The GEE’s of Hull and Bishop Burton

The Move to Hull

York and nearby Beverley and Scarborough were centers of weaving from shortly after the Normans arrived. However the real ramp-up for woolen cloth export was 1350 to 1500.

Hull was the port where Leicester wool was unloaded from the small craft that could navigate the small rivers Trent and Soar and reloaded onto ocean-going ships that could cross the English Channel to Flanders and other destinations on the Continent.

And Hull was mandated as the port through which all York wool must ship. This was to insure collection of the tax on wool.

The fifteenth century had marked the birth of a manufacturing class in England. For the first time, industry was proving more attractive than husbandry.

HenryL5

We don’t know who was the first Rothley Gee to move to Hull. Robertus Gee, de Southwald, merchant” was granted ‘freedom’ of York in 1497. This allowed him to trade in York, quite possibly wool.

It may have been HenryL5’s son WilliamL6. Or perhaps HenryL5 moved to Hull and WmL6 was born there.

And what was their connection with Henry Gee d. 1545, twice mayor of Chester? We know HenryL5 married the daughter of Cornelius Gee (a cousin?) and that Cornelius’ house in Rothley was named “Chester House”.

WilliamL6

WilliamL6 emerges as one of the more interesting figures in the Gee story. He was likely born around 1520. He became a master mariner and moved from Rothley to Hull. There he married Elizabethe, daughter of Walter Jobson of Hull, so if his father did not move to Hull, then William must have moved there fairly young.

Do we know who Walter Jobson was? His second marriage—mention the first, her father, what happened.]

Staplers bought and sold raw wool. Clothiers or drapers manufactured woolen cloth and sold it to tailors.

William became a very successful wool merchant. One source has him a Merchant of the Staple. There were only a few dozen in all of England so this would have been a significant position. To simplify taxation, wool at that time could only be exported by a Merchant of the Staple. (The “staple” was wool.)

Leicester was not a staple town until the late sixteenth century but York had been from 1298. And all York wool was required to pass through Hull.

A career in export must have been challenging. We don’t know where he traded but Flanders was the great seat of weaving in Europe. There are de Gee’s today in the Netherlands.

William’s trading began under Henry VIII. Henry had been excommunicated. Charles V held the Low Countries. Ireland took the opportunity to rebell. England itself threatened insurrection, with monks spreading the fire of what became the Pilgrimage of Grace. Henry confiscated the abbeys, sold their lands and with the proceeds built fortresses along the coast.

England had no navy. Invasion seemed imminent. English traders were plundered and their vessels taken or sunk. They survived by speed and wit. They needed to be armed. Then France and Spain made peace. One or the other was to execute the Pope’s sentence on Henry. An invasion fleet was collected. Scotland joined.

These conditions became the initial impetus that led England to develop its sea power and ultimately for a considerable period its world dominance. Merchants armed their brigantines and sloops. Henry took Edinburg and Charles made alliances, but in 1544 the French gathered 300 ships at Havre.

The battle that followed was indecisive except that the Mary Rose, Henry’s flagship, sunk. Hot weather putrefied the food and water of the French and they simply withdrew. By the end of Henry’s reign, merchants were opening trade as far as Russia. The Spanish extended the Inquisition to their port cities, arresting Englishmen as heretics. Protestants took revenge through privateering, which came to be the occupation of honorable gentlemen.

Under Mary, Calais was lost (1588). By the time of Elizabeth, the Reformation had destroyed the fishing trade. Chester had fished the Irish seas but left them to the Scots. Hull had fished Iceland but left it to the French. Eating beef or mutton on fish days became a test of faith. The fisherman had become privateers if not outright pirates.

Under Elizabeth trading with the Low Countries was perilous. The Duke of Alva was arresting every Englishman he could catch.

Success

William Gee was heavily involved in public affairs and civic responsibility. He became sheriff of Hull in 1560 and mayor three times (1562, 1573 and 1582).

As he became successful he began to acquire property. Likely he became interested in Beverley through its wool market. Beverley is a small town to the northwest of Hull that was long a center of weaving. We know from his will that he owned land in Beverley as well as in Hull.

He married twice, the second time to Elizabeth Jobson, by whom he had five children.

And as he became wealthy he grew benevolent. He endowed the rebuilding of Hull Grammar School, donating 20,000 bricks and £(80?), as well as founding a hospital for ten poor women. In his will he gives money to the poor in several cities, money for highway construction in several cities, for several churches, hospitals, even money for a party for his neighbors. Until quite recently there was still a William Gee School in Hull.

In his will, dated 1603, he left £2,000 to his son William, £100 to his other children and £50 to his grandchildren, which with his land and property as well represented quite a considerable fortune at that time.

Sir William

Of all the Gee’s in all the families, there is perhaps none more interesting than HenryL6’s eldest son and heir, Sir WilliamL7 (b. ca. 1562). HenryL6 died in the final year of Elizabeth I’s reign. Her successor, James I, was Scottish. (The United Kingdom dates from that year, 1603, when the kingdoms of Scotland and England were thus united.)

Service of the King

Suddently Yorkshire, England’s largest county, became much more important. They were near the Scottish border. They understood the Scots.

Due to the remoteness from London and the length of time communications took, there was a need for a dependable man from Yorkshire. William’s son became that man.

He became secretary of the Council of the North and Keeper of the Signet in 1604. He was a member of the Privy Council.

The power that came with this position brought wealth. He purchased an estate in Bishop Beverley, possibly near the land his father had purchased.

He was knighted in (year). His is the coat of arms one usually sees when a Gee coat of arms appears, a (… sword on … shield, ref).

He married twice. By his first wife Thomasine, daughter of Mathew Hutton, they had one son and two daughters.

Thomasine died in 1599 at age 29. On the family monument in York Minster none of those children were pictured, suggesting they all died young. His second wife was Hon. Mary Crompton, daughter of one of the queen’s auditors. There were six children by that marriage, the eldest JohnL8 Gee (b. 1603).

Bishop Burton

WilliamL7 purchased the estate of Bishop Burton in the year of his father’s death, possibly using his inheritance. Bishop Burton had belonged to the Bishop of York until it reverted to the Crown in 1542. It went through several owners before William purchased it in 1603. He built a hall, later known as the Low Hall.

William died in 1612 at only age 50. His descendents married well. John married Francis, daughter of Sir John Hotham. They had only one child, WilliamL8 (b. 1625) before John died prematurely in 1627.

WilliamL8 married first Rachel Parker, and by her had one son, WilliamL9 (b. 1648), before she died in early 1650 at only 18. He then married Mary Spencer, daughter of Sir Richard Spencer, and had two sons and a daughter by her.

Orpington

William’s son by Mary Spencer, RichardL10 (b. ca. 1657) inherited lands in Orpington, Kent through his mother.

Gee’s of Orpington

Bishop Burton (con’t)

William’s elder son by Rachel Parker, also named WilliamL10, was MP for Hull and Beverley and a supporter of William of Orange. He also married twice, first to Elizabeth Hotham by whom he had 11 children and second to Elizabeth Cracrosft, by whom he had three more.

At his death in 1718, the Bishop Burton estate passed to his eldest son, ThomasL11 Gee (b. 1673). When he died in 1750 he was succeeded by his grandson RogerL12 (b. ca. 1737), son of his youngest child William Gee (d. 1745). The family had gradually accumulated debts and Roger was the last member of the family to own the estate.

Altogether it stayed in the Gee family for eight generations.

Others

At least two lines of living Gee’s can trace their ancestry back through the Bishop Burton Gee’s through the Leicestershire Gee’s back to AlexanderL1.