Joseph Jesson (1736-1816) & Ann Farmer (1737-1815)
Joseph Jesson was born on 9 May 1736 at Oakwood, his family’s house in West Bromwich, the eldest son of Thomas Jesson (1696-1766) and Mary Chambers (1698-1764).
Joseph’s mother was the daughter of Timothy Chambers, gentleman, of Mosely in the parish of Kings Norton, Worcestershire. Her brother was Rev. Richard Chambers MA (Pembroke College), rector of Naunton Beauchamp (1730-1776) and canon of Hereford cathedral (1730).
Joseph’s father was from a yeoman family that had owned land in West Bromwich since the 16th Century, but which had become involved in iron production. [The Jesson family history is well documented, including A History of West Bromwich by F W Packwood 1895 and Burke’s Landed Gentry 1875].
Ann Farmer was baptised on 22 February 1737 at Stapenhill, Derbyshire, the daughter of John Farmer and Catherine Cox. Her parents had married on 24 January 1736 and held land at Cauldwell in Derbyshire and Ratcliffe Culey in Leicestershire.
The Farmer family had started accumulating land in Ratcliffe Culey in Leicestershire from the 1550s, becoming substantial landowners until they began to dispose of their property over the 18th century.
The will of John Farmer the younger of Ratcliffe Culey gave £500, held in trust by his brother Edward Farmer of Cauldwell, Derbyshire, to his sister Ann Jesson, wife of Joseph Jesson of West Bromwich “nailor ironmonger” for her sole and separate disposal. John Farmer junior, gentleman was buried on 8 November 1787 at Radcliffe Culey. Apart from some other bequests, he left his property to his father John whom he had pre-deceased.
Joseph Jesson of West Bromwich and Ann Farmer of Stapenhill were married by licence on 12 August 1762; the witnesses were John Farmer and John Farmer junior (Stapenhill St Peter parish records). Their 8 children were all baptised at West Bromwich – two sons dying in infancy, but their eldest son and five daughters surviving. Joseph was church warden of West Bromwich 1766-68 and 1788; he had his own pew following the rebuilding of the church in 1787, to which he contributed £30. He contributed £50 in 1798 for additional work to enlarge the church – collective donations from the Jesson family made them the largest donors after Lord Dartmouth who owned the living (as well as being the area’s principal landowner).
Joseph established an ironmasters partnership in December 1775 with his brother, Richard Jesson (1741-1810), and his brother-in-law, James Wright, who married their sister, Ann Jesson (1730-1767), in 1761. They developed one of the first commercially successful methods of producing wrought iron with coke, patented in 1773 by Richard Jesson and John Wright. In 1775 the partners leased several mills and iron works in Shropshire and were also working the Bromwich forge in West Bromwich; using coke for fuel, they were producing 3,000 cwt of wrought iron a year from pigiron made in their Shropshire works. This included Wrens Nest forges on the Linley Brook, close to the Severn, which they acquired in 1777 to produce iron using their potting and stamping method. By 1784 the firm’s patent process was being widely used in the Black Country.
The partners traded as Joseph Jesson & Co and were evidently for many years the only iron-making firm of any size in West Bromwich. In 1796 they took out a lease from the Forester Estate of land on the banks of the Severn at Barnetts Leasow, Broseley, and built a furnace which was in blast by April 1798. The furnace supplied pig iron to their forges at Wrens Nest and West Bromwich as well as for general sale. It was blown by an engine supplied by Boulton & Watt in 1797. (British History Online: Victoria County History – Staffordshire; Grace’s Guide).
By the 1800s, when Joseph began to withdraw from the partnership, the extended Jesson family were prosperous and significant people in West Bromwich – Richard Jesson (Joseph’s brother) was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1804.
