Catalogue description Cecil Records

Records of the Cecil Family of Dronfield, Derbyshire

Part 1 Dronfield Maps and Manor

Part 2 Dronfield Deeds

Part 3 Sheffield Deeds, etc

Part 4 19th century Colliery and other Dronfield Leases

Part 5 Wills, Settlements and Mortgages of the Fenton, Rotheram and Cecil families

Part 6 Miscellaneous items

Apart from deeds to some Sheffield property in the Little Sheffield or Sharrow district, most of the records relate to Dronfield manor and connected properties (including Dronfield market charter 1662) and some outlying farms.

Cecil family of Dronfield, Derbyshire

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The documents were deposited at two separate times: the first, a small number of items including the plans, in 1966, and the remaining documents early in 1974, by the owner, Mr. P.G. Cecil whose family has owned the manor of Dronfield and property in Sheffield for several generations.

1966 deposit - Accession nos. 65599-65602 (part) (Ce R/1-4) 1973-74 deposit - Accession nos 65602 (part) - 65615 (Ce R/5-351)

• Fenton family of Dronfield, Derbyshire
• Rotheram family of Dronfield, Derbyshire
• Dronfield, Derbyshire

The manor court books begin in 1647 but the deeds take the history of the manor back to 1567 and the descent can be traced through the families of Barley, Seliock, Blyth, Burton, Rossington, Rotheram and Cecil. It is with the title of the Rotheram and Cecil families that the collection is chiefly concerned. John Rotheram purchased the manor in 1755. There are few deeds relating to his family in the collection before this date, though numbers 180 and 181 concern John Rotheram the younger of Dronfield, lead merchant, in 1693. The Rotherams had been in the district for generations. John Rotheram the younger, mentioned above, besides being a lead merchant, improved this estate by getting millstones, a business carried on by his son Samuel, who was the father of John Rotheram the purchaser of the manor. The latter was Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1750 and in 1749 had married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Fenton of Little Sheffield, by which marriage he acquired the Fenton property in Little Sheffield and Gleadless. Both John Rotheram, esquire's, sons died without issue and the estate came to their unmarried sister Elizabeth in May 1795. Before her death in April 1797 she had conveyed the Little Sheffield estates to one Joseph Cecil, whose connection with her or her family has not been established, and made a will in his favour, by which he inherited Dronfield manor and estates and was named her sole executor.

Cecil had several children by his first wife Elizabeth Heald of Sheffield, who died in 1796 aged 45 years (buried in St. Paul's churchyard, Sheffield). In 1809 he married secondly Jane Catherine Hollings by whom he had a son Samuel Hollings Cecil, to whom he left the property inherited from Miss Rotheram. The estates were heavily mortgaged and most of the later deeds are concerned with the details of the mortgage transactions.