Firby

Geography

Firby is 685 acres (2.77 km²) and long governed as a Liberty of Richmondshire. Firby Beck and Firby Beck Fields are part of greater Bedale Beck, tributary of the River Swale in the north. Centred on Firby Road, its economy is or was primarily based on farming and cow-keeping (Swaledale (sheep), Shorthorn cattle, rapeseed and other root vegetables as seen on Flickr), butchers (Whitton and Peacock families), gardeners, agricultural stonemasons (Storey family) and most distinctively, its gentry have been sportsmen in fox hunting (as painted by Joseph Appleyard). Firby residents bring their produce and meats to the marketplace in Bedale, whilst those of Bedale go hunting at Firby Lodge and also visit nearby Thorp Perrow Arboretum. Firby House was the manor house, home to the Constable of Bedale Castle, whose liege lord was Bryan FitzAlan and his baronial descendants. With Anglo-Scottish border defense duties in their lords' retinues, the Firby family eventually set down a second residence at Firby Court, Firby Road on Gallowfields Trading Estate near Richmond Castle. A certain Hugh de Fritheby was once parson or rector of Richmond's parish church. Firby Croft has four houses and a common garden plot. Firby Hall is the site of a new manor house, built in the late 18th century by a veteran of the American War of Independence.

History

Firby is from the Old English name Fredebi (its Middle English spelling was normative Fritheby, and Frethby, since Normanised into Early Modern English as Firby, although numerous spellings (Furby, Furbee, Ferby, Furbay, and Freeby) have existed since Modern English, and especially through Americanisation.

Auduid the Swede

This manor is earliest known to be held by Auduid, the Old English spelling of Old Swedish Ødhvidh, who once held Hanging Grimston (a so-called "Grimston hybrid") near Kirby Underdale jointly with Godrida in the time of Edward the Confessor, but was passed to Osward and Rodmund by the time of the Domesday Book.

The only previous known Auduid is recorded in Gimo, Sweden (in Tiundaland, Uppland, Svealand) on a runestone likely carved at the behest of Anund Jacob or Emund the Old:

U 1132 - GIMO, SKÄFTHAMMARS SN, OLANDS HD, UPPLAND runesten av granitt med røde innslag, og er datert til vikingtid. Runeristeren er Ödmund. Riksantikvarieämbetets fornminnesregister nr.: 17. Innskriften lyder:

liutr * uk * þroti * uk * oþuiþr * uk * þaiR * litu * rita * i(f)itR × [faþur × sin : baorn * fasti]þi : moþur * sin : oþmontr * risti * r...naR *

Ljótr ok Þrótti ok Auðviðr ok þeir létu rétta eptir fôður sinn Bjôrn [ok] Fastheiði, móður sína. Auðmundr risti r[ú]nar.

English: "Ljótr and Þrótti and Auðviðr and they had (the stone) erected in memory of their father Bjôrn and Fastheiðr, their mother. Auðmundr carved the runes."

Litteratur: Upplands runinskrifter, granskade och tolkade av Wessén, E. och Jansson, S.B.F. 1940–58. Projektet Samnordisk runtextdatabas, 2004.

The Swedish sources make clear that the greatest concentration of England runestones are found in Uppland, and that these are most, if not all, from years relative to the disputed reign of Cnut the Great and often mention his levying of Danegeld, and whose coins were minted in Fornsigtuna after the Battle of the Helgeå in 1026. Anund's family was notorious in Sweden for having taken Anglo-Saxon missionaries contemporary to the reigns of Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut the Great in Denmark and Norway. Anund Jacob's father had previously applied for Sigfrid of Sweden at the disappointment of the German mission in Hamburg-Bremen (and the Heathen protests centered at Gamla Uppsala as well), just as Anund's successor Emund would opt for Osmundus.

Firby's original name of Fritheby (Frith-by) might have been chosen purely to denote the fact that this new plot of land was free of the disturbances which erupted in the Battle of Fulford and the Battle of Stamford Bridge, which was the climate within Auduid had lived before conveying Grimston to its Domesday holders and moving here in the relatively peaceful isolation of Swaledale.

Auduid's descendants are the Fritheby/Firby family, who were dispossessed by the Breton contingent of William the Conqueror, and nevertheless continued to live off of their own land as tenants. That is because Harold Godwinson's grants and titles to all of his subjects were considered null and void by his opponent William, who stressed the "good old days" of Edward the Confessor, in claiming to be Edward's rightful heir (and so replaced small land owners everywhere in England with Norman lordship magnates). Also, as late as the reign of Edward I of England, Ralph de Fritheby was involved with the Hanging Grimston area as godfather to Adam de Everingham, in which position he provided testimony about trespassing on the Everingham lands. Auduids are also named in mediaeval parish registers for Sjundeå and Tenala in Swedish Finland, subsequent to the Northern Crusades. (See also: Henry (Bishop of Finland) and papal legate Nicholas Breakspear)