In 1805 the leases for the furnaces and mines were advertised for sale, leading in 1809 to the “Dissolution of partnership between Joseph Jesson of West Bromwich, esq, Richard Jesson of Handsworth, esq, and Richard Wright of Handsworth, esq, trading as Joseph Jesson and Co., ironmasters, at Wren’s Nest Forges [and elsewhere]…Joseph Jesson gives up his share to the other two partners” (National Archives On Line). The business was carried on by the firm of Richard Jesson, Richard Wright, Thomas Jesson, and Samuel Dawes – Thomas being Richard’s son and Samuel his son-in-law (having married Richard’s daughter Elizabeth in 1786). Richard Wright was the son of the Jessons’ original partner, John Wright.
In 1796, Joseph and Ann’s eldest daughter Catherine married Thomas Molesworth, an upholsterer of Birmingham, and in 1804 their youngest daughters were married on the same day (18 September) – Rebecca to the Rev John Harding, rector of Hopesay in Shropshire, and Sarah to Charles Allcock, a farmer of Newton Regis in Warwickshire.
Their son, Thomas, married Sarah Baker Haslewood of Bridgnorth in 1796 and from then-abouts lived at Severn hall in the parish of Astley Abbots in Shropshire.
Ann died on 8 April 1815, aged 78, and was buried on 14 April at West Bromwich.
Joseph died on 17 November 1816, aged 80, and was buried on 22 November at West Bromwich.
In a vault to the north east of this church are deposited the remains of THOMAS JESSON of Oakwood in this parish son of John and Elizabeth Jesson of Graisley near Wolverhampton and formerly of West Bromwich Died August 31st 1766 aged 70 years. Also of MARY his wife, daughter of Timothy Chambers of Kings Norton in the County of Worcester, who died November 27th 1761 aged 66 years. Likewise of JOSEPH JESSON of Oakwood eldest son of the above who departed this life November 17th 1816 aged 80 years. Also of ANN his wife, Daughter of John Farmer of Caldwell near Burton on Trent and of Radcliffe Curis in the County of Leicester. She died April 8th 1815 aged 78 years.Likewise of EDWARD son of Thomas and Sarah Jesson of Severn Hall near Bridgnorth and grandson of the above Joseph Jesson who died January 21st 1818 aged 11 years
JESSON FAMILY VAULT
To the memory of …Jesson and Ann his wife She died April 8th 1815 aged 78. He died November 17th 1816 aged 80 With perfect confidence in the mercy of that God Who had been their…protector through life they willingly obeyed…summons to Eternity and they yielded up their breath without a murmur.
Over their mortal remains are laid those of their grandson Edward Jesson who died January 24th 1818
The executors of Joseph’s will were his three sons-in-law, Thomas Molesworth (upholsterer), Charles Allcock (gentleman) and the Rev. John Harding, who (or their heirs) were responsible for maintaining the money, properties and trusts left by Joseph, including rent-free houses for his unmarried daughters Mary Jesson and Ann Jesson, to whom he also left £500 each (£500 having been given to each of his other daughters at their marriage), and the remainder of the trust monies to be distributed equally between his five daughters.
In April 1834, “by direction of the surviving devisees in trust under the will of the late Joseph Jesson Esq”, an auction was held in West Bromwich for the sale of 39 plots of “most eligible freehold building land” fronting the turnpike road and new road in the centre of West Bromwich. Information could be had from “Mr Molesworth, Attorney, Ashted-row” (Aris Birmingham Gazette, 7 April 1834).
Although Joseph and Ann’s daughters spent their final years in Birmingham, where they were buried, their grandson Thomas, son of Thomas, returned to West Bromwich.
Although Joseph and Ann’s daughters spent their final years in Birmingham, where they were buried, their grandson Thomas, son of Thomas, returned to West Bromwich.
Thomas owned a 34-acre estate at West Bromwich in 1845, when the house was leased to the Bagnall family.
He died at Oakwood in 1873; the current lichgate at All Saints was built to his memory (“the late Mr Jesson of Oakwood”) by his family in 1874. After his death, Thomas’s son Rev. Thomas Jesson presented the house to the borough; the corporation demolished it in 1955(British History Online).