Papers of Marianne Hutton of Beverley

U DDCV/213 is a small deposit of papers including some old title deeds, but largely comprising papers relating to the affairs of Marianne Hutton after the death of her husband in 1848. There are four letter books about the management of her Beverley affairs from Crust Todd and Mills from this date to the date of her own death in 1879. There is also an 1879 inventory of the contents of her house in London and the 1884 valuation of all her Beverley property.

Henry William Hutton was the son of Henry Hutton and Mary Judith Dell of Lincolnshire. He was born in 1787 and had three siblings, Mary (b.1789), Harriet (b.1790), and Thomas (b.1792). He married Marianne Fleming, a woman of independent means from Beverley and they lived at her house in Walkergate. After her death, her house was valued at £300 and the total fee simple value of it and various fields in around Beverley was £4100 (DDCV/213/17).

In 1809 Henry William Hutton's mother died and he laid claim through her to the estate of William Gibson, who had been certifified 'a lunatic' in 1807. The claim was tenuous. William Gibson's grandfather, Thomas Becke, was Mary Judith Dell's great grandfather in a colateral line and other claimants included the Foxon family who were the other colateral line. Pedigrees in DUT relate to this claim and it is not clear if Henry William Hutton was successful. However, it is clear from the surviving papers that he picked up the bill for William Gibson's commital and maintenance and that he and his father were in some financial difficulty over their Lincolnshire affairs in the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s. Henry Hutton remarried after the death of his wife.

Henry William Hutton and Marianne Fleming had seven children. Their eldest son, Henry, was a captain in the army and predeceased his parents in about 1845. Their second son, Frederick went to live in the Isle of Man. Their third son, Edward, died around 1849 or 1850, shortly after the death of his father at the end of 1848. Marianne was left with at least one child who was still in school. She chose not to remain in Beverley and letter books from her solicitors indicate that she travelled around friends and family for some time. At the time of her death in 1879, one of the rooms in her Hyde Park House was still set aside for a younger son in the army, either Thomas or Alfred. She lived for some time with a daughter, but was residing alone when she died.

The very complete inventory of the contents of her house makes a good study in the way a middle class widow lived in the mid-nineteenth century. The rents of £159 per annum from her Beverley property supported her in a (probably rented) four-bedroom house with a small number of servants, the contents of which were worth just under £2000. It was reasonably cheaply furnished, but the amount of silver plate suggests a large inheritance with a dwindling income. She had a small number of books (about 85 volumes in her back drawing room which she must have used as a living room) and a large number of china ornaments.

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Hull University Archives:

Papers of the Hutton family of Beverley [DUT]

U DDCV/15/243-245, 474; DDBA2/18/41