Brittany, Stapleton, & Sigston

The worth of Firby at the time of Domesday Book's compilation was 13 shillings, compared to its earlier worth under Auduid as 10 shillings. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Count Alan, Magnate of East Anglia (from the forfeited estates of Ralph de Gael), took over Fritheby, part of Earl Edwin's Gillingshire, which was afterward devolved to his kinsman Ribald (Lord of Middleham), onto Scolland, and thenceforth inheritance of Bryan FitzAlan, Lord FitzAlan. Upon the descent of this family to two heiresses, the manor became bipartible, i.e. held jointly:

From them, the family of Miles Stapleton inherited it, inviting their Scargill relatives to live there. It is possible that through this heritage that the notable family of Royal Army veteran Thomas Coore came to reside there, who enriched the Hall at the expense of demolishing much of Firby's then-larger, medieval village. Harry Rouse, Esq. lived at Firby Hall, being Justice of the Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant for the North Riding of Yorkshire. Firby land owner Leonard Hammond, of the Anglican clerical family from Castle Bolton/Redmire, Galphay, Masham, Grewelthorpe and Marylebone in Westminster, also took up residence, and this family intermarried with the Beresford-Peirse baronets of Bedale, as well as the native Firby family, described below.

The other half of the manor passed to John Sigston of Allertonshire, granted free warren here, to the Pigot family and thenceforth to the Metcalfes. In 1422, John and Elizabeth (Aske) Pigot presented priest Sir John Fritheby to Bishop of Bath and Wells Nicholas Bubwith of Bubwith, for the purpose of becoming rector of Nunney, Somerset. A probable relative, a certain Alice de Fritheby of Dorset, married Henry de Threlkeld, High Sheriff of Westmorland. "Papist" (recusant) Mr. George Metcalfe, lived here and refused the quartering of Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven's Covenanters during the English Civil War, so the Puritans therefore sequestered the manor from him in 1645. Both moieties of Firby and of the larger Bedale lordship/barony inherited from the FitzAlans were dealt punitively by Parliamentarians before, during, and after the Great Rebellion, with some folks variously deemed "malignants", others "recusants", and this was part of an older tradition, for not only was Lord Lovell a Yorkist, but so also were the Metcalfe clan originating in Dentdale. Metcalfe Robinson is a relative of both the Metcalfes and the Firbys, who intermarried with the Robinsons of the West Riding. Anthony Metcalfe, son of George, subsequently sold the manor in 1657 to cousin Richard Trotter). Firby thenceforth came into the possession of the Milbank family of Thorp Perrow, before being held by William C. Gray, of the same manorial line, whose common ancestor with the Greys of Bedale was Anchetil de Greye.

Firby Grange

Upon the 1146 or 1158 gift of Scolland of St James's Church of Melsonby, land in Bedale, Firby, Killerby, Scorton, and Aiskew, and confirmed by his son Bryan, this Cluniac Grange was built by the Prior of Castle Acre, Castle Acre in Norfolk being the burial place of Scolland. It was in the Deanery of Catterick, Archdeaconry of Richmond, pre-Reformation Diocese of York and an un-Reformed establishment when the Diocese of Chester was formed. Was the sometime workplace for Brother Alan. There was also a medieval man named Hugh Firby who took up holy orders at the Church of St. Mary's in Richmond. This was a hotbed focus of Counter-Reformation in the Tudor period, such as the Pilgrimage of Grace and Rising of the North. During the time of Chester's erection into a diocese, and the surrender of this estate for the establishment of Christ's Hospital, the Grange was transformed into the Metcalfes' manor house with a priest hole.

Christ's Hospital

While it was hoped that the son and heir of Mary, Queen of Scots would be tolerant of Romanism, the Gunpowder Plot dashed these hopes and by that time, at least in the case of Firby and according to the census, surname-bearing inhabitants had already begun relocating to Catterick, Richmond, and the Bishopric, before any relief could be found. For a replacement to Firby Grange, it was only as late as the reign of King James I that a new (Protestant) chapel of ease and its six almshouses were founded. The new chapel was fully functioning by the reign of Charles I of England, when compulsory attendance at Christ's Hospital was enforced, despite continued Papal adherence by locals—this was to be broken entirely by Parliament's alliance with the Scottish Solemn League and Covenant that invaded the village.

In the parish of Bedale, in the deanery of Wensley, and under the Archdeacon of Richmond and Craven (part of the Diocese of Leeds, in the Province of York) Christ's Hospital was a Church of England school for boys ancillary to the Bedale Poor Law originally taught by six elderly men. It was founded in 1608 by John Clapham of London, a Chancery clerk for Queen Elizabeth's William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley - whose son and heir Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter held possession of neighbouring Snape, part of the larger Middleham estate which they inherited from Lord Latymer, before the Milbanks moved in from Halnaby. The first master was Richard Lambert [4]. It was financed by lands in Edmonton, Middlesex until the Barry Railway Co. took over and Mr. Marmaduke Braithwaite was also patron. Not only does it have the Jacobean royal arms, but pictures of St. Mark, of the Adoration of the Magi, of the founder and of his wife.

