The Lupton family in Yorkshire achieved prominence in ecclesiastical and academic circles in England in the Tudor era through the fame of Roger Lupton, provost of Eton College and chaplain to Henry VII and Henry VIII. By the Georgian era, the family was established as merchants and ministers in Leeds. Described in the city's archives as "landed gentry, a political and business dynasty", they had become successful woollen cloth merchants and manufacturers who flourished during the Industrial Revolution and traded throughout northern Europe, the Americas and Australia.
Members of the family contributed to the political life of the UK and the civic life of Leeds well into the 20th century. Several members were well acquainted with the British royal family and were philanthropists. Some were Lord Mayors of Leeds and M.P.s and progressive in their views. They were associated with the Church of England and the Unitarian church. The Lupton Residences of the University of Leeds are named after members of the family.
Catherine, Princess of Wales is a great-granddaughter of Olive Lupton who married Richard Noel Middleton in 1914.
Luptons in Yorkshire Lupton is a placename surname connected with Lupton in Cumbria (formerly Westmoreland). The surname in Yorkshire is recorded in 1297 in Subsidy Rolls (Robert Lupton), in the 1379 poll tax in Thornton in Lonsdale (Thomas de Lupton), in Pateley Bridge (Leonard Luptonn) in 1551 and (George Lupton) in 1553 and in 1599 in Keighley (Judithe Luptonne). Father Robert Lupton was the Vicar of Skipton in 1430.
Roger Lupton For main article see Roger Lupton.
Roger Lupton, Provost and benefactor of Eton College, was born in Sedbergh, Yorkshire in 1456 and graduated from King's College, Cambridge in 1483. Although he does not appear to have been educated at Eton, a number of his Yorkshire relatives were Etonians, including Ralph Lupton, with whom he had much in common; both were natives of Sedbergh and studied at King's (Ralph was admitted to King's in 1506), and were later benefactors to the college. Another Yorkshire relative was Thomas Lupton of Nun Monkton, an Etonian, who was admitted to King's in 1517. Roger Lupton was a Doctor of canon law and a Canon of Windsor. He was chaplain to Henry VIII at the time of his coronation in April 1509. Lupton founded Sedbergh School as a chantry school while he was Provost of Eton. By 1528, land had been bought and the school built, probably on the site of the current Sedbergh School library, and the foundation deed was signed, binding Sedbergh to St John's College, Cambridge, at which Lupton had established a number of fellowships and scholarships. He was Provost of Eton College for 30 years, and the prominent tower in the school yard is named after him. He died in 1540 and was buried in Lupton's Chapel his chantry at Eton.
Luptons of Leeds
Sixteenth century The earliest recorded member of the Leeds branch of the family is Thomas Lupton of Holbeck whose children included a daughter, Margaret (born 1599) and a son, Thomas (born 1628) who was a scholar at Leeds Grammar School and admitted as a sizar to St John's College, Cambridge in 1648. He became a minister.
Clergy, farmers, clothiers and merchants
Francis Lupton (1658–1717) married Esther Midgeley of Breary, daughter of Ralph, a yeoman farmer. They married at Adel Church, near Leeds in 1688. Francis Lupton was appointed clerk at Leeds Parish Church on 31 August 1694. They had nine children. Their son William I (1700–1771), a yeoman farmer and clothier with business connections in the Netherlands and Germany, lived in Whitkirk, Leeds. He was Sir Henry Ibbetson's chief cloth-dresser. Master dressers were skilled artisans who finished the cloth and were the highest paid in the cloth industry. Appointed the sole executor of Ibbetson's partner John Koster, Lupton managed the company for Ibbetson during his last illness. His three sons attended Leeds Grammar School. The eldest, Francis II (1731–1770), was sent to Lisbon to trade in English cloth and was caught up in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He was described as "an eminent merchant at that place". Charterhouse School registers record the marriage of Sarah, the only daughter of Francis Lupton of Lisbon in 1788.
William's second son, William II (1732–1782) boarded at Sedbergh School and attended St John's College, Cambridge. He became an assistant master at Leeds Grammar School and was ordained to pursue a ministry in the church at Headingley, near Leeds. His son, the Rev John Lupton (died 1844), held an M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge. Arthur I (1748–1807), William's third son, was sent to Leopold Pfeil's school in Frankfurt when he was 15, to study High Dutch and French. In 1764, Wolfgang von Goethe, his contemporary at the school, wrote about his schoolmate.
Arthur Lupton returned to England in 1766 before leaving for Lisbon. In 1768, he took on two partners and was joined by John Luccock, with whom he set up a subsidiary company, Lupton & Luccock, in Rio de Janeiro. William Lupton and Company was established in 1773, but traded in cloth before this date. Lupton sat on the committee for the Leeds cloth halls, regulating their activities. In 1774 the leading merchants organised the construction of the 3rd White Cloth Hall. A trade directory of 1790 lists Lupton & Company as Merchants in the Leylands.
Arthur Lupton married Olive Rider, the only daughter of David Rider in 1773. She brought a £5,000 dowry to the marriage. Her father had substantial land holdings in Mabgate and the Leylands between North Street and Wade Lane. Lupton and his wife inherited a life interest in the land after Rider's death, after which the land passed to their sons, William and Arthur.
