn the authorities” about the Gunpowder Plot, thus virtually saving the British Crown! As a child I too was regaled with that story and personally remember telling it to my class in elementary school.
The facts are, of course, quite different. It is well documented that the Gunpowder Plot was sabotaged when an anonymous letter – many believe Tresham was the author – was sent to Tresham’s brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, warning him to stay away from the House on the fateful day. Monteagle handed the letter over to the King’s operatives. Though they did not perceive the danger, the King did, and the plotters, including Tresham, were soon identified and arrested. While awaiting trial, Tresham succumbed to a fatal illness in the Tower of London.
Francis Tresham, as eldest son, had fallen heir to Rushton Hall, the family estate, upon the death of his father only three months earlier. (His father, Sir Thomas Tresham (1544-1605), a noted eccentric, had squandered much of the family fortune on expensive and impractical building projects.) When Francis died, Rushton Hall was passed to his younger brother Sir Lewis Tresham, but was then escheated to the Crown as a result of Francis’ treasonous activities.
Ella’s sisters, Ada Blanche (Tresham) Baker and Margaret Grace (Tresham) Hobday, were convinced of the Rushton origins of their lineage though neither could have known the precise nature of the connection. Both had done some deeper research on the medieval Tresham family. Grace wrote a school term paper on Sir Thomas Tresham’s buildings. Blanche was sufficiently curious that she traveled to Northamptonshire in 1953 to visit some of the Tresham landmarks. An accomplished horticulturist, she brought back sprigs of ivy collected at Rushton Hall and established them along the walls of “Pinehurst”, her home at Langhorne, Pennsylvania. She also purchased a mounted commercial photograph of the marble effigy of an earlier Sir Thomas Tresham, (d. 1559), the great grandfather of Francis and Lewis Tresham. This Sir Thomas had been High Sheriff under Edward VI and Grand Prior of England in the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. The effigy is in All Saints Church, Rushton.
I became interested in the origin of the Canadian Treshams as part of a more inclusive family history project begun in 1999. It was evident almost immediately that this family was not descended from Francis Tresham since he had no male heirs. His only son died in infancy. However, there is very likely a common ancestor between Francis Tresham and the Treshams of Canada, namely Francis’ 4th great grandfather, Sir William Tresham of Sywell. (Sir William was Attorney General to Henry V and acquired Rushton Hall as his residence about 1437.)
There appear to be two keys to understanding the Tresham pedigree in Canada. The first, which the reader will have noticed, is the repeated use of “Chapman” as a given name. My great grandfather and his three male siblings, mentioned above, all bore the name Chapman. Their father’s name was Chapman Tresham (1820-1875). One of their paternal uncles had Chapman as his middle name; so did their grandfather, John Chapman Tresham. (The tradition continues: three of the Treshams currently living in Ontario have Chapman as their middle name.) Chapman Tresham was born at the village of Wold (Old), Northamptonshire, and that village appears to be the second key to the puzzle.
When presented with this genealogical problem I at first assumed that “Chapman” commemorated the maiden name of some mystery woman who had married into the Tresham family, perhaps in the 18th century or earlier. But a more likely scenario came to the fore when an English genealogist, Caroline Kesseler, responding to an Internet bulletin board inquiry, pointed out to me that an Elizabeth Tresham had married a John Chapman of Lamport and was living at Wold in 1683-4. She was the only child of a Richard and Anne Tresham, also of Wold, and the sole inheritor of her father’s estate. Elizabeth Tresham’s published pedigree, showed Sir William Tresham of Sywell to be her 6th great grandfather, and Francis Tresham to be her fifth cousin, twice removed. Specifically, Elizabeth was descended from Sir William’s younger son, Henry Tresham of Newton, and his wife Alice Mulsho.