Richmond, Ripon, & Durham

Firby Court on Firby Road in Richmond was developed for the branch of family which moved there via Kirkby Fleetham and thence Catterick, all of which happened concurrent to the Bishops' Wars and English Civil War, with some outpouring in County Durham. From the same Firby family, there is a Firby Lane in Ripon.

Leonard Hammond, Esq. of Firby's relation Isabella Hammond of Marylebone, daughter of Grewelthorpe shoemaker Thomas Hammond of Galphay and wife Elizabeth Temple of Norfolk House, married in 1852 at Kirkby Malzeard (in Ripon District) George Firby b. 1819 Grewelthorpe, son of her relation Margaret "Peggy" Hammond and Robert Firby b. 1789 Catterick, himself son of George Firby b. 1753 Hudswell and Elizabeth. Robert and Margaret's second son (after Christopher, born at Castle Bolton where they married, and who went to live in Leeds as a clerk) Jonathan Wood Firby was born in Barnard Castle, County Durham [5]. The Wood family is known from Halifax, Barnsley, Middleham Castle, and Kirby Underdale. Jonathan worked at the Corn Exchange in Leeds, where had his son Edwin Foxton Firby, Esq. of Grewelthorpe, educated, and who became a published member of the Anthropological Society of London. Their third son George and Isabella (Hammond) Firby had a son, Christopher Wood Firby, of Holbeck in Leeds (where George died, while Isabella moved to Northowram, in Halifax with her second husband Albert Fountain), who emigrated with his family and the Bradford textile manufacturing company of Joseph Benn & Son, Ltd.'s Greystone Mill in North Providence, Rhode Island on the S.S. Ivernia in November 1909. It is part of the emigration written by Mary Blewett in her The Yankee Yorkshireman: Migration Lived and Imagined.

Today, Firby Lane is the location of Ripon and District Community Hospital.

In 1926, William C. Gray, Bt. of Firby built S.S. Firby in his West Hartlepool shipyard, after which it joined the Ropner Fleet, and indeed, in association with Ropner of Thorp Perrow. In 1939, Firby steamed under Captain Prince and Mr. James Woodruff from Tyneside en route to Churchill, Manitoba, but was sunk SW of the Faroe Islands by German submarine U-48 (1939) under commander Herbert Schultze. The crew survived, with four men injured by shells and they were treated courteously by the Germans, with bread and bandages as well as SOS on their behalf to Lord Churchill, before a British destroyer picked them up. Ropner of Thorpe Perrow, based at Stockton-on-Tees, had a Dorset freighter in 1947 purchased and renamed to Firby, but this second ship was scrapped in 1966 as obsolete. Residential connections prompted the naming of Firby Close in Hartlepool and Firby Close in Stockton-on-Tees. William Firby was an early 21st Century Labour Party (UK) Councillor for Deerness Valley in County Durham. There was a James Edmund Firby, solicitor, who ran for office in the South Ward of Hartlepool elections of 1924.

The presence of Firby toponymy paralleling the outline of all three wapentake groups, with Firby near Bedale in Hang, Firby Court near Richmond in Gilling, and Firby Lane in Ripon not very far from Hallikeld, would make for a roughly even distribution of the Firby place name throughout the five wapentakes of Richmondshire. Not only that, but the area of Grimston is adjacent to the Domesday estates of Count Alan (and Lord FitzAlan of Bedale's as well) near the City of York, so the history of the Firby family relatively coincides with that of the Honour of Richmond within Yorkshire. The additional locations named for Firby in Durham furthermore reflect the long connection forged by the Firby family with the Palatinate via Kirby Sigston in Allertonshire, which would make the River Tees something of a fulcrum for them to pivot upon, despite flourishing elsewhere.

America, Canada, & Australia

In about 1666-8, Benjamin and Elizabeth Firby's family left Yorkshire from Liverpool, and made landfall in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, originally living on Kent Island, but left on account of William Claiborne's Virginia claims, and chose to advance Lord Baltimore's claims in the Delaware Valley (see Mason-Dixon line). They married into the Dutch Lowber family and inherited "Furby's Lott" on the Double Run portion of their Southampton tract, south of Magnolia, Delaware within the South Murderkill Hundred, Durham County, Maryland, which became St. Jones County, New York/Kent County, Pennsylvania/Kent County, Delaware. After fighting in the American Revolutionary War, veteran Caleb Furby and his family moved west to the old District of West Augusta and the Ohio Country, where many place names attest to their presence, primarily along the course of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, National Road, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. A full map of the Furby migration and place name distribution can be seen here.

Bayham, Ontario has a Firby Cemetery allotted to the local Methodist congregation. The family, of Over Silton and Fawdington, bought clergy reserve land from the Canada Company, in about 1830-4. There is a Furby House Books in Port Hope, Ontario. Furby Street, with its Community Garden and Firby's Hill are in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Firby Court in Coquitlam, British Columbia is from that same westward movement.

There is a Firby Street in Cloverdale, Western Australia.