Background
It was while I was researching the life of my great, great, great uncle Abraham Laverton 1819-1886 for a biography I was writing, that I recalled having an old manuscript which my father had passed on to me some years before. Abraham who was a victorian mill owner in Westbury, Wiltshire, was unmarried and had lived all his life, while he built up his fortune, with his sister Charlotte who had been his constant companion.
I had noticed that there was a piece of paper stuck to an inside page of the manuscript on which was written “Charlotte Laverton, Farleigh Castle”. The question was where did Charlotte get the manuscript, and was there a family connection given the similar spellings of the two names Laverton and Leverton.
The most interesting and largest part of the manuscript concerns the life of Nicholas Leverton so I started looking into the Leverton name and discovered a genealogist living in St Austel, Cornwall who had been researching Leverton genealogy for over 30 years, and who had amassed some thousands of records from around the world including many variations of the Leverton name.
More importantly for me he had information specifically on Nicholas Leverton and his ancestors and descendants and from this I managed to put together a family tree covering five generations. A little later I managed to get the Leverton manuscript transcribed into modern english since when I have been researching his life throughout the first 60 years of the seventeenth century. I have looked at historical events including Puritan migration to the "new world", the Civil War and nonconformism that would have influenced him both in England and his time spent on Providence Island in the Caribbean from his birth in St Eval in Cornwall in 1610 to his death in Surinam in 1662.
The manuscript is in three parts and runs to over 60 pages. At the front there is “The Valentine Letter” written by Nathaniel Bernard. The subject of his attention, Lady Eliza Beesworth is as yet unknown to me.
The middle part is “The Three Sermons” or The Good Fight, A TREATISE OF CHRISTIAN warfare preached by Mr Nathaniel Bernard at Havering Chapel, Upminster, Essex September on 3rd & 10th 1638.
Lastly, there is the main part, “The Life and Death of the Rev Nicholas Leverton” an account written by his friend Charles Morton which I have expanded through my research in Life and Death Story.
The original biography written by Charles Morton in 1670 was probably used by the 18th century historian Edmund Calamy whose considerable reputation today rests on his account of the ejected ministers who lost their livings between 1660 and 1662 following the Restoration of Charles II.
As a biographer Calamy was responsible for rescuing many details of the ejected ministers which would otherwise have been lost. His account therefore remains the pre-eminent source for the study of the early history of nonconformity. By the time Calamy had completed his work in 1727 he had provided biographical sketches for over 2,000 ministers covering every county in England and Wales.
Clearly the work was beyond the efforts of a single person and it is evident that he would have relied on the help of other historians like John Quick and correspondents such as Charles Morton the author of my manuscript. Given the word for word similarities in early accounts of his life I am left in little doubt that Charles Morton’s work may well be the single source material recording the life and death of the Reverend Nicholas Leverton.
The manuscript has been donated to Dr Williams's Library, 14 Gordon Square, London WCIH OAR.
The help given to me by Charlotte Mackenzie, Dr Sarah Barber and EM Golder of Burgess Browning has been invaluable.
I had noticed that there was a piece of paper stuck to an inside page of the manuscript on which was written “Charlotte Laverton, Farleigh Castle”. The question was where did Charlotte get the manuscript, and was there a family connection given the similar spellings of the two names Laverton and Leverton.
The most interesting and largest part of the manuscript concerns the life of Nicholas Leverton so I started looking into the Leverton name and discovered a genealogist living in St Austel, Cornwall who had been researching Leverton genealogy for over 30 years, and who had amassed some thousands of records from around the world including many variations of the Leverton name.
More importantly for me he had information specifically on Nicholas Leverton and his ancestors and descendants and from this I managed to put together a family tree covering five generations. A little later I managed to get the Leverton manuscript transcribed into modern english since when I have been researching his life throughout the first 60 years of the seventeenth century. I have looked at historical events including Puritan migration to the "new world", the Civil War and nonconformism that would have influenced him both in England and his time spent on Providence Island in the Caribbean from his birth in St Eval in Cornwall in 1610 to his death in Surinam in 1662.
The manuscript is in three parts and runs to over 60 pages. At the front there is “The Valentine Letter” written by Nathaniel Bernard. The subject of his attention, Lady Eliza Beesworth is as yet unknown to me.
The middle part is “The Three Sermons” or The Good Fight, A TREATISE OF CHRISTIAN warfare preached by Mr Nathaniel Bernard at Havering Chapel, Upminster, Essex September on 3rd & 10th 1638.
Lastly, there is the main part, “The Life and Death of the Rev Nicholas Leverton” an account written by his friend Charles Morton which I have expanded through my research in Life and Death Story.
The original biography written by Charles Morton in 1670 was probably used by the 18th century historian Edmund Calamy whose considerable reputation today rests on his account of the ejected ministers who lost their livings between 1660 and 1662 following the Restoration of Charles II.
As a biographer Calamy was responsible for rescuing many details of the ejected ministers which would otherwise have been lost. His account therefore remains the pre-eminent source for the study of the early history of nonconformity. By the time Calamy had completed his work in 1727 he had provided biographical sketches for over 2,000 ministers covering every county in England and Wales.
Clearly the work was beyond the efforts of a single person and it is evident that he would have relied on the help of other historians like John Quick and correspondents such as Charles Morton the author of my manuscript. Given the word for word similarities in early accounts of his life I am left in little doubt that Charles Morton’s work may well be the single source material recording the life and death of the Reverend Nicholas Leverton.
The manuscript has been donated to Dr Williams's Library, 14 Gordon Square, London WCIH OAR.
The help given to me by Charlotte Mackenzie, Dr Sarah Barber and EM Golder of Burgess Browning has been invaluable.