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The talented Tallents of Newark

An Assortment of Talents ‘An Assortment of Talents’.
Current and former Partners assembled with the Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, with an exhibition of historic documents, including the edition of Godfrey Tallents’ diaries. (Photo: Richard Gaunt)

It is not every day that you get invited to meet the new Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. Nor is it every day that a solicitor’s practice commemorates 250 years of continuous service. I was delighted to be invited to join current and former partners of Tallents Solicitors, at their office in Newark, to mark this important milestone in October 2024. During the event, I spoke about the history of Tallents Solicitors and presented copies of my edition of Godfrey Tallents diaries (published by Nottinghamshire County Council in 2010) to the Lord-Lieutenant, Professor Veronica Mora Pickering MBS HAC.

When Philip Tallents established himself as an attorney in Newark-on-Trent in 1774, he could scarcely have anticipated that the firm that bears his name would continue to operate in the town 250 years later. Philip Tallents (1741-1789) was wise in choosing Newark-on-Trent as his place of business. Over the eighteenth century, Newark had become a thriving, bustling town, dominated by its historic church and well-proportioned town hall, the perfect environment in which local manufacturers, tradesmen and industrialists could mix with the many visitors drawn to Newark by their travels along the Great North Road. This mixed community of residents and tourists found ready hospitality and local amenities, in Newark’s numerous coaching inns, ale houses and hotels, generously supplied by the brewers and maltsters for which the town became famous.

‘Proclamation Stool’‘Proclamation Stool’. Many Tallents served as Town Clerks of Newark and proclaimed a new monarch from this stool. The stool contains brass plaques commemorating every proclamation from 1820 to date. (Photo: Richard Gaunt)

Newark-on-Trent was one of the principal market towns in Nottinghamshire and an important site of politics, electioneering and the administration of justice. Tallents and his partners quickly found themselves in high demand, not only as solicitors but as influential agents in the varied trusts, commissions and committees which administered the social and economic infrastructure of the town. Highways, workhouses, sewers and the Newark navigation canal, all required close and careful management, and it was in securing the secretaryship or clerkship to a wide variety of local bodies, that Philip’s son - and successor in the practice - William Edward Tallents (1780-1837), ensured for himself and his descendants, a prominent place in the affairs of the town.

Nor was Tallents confined to Newark affairs - the local electoral influence exercised by the Dukes of Newcastle of Clumber Park and the Sutton family of Kelham Hall, amongst other propertied interests, ensured Tallents a crucial role in the political affairs of Newark throughout the 19th Century, and a privileged place in the management of local aristocratic and gentry affairs. Tallents Solicitors were the land agent for the Duke of Newcastle. Tallents worked with an equally wide range of Lincolnshire clients, including the Earls of Yarborough, and the Herons of Stubton Hall. They were also heavily involved in the many legal issues arising from the management of Foss Dyke within the county.

Successive generations of Tallents have continued to serve in the firm, culminating with Colonel Hugh Tallents (1885-1978), whose parents descended from the two families (Tallents and Beevor) who had come together as business partners at the turn of the 20th century.

Today, twenty years after resuming the name of Tallents Solicitors, in homage to its eponymous founder, the firm has celebrated 250 years of continuous service to the people of Newark and Nottinghamshire.

Richard Gaunt

The Geoffrey Bond and Thoroton Society Research Awards

Geoffrey Bond, a long-standing member of the Thoroton Society has generously provided funds for some years now to support research into the history and archaeology of the County of Nottinghamshire. The Society also makes an equal contribution to support this work.

In 2024 we received two applications, and the adjudication panel decided that both should be awarded grants. The successful applicants and projects were:

We look forward to reading more about these two projects in the Newsletter in due course and then it is hoped that fuller articles will appear in future editions of the Transactions.

The terms and conditions of the award can be found on the Society’s website: http://www.thorotonsociety.org.uk/bond-awards.htm

The deadline for applications for the next round is 1st September 2025.

Mark Dorrington, Research Awards Administrator

2023 Bond Award Winner Report: The Journal of Miss Anne Cooke, Nottinghamshire Archives (DD 689/1 & 2)

The two surviving volumes of Anne Cooke’s diary provide remarkable insights not only into an individual and her family, but into the communities of Southwell, Newark and their environs. A simple transcript of the diary is insufficient to explore their significance, therefore I broadened my original aim and have been researching Anne’s life and times and the social contexts and social circles she inhabited. With the assistance of a grant from the Bond Award, I have spent this year visiting archives and places outside Nottinghamshire to piece together a more detailed biography of Anne and her family. I had particularly productive visits to both Macclesfield and Market Drayton.