Ms. Kesseler suggested that Elizabeth, being the last of her family line, might have kept her maiden name and passed it on to her children. It was an excellent suggestion, albeit somewhat progressive for that era, but further research proved otherwise. Elizabeth was the only representative of the third generation of Treshams in Wold. Her father, Richard (1613-1683), was the last male representative of the family there. An examination of parish records shows that Elizabeth did not keep her maiden name, and that upon her father’s death in January, 1683 the Tresham surname disappeared from the village. However, Elizabeth did preserve the family name in a different way.
Seven months after Richard died, John and Elizabeth Chapman’s first son was christened “Tresham Chapman”. In January, 1684 a second son, John, was christened. Two more sons, both named Thomas, were born in 1688 and 1689, but each died in his respective year of birth. Finally, a third surviving son, Richard, was christened in 1690.
Following the christening of Tresham Chapman in 1683, “Tresham” became a popular given name amongst Chapmans living at Wold. I have found evidence of at least six males named “Tresham Chapman” residing in that village at one time or another during the 18th century. Most died before reaching adulthood. The last Tresham Chapman in the village died in 1794. According to the parish burial record he was a gentleman of some social standing. His death was commemorated on a plaque affixed to the bell tower of Wold’s Church of St. Andrew. According to various Latter Day Saints’ IGI Records, there were also Tresham, Tressham or Trussham Chapmans living at Irchester, St. Giles Northampton, Finedon, Kettering and Wellingborough (all Northamptonshire communities) during that century. My searches so far have revealed no use of Tresham as a given name by any family other than Chapman, and no use at all of Tresham as a given name prior to the above-mentioned 1683 christening.
The Tresham surname did not recur in Wold until John Chapman Tresham appeared, seemingly ex nihilo, 137 years after Richard Tresham’s death. I say “ex nihilo” because to date no birth record has yet been found under the name John Chapman Tresham, nor has any potential Tresham progenitor been found in that part of Northamptonshire.
Any suggestion that John Chapman Tresham is not connected to Elizabeth Tresham, that his middle name derives from some unrelated source, and that his decision to raise his family in Wold is merely a coincidence, does not seem plausible. “John Chapman” was a very common name in Wold and the surrounding area during the late 18th century. I suspect that one of those John Chapmans, a descendent of Elizabeth, changed his surname to Tresham, kept Chapman as his middle name, and then passed both names on to his male offspring. What better way to ensure the continuation of the Tresham name? If this is so the Treshams of Canada are indeed descendents of Sir William Tresham of Sywell but are, patrilineally, Chapmans.
There are a couple of interesting points not yet touched upon. First, Chapman Tresham named one of his sons Maurice. Though this was not a particularly common given name in England at the time, there had never-the-less been five Maurice Treshams in the Newton branch of the Tresham family. One was Elizabeth Tresham’s great grandfather, one was her great uncle and three of them were cousins. This suggests that Chapman Tresham might have been aware of the significance of Elizabeth’s branch of the family.
Secondly, Elizabeth Tresham’s grandmother was Elizabeth Isham, daughter of Nicholas Isham of Lamport. Chapman Tresham and his wife, Eliza, apparently maintained a friendship with a Lady Isham. The friendship was close enough that after Chapman Tresham died, Eliza felt comfortable leaving her daughter, Violet, with Lady Isham for several years when Eliza immigrated to Canada. It seems probable that the family connection between the Ishams and Chapmans had been maintained through the 18th century and that this friendship was merely a manifestation of it.
At the time of this writing, and as time permits, I am searching all existing christening, marriage and burial records from the parish of Wold (16th to 20th century) for Chapman and Tresham entries. The late 17th to early 20th century records are completed and the 16th to mid 17th century records are now being reviewed. If these searches do not resolve the Tresham mystery, records from neighbouring parishes (Walgrave, Scaldwell, Lamport, Northampton, Draughton, Harrington, Brixworth, Thorpe Malsor, Kettering and others) will be examined in turn. A search of probated wills is also on the list of things to do.
John B. Lord
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
2 May, 2001