WILLIAM GEORGE MCLAUGHLIN (1839-1919) portrayed right, was a land agent who ran the estate of the Earl of Feversham, owner of Duncombe Park, a stately home in North Yorkshire.

The engraving below shows Duncombe Park before service blocks were built in 1843, flanking the entrance forecourt. The house was rebuilt in 1891 after a fire. It is surrounded by 35 acres of 18th century landscaped gardens and a 400 acre park encompassing ruins of the medieval Helmsley Castle.

One of William's qualifications was that he and his first employer, William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Feversham (1798-1867), had the same great-grandfather, the 7th Earl of Galloway. His daughters included William's grandmother, Lady Charlotte Stewart (1777-1842), and Louisa Stewart (1777-1842), who married William Duncombe. Their son William Ernest (1829-1915) was created Earl of Feversham in 1868.

After acting as agent for the 2nd Baron's last three years of life, Willam McLaughlin spent nine more years serving his son. In 1875 he set up an independent agency with a reference from the Earl praising his zeal and judgment, his accountancy, and his knowledge of farming and forestry as well as building construction and repair.

At the age of 18, Alfred McLaughlin was employed by his brother William as his clerk. Their sister Sophia also shared the home at 24 Bridge Street, Helmsley.

In 1877 William married Frances (1843-1934), below left, the eldest of four daughters born to James and Elizabeth Garnett, of Mill House, Bradford, Yorkshire. James owned one of the largest establishments spinning yarn for the worsted trade. Garnett had been an alderman of Bradford Borough since its incorporation. He died in 1850, aged 56, at Mill House, adjoining his factory, the Paper Hall, in Barkerend.

His grandfather, also named James Garnett, lived at Paper Hall until his death in 1829. Built in 1643, Paper Hall was said to be haunted by an admiral with a wooden leg who had been murdered there. In 1794 Garnett set up Bradford’s first spinning machine in a part of the house which soon became a factory employing up to a dozen hands. He introduced centralized production to curtail pilfering and to impose new work patterns of greater duration and regularity on spinners. One of the larger rooms was used as a Congregationalist church until the founding of the Independent Chapel in Horton Lane, where his grandson later worshipped.

When Frances's father died aged 55 in June 1850, Elizabeth, left with four small daughters, was eight months pregnant with their only son. She remarried, to John Rawson, a solicitor, of picturesque Little Horton just south of Bradford. Frances had moved out to live with her step-sister, Sarah, and her husband, James Wales, a stuff [textile] merchant, of Manningham, a mile north of Bradford, when she became engaged to William.

Frances bore him a son and three daughters. Frances had been living on annuities, and these may have enabled her new husband to become a colliery owner and pottery manufacturer in Wilnecote, Warwickshire. However, by 1891 William had returned to being a land agent with an office at 13 Lendal in York. The family, their five servants and a governess resided about 11 miles west in Boston Spa.

The couple's eldest daughter, Millicent Kate McLaughlin (1878-1966) was an actress who played mainly Shakespearian roles in at least eight Broadway shows between 1904 and 1913. Millicent first trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music and, like Dame Clara Butt, went to Paris to become a pupil of the Belgian baritone Jacques Bouhy. She appeared on the concert stage for several years before making her theatrical debut as Iris in The Tempest in 1902.

Later she came to America with Sir Philip 'Ben' Greet, and toured throughout the US, playing Knowledge in Everyman and small Shakespearian parts. She then alternated between appearing in minor dramas and musical comedies in London's West End and touring America with companies including that of Shakespearian actor E. H. Southern and his wife Julia Marlowe. Millicent, who lived in Manhattan, crossed the Atlantic repeatedly until the age of 78.

Vanderbilts and Rockefellers were among Millicent's descendants, according to Gary Boyd Roberts' The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States. The noted genealogist had been taken in by an elaborate fake pedigree put on the Internet by someone calling himself Kevin Randolph Hearst. In reality Millicent was never married.

William's son Reginald George McLaughlin at the age of 21 was an apprentice steam engine maker at the Horwich, Bolton, locomotive works.

Paper Hall is depicted below by kind permission of the artist, Brian Lambert. The reproduction is from a wonderfully detailed 15" x 11" print in an edition of 300 priced at £5.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from gmcLaughlin3 at roadrunner dot com.