Anne was born in Macclesfield in 1777 and lived there until she was forty-eight. I was fortunate to make contact with local historian Dorothy Bendey Smith who generously took me around the town and pointed out surviving buildings of interest, including the house where Anne was born and spent her childhood. Dorothy was able to shed light on the probable religious affiliations of Anne’s family in the context of the two main churches in Macclesfield, a question that had puzzled me for some time. I also received a warm welcome from Sandra Hargreaves, a volunteer with the Roe-naissance Project who opened Christ Church for me, showed me around, and shared information from the Project’s archives (https://www.christchurchmacc.co.uk/our-story). Turning to Market Drayton, this was the birthplace of Anne’s mother, the daughter of a mercer, Thomas Swanwick. In 1825 Anne and her mother left Macclesfield and went to live in Market Drayton, where Anne’s mother died in the December. Anne remained in the town until 1829, when she came to live in Upton, Nottinghamshire. At this time Anne’s brother, Joseph Cooke, had taken up the position of headmaster of the Magnus Grammar School in Newark. Anne’s sister, Mary Cooke, had been living in Nottinghamshire since 1818, the wife of Samuel Hole of Caunton Manor. Anne’s diary covers the years 1835 to 1839. Anne remained in Nottinghamshire until 1840 when she left, accompanying her niece Mary Massey to Hatcliffe in Lincolnshire. By 1846 Anne had returned to Market Drayton where she remained until her death in 1860.

Market Drayton Civic Society and local historian Kathleen Irving were exceptionally helpful. With their assistance, I was able to find many places of significance mentioned in Anne’s diary, including the house where Anne died, remarkably still standing and in use as a private residence. The Swanwick family were quite prominent in Wem and Market Drayton in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but they have not really come to the attention of local historians. My visit to Wem and Market Drayton was of reciprocal interest as I was able to provide Market Drayton Civic Society with information on this family.

Kathleen Irving informed me about the Market Drayton Book Society, which was formed in 1814 and is still going strong. Kathleen is a member. I returned home with a copy of Peter Brown’s book on the Society’s history and found that their records have survived, and Anne Cooke was listed as a member in 1826. Kathleen did some further research for me and was able to send me photocopies of the books ordered during the period of Anne’s membership, 1826-1829, including those requested by Anne herself. Interestingly, Anne mentions a book society in her diary. There must have been a similar society operating in Nottingham or Southwell in the 1830s, although I have yet to discover any information about it. Anne’s sister, Elizabeth Cooke, married John Reynolds of Smethwick. Elizabeth was a talented amateur artist and two of her sketchbooks are held at the Sandwell Archive in Smethwick, where I was able to examine them. They contain a number of wonderful sketches of Nottinghamshire, including Upton, Caunton Manor, and Hawton. They provide a glimpse of a very rural Nottinghamshire, the landscape that Anne walked through every day.

The archivist at Sandwell alerted me to the existence of a commonplace book compiled by Elizabeth, held at the Special Collections, Manchester Metropolitan University. Although the library was temporarily closed to the public, Jeremy Parrett, their archivist, was able to send me copies of the album which had been fully scanned. This makes for an interesting comparison with the commonplace book of Samuel Reynolds Hole held at Nottinghamshire Archives (DD HC/85). It also contains a pencil sketch that I believe may be of Anne Cooke herself, so there is more research to be done and I will visit Manchester Metropolitan University next year. At the same time, I will need to visit John Rylands at the University of Manchester as they were also closed to the public this year. Whilst in Macclesfield I discovered that Anne’s father was the solicitor to Charles Roe’s Macclesfield Copper Company. John Rylands Library, Manchester holds the company’s minute book. The Wolfson Archive in Birmingham holds documents relating to the Swanwick family that were crucial in clarifying the ties between the Swanwick and Reynolds families and explaining how a number of people discussed in Anne’s diary are related to Anne. The Borthwick Institute in York and The National Archives hold documents that provided me with insights into Anne’s financial circumstances and an ongoing probate problem that dogged the family for decades, explaining a potential family rift hinted at in Anne’s diary.

Although there is still more research to be done, I have made great progress in piecing together a biography of Anne Cooke and in understanding her family network. The marriage of Anne’s sister Mary to Samuel Hole (then of Manchester but later of Caunton Manor) had a considerable impact on Southwell; creating as it did an influential social circle of the middle classes that was a counterpart to, and sometimes moved in opposition to, the clique led by the Becher family. A circle that enjoyed strong ties to centres of trade and industry like Manchester and Macclesfield; ties I will continue to explore.

Now the hard work begins. I have started to write up my research as a book on the life and times of Anne Cooke and her Southwell journal. This presents something of a challenge as I want to tell Anne’s story alongside the stories of the many fascinating local people she mixed with, and of Southwell itself. Fortunately, there is such a wealth of material that I can explore a number of aspects in separate articles and talks that will feed back into the book over time. I’m grateful to the Thoroton Society for their financial assistance with this project and I’m looking forward to writing The Life & Times of Anne Cooke.

Karen Winyard