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 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 the earl 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, 2nd Lord Feversham (1798-1867): their son William Ernest was created Earl of Feversham.

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), left, the eldest of four daughters born to James and Elizabeth Garnett, of Mill House, Bradford, Yorkshire. James Garnett, an alderman represented as a model employer in his funeral sermon, was the offspring of the James Garnett who introduced mechanical worsted spinning to Bradford in 1794.

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.

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.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.