Next generation Rider's grandson William Lupton (1777–1828) inherited 5/8ths of the estate, and his brother Arthur, 3/8ths. They held the estate as tenants in common, but in 1811 divided the property. William took "Town End" which included his father's dressing mill built in 1788, warehouses, the tenter garth stretching to Wade Lane and a substantial house. Its insured assets included a warehouse, counting house, packing shop, machinery and tools for dressing cloth, a hot pressing shop and a steam engine. The property consisted of a woollen mill and reservoir, a substantial house and outbuildings. William, who married Ann, the daughter of tobacconist John Darnton, shared responsibility for the business with his brother, Arthur II (1782–1824).
Trade was unpredictable; losses were made in 1806 but 1809 showed a recovery. In 1819, William formed a partnership with his nephew David Rider; but Rider's share of £1,000 made him very much the junior as Lupton's share was in excess of £38,000. William Lupton became entangled with the estate of his wife's grandfather, Nathan Rider. Winding up Rider's assets while providing an income for his widow and children ultimately took 15 years. John Luccock, their cousin, sought to expand the business in New Orleans in 1822, but was forced to give up a year later. The company's South American trade opened up again, albeit with difficulties in Peru. During the 1820s the business made little profit and Arthur Lupton, the "travelling" partner, reportedly shot himself while suffering from a fever in Paris in 1824. He left a wife, also named Ann, to bring up four children alone. William Lupton died in 1828 leaving a wife, ten children and extensive debts. He owed Becketts Bank more than £13,000 and more than £15,000 to his father-in-law. The Lupton widows maintained their social status and living standards with their own personal estates and by developing their inherited urban landholdings.
William's widow Ann, a woman of "considerable initiative and skill", maintained the family business with her sons Darnton, Francis and Arthur. The sole executrix of her husband's will, she set about developing the land. She laid out Merrion Street in Leeds with plots for terraced houses and Belgrave Street with larger plots and a garden square. She retired to Gledhow Mount in the proto suburb of Potternewton in 1858 where she died aged 81 in 1865. In 1897, Merrion Street Mill was replaced by the Grand Arcade, developed by the Lupton family under the auspices of the New Briggate Arcade Co Ltd. In 1901, another shopping parade called "Roswells" was built on North Street (demolished for construction of inner ring road in 1967).
Religion, politics and philanthropy Originally Anglicans, by the early 19th century the Luptons were Dissenters, part of a close group of established merchant families who belonged to the Unitarian congregation of Mill Hill Chapel which included the Luptons, Oates, Bischoff and Stansfield families who were subsequently joined by new money, the Marshalls, the Kitsons and radicals such as Samuel Smiles. Their denominational loyalty was mirrored by their political leanings; mostly, they were Whigs and later Liberals. They supported the New Subscription Library, set up in the early 19th century, with a "mildly whiggish character" as a counter to the Anglican, Tory tone of the Leeds Library. and members of the family subscribed to the building fund of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, a learned society founded in 1819, which established Leeds City Museum.Report of the Council of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. 1859–1860.
Arthur Lupton II (1782–1824) was the father of Unitarian minister Arthur Lupton (1819–1867) whose son, Arnold Lupton, was Liberal MP for Sleaford from 1906 to 1910. Arnold Lupton's wife, Jessie (1859–1938) was involved in political life and active in the Leeds branch of the National Anti-Vivisection Society. She was presented at Court in 1906.
Joseph Lupton was President of Manchester New College, London (now Harris Manchester College, Oxford) from 1881 to 1886.
William's descendants
Arthur Lupton William III's children included Arthur (1809–1889) who moved to Newton Hall in Potternewton which he owned from the early 1840s. He subdivided some of the estate and Newton Grove was built in the 1850s. He married Jane Crawford on 25 April 1866 and moved to The Elms, which was given its original name, Headingley Castle.
Darnton Lupton
Darnton Lupton (1806–1873) lived at Potternewton Hall from the 1830s. He was the Mayor of Leeds in 1844 and a magistrate. He was a director of the Bank of Leeds. Darnton Lupton supported building Leeds Town Hall and as vice president of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, presided over the Exhibition of Local Industry arranged in conjunction with its opening. He was a member of the welcoming party that greeted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who opened the town hall on 7 September 1858. He was created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III for the Exhibit of Cloths in the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Darnton and Francis Lupton became co-owners of the Newton Hall estate when their brother sold it in 1870.
He married his first cousin, Sarah Darnton Luccock (1806–1834), daughter of John Luccock, who died shortly after the birth in 1833 of Kate, their only child. He then married Anna Jane Busk (1813–1888), granddaughter of Sir Wadsworth Busk at St Peter's Church, Bradford in 1838. Anna Lupton joined her cousin Lord Houghton and sister-in-law Frances Lupton in support of the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women.
Francis Lupton III Francis III (1813–1884) was educated at Leeds Grammar School. He was 15 when his father died, but had already acquired an extensive knowledge of the cloth trade. He joined the board of the Bank of Leeds, became a magistrate of the West Riding of Yorkshire and overseer of the poor in the parish of Roundhay. He was chairman of the finance committee of the Yorkshire College of Science, created in 1874.