The Bellyse Family

(“bell – iss”) 

The Bellyse Family Coat of Arms

BEL00001

The Bakers Home Page Return to the Home Page of the Bakers Family part of the website

The Bakers of Highfields Story The Story of the Dods and Bakers and of Highfields, Fenton House and Hasfield Court. A journey through the history of Cheshire and Staffordshire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who retained his lands after the Conquest, pottery at Stoke on Trent, an encounter with Elgar, and the history of an Elizabethan manor house at Audlem

The Bakers of Highfields The family tree of the Bakers of Highfields

The Dod Family The Family Tree of the Dods, predecessors to the Bakers of Highfields

The Bakers of Fenton House and Hasfield Court The Family Tree of the pottery Bakers of Stoke on Trent

The Bellyse Family The Family Tree of the Bellyse Family

The Farndale Story The main part of this website tells the story of the Farndale family from Yorkshire Descendants of Arthur Baker, the story of the Farndale ancestry is told through the main part of this website You can also return to the Farndale website home page

The Hall Family The genealogy of the family of James Hall, linked to the Baker family through marriage to Arthur Baker

This family, the only one to spell its name, pronounced