The Thorp Family
Recently the following graves stone were found in the Cemetery in the grounds of the Quaker Meeting House in Adel Leeds.

Alice Thorp died 16-7-1875 at 76 years of age

Annabella Thorp died 24-2-1902 at 72 years of age

J.Hall Thorp died 28-12-1904 at 81 years of age

Ann Rowntree died 24-12-1883 at 77 years of age

Charles E Brightwen died 20-2-1896 45 years

Lucy Brightwen died 13-1-1938  39 years

Information collected from the 1935 Bootham Register and Census Records.

Link to Thorp Family Tree

The records take us back to John Hall Thorp born in about 1823 in Leeds. He was builder and timber merchant and the census records show that he lived in the following abodes in the Headingley area of Leeds.

1851 at Wesleyan College Otley Road
1861 35 Otley Rd
1871 Wesleyan College Otley Road
1881 Chapel Lane

In 1849 he married Annabella Windsor in Ulverston in Cumbria. By 1851 they had settled in Leeds and over the next 18 years had a total of seven children, 3 boys and 4 girls.

 Descendants of
John Hall THORP 1823 – 1904 and Annabella WINDSOR 1825 -

2 Windsor THORP 1850 -  +   Frances Elizabeth OSBORN 1855 -
3 William Osborn THORP 1875 -
3 Ronald Charles Osborn THORP 1878 -
3 Evelyn Maud Windsor THORP 1879 -
2 William Henry THORP 1852 -+Catharine Sarah DYMOND 1856 -
3 Dorothea Grace THORP 1880 -
3 Alice Marguerite THORP 1882 -
3 Ursula Dymond THORP 1883 -
3 Ralph Windsor THORP 1884 -+Judith Mary ROWNTREE
4 Betsy THORP 1915 - John (Frederic Martin)
5 _ Knight
5 _ Knight
3 Barbara THORP 1885 -
3 Oliver THORP 1886
2 Emily THORP 1854 -
2 James Herbert THORP 1855 -+ Annie Sturge ELLIOT
3 Mary Eliott THORP
3 John Eliott THORP 1886 -  + Beatrice -
4 John Theodore THORP 1921 -
4 Eliott Richard THORP 1926 -
4 Derek Windsor THORP 1927 -
3 Annabel Windsor THORP 1889 -
3 Margaret Sturge THORP
3 Joseph Herbert THORP 1895 -+ Ada Esther CAVAYE
2 Mary Lucy THORP 1859 -
2 Ann Maria THORP 1862 -
2 Edith Eliza THORP 1865 -

Windsor Thorp seems to have settled in Leeds initially working for his father in the building trade and later as a Fire insurance valuer. In 1874 he married Frances Elizabeth Osborn and they had two boys and a girl, living for some of the time at Rosedene in Moortown. In 1891, the family were living at 85 Reginald Terrace, Potter Newton, Leeds.

James Herbert Thorp, born about 1855 married Annie Sturge Elliot and by 1901 had moved to Everton, near Liverpool and then at a later date emigrated with his family to Australia working as a doctor in Tasmania.

Both his sons went to Bootham and later it seems both emigrated to Australia

William Henry Thorp, born in 1852, married Catharine Sarah Dymond in 1879 and it is through one of his sons Ralph Windsor Thorp that we have the connection with the Rowntree Family. Having said that, it interesting that there were probably connections developing some time before, through Quakerism, Friends Schools and Architecture.

He, in fact was at Bootham, as so many of the Grays, Thorps, and Rowntrees were but a few years before Fred Rowntree. However his wife to be, Catharine Sarah Dymond, who came from Exeter in Devon, was recorded in the census of 1871 to be at Friends Ladies School, Driffield Terrace, in York at the same time as Edith Mary Gray, the sister of Mary Anna Gray, Frederick Rowntree's  wife to be. They were each 14 and 15 years old.
During 1891 through to 1901 William H Thorp, with his family, lived at
9 Burton Crescent, St Chads, Headingley, Leeds

Some time later he must have moved to Bristol, as in 1935, in the Bootham Register, he was recorded as living at 21 Terrace Gardens Clifton.

One of his sons, Ralph Windsor Thorp was educated at Bootham a few years before either Colin and Douglas and yet somehow, he ends up at 5 Hammersmith Terrace married to Fred Rowntree’s daughter, Judith Mary (Molly) in 1913. He entered the Friend’s Ambulance Unit of the Red Cross in the 1st World War and obtained a medal for his work as an orderly. Molly and Ralph had one daughter Betsy who unknown to anyone during most of her life worked at GCHQ Bletchley in the 2nd World War.

Ralph studied initially in Leeds and then qualified as an architect through King’s College, London. He seemed to have been working in Leeds until about the time of his marriage in 1913, so how he met his wife to be and developed the connection with Fred is still a mystery.

However by the time 1st World War, Ralph was at no.5 Hammersmith Terrace and married to Molly whose father was living at no.11 with her brothers, Douglas and Colin. Both of these got married at about that time. As mentioned before it seems likely Ralph's mother and Fred wife knew each other.

Note:

There is a connection which have not yet been explored with the Cruikshank Family, members of which also attended Bootham.