Charles F Foster - Capital & Innovation

William Gandy page 239.

William Gandy of Frandley in Sevenoaks, Over Whitley, was a similar figure to William Barnes of Great Sankey; Quaker meetings were also held in his house. His family had had freehold property since 1612 when they had bought the crown rights in their 23 acre farm. The William Gandy who died in 1624 had been quite a rich man. he had ready money of £107 as well as over £300 owing to him and another £200 in chattels. He divided the property up among his large family. His grandson also William Gandy, no doubt inherited some property as well as the enlarged ancestral farm in Frandley. He is likely to have been the William Gandy who shipped a cargo of 30 tons of cheese to London in the Ann of Brighton on the 10th October 1670. This was the first year that cheese ships departed from the new warehouse in Sutton Weaver beside Frodsham. Gandy does not seem to have sent another cargo in his own name, but he may have been one of the partners in Thomas Hall & Partners who shipped cheese to London from Sutton throughout the 1670s. Thomas Hall of Brownslane farm in Great Budworth was a relation as well as a neighbour. Gandy's mother, Mary was a daughter of a Thomas Hall of Brownslane. In Gandy's will of 1684, Thomas Hall was described as his friend and was appointed an executor and one of the trustees for Gandy's grandchildren.
Thomas Hall did not die until early 1689. His inventory showed that he was a substantial dairy farmer with 22 cows, together valued at £59, and 1.85 tons of cheese worth £37. his whole inventory totalled £493. Unusually, included in it was his one sixth part of a vessel 'Elizabeth & Judith' with one sixth part in the stock in her. This evidence supports the view that the shipper of cheese in 1670 was indeed Thomas Hall of Brownslane and that he maintained his interest in the trade until he died. It all shows that substantial freeholders, living up to 10 miles from the Mersey estuary, were among those engaged in the cheese trade to London in the 17670s and 1680s.

 

 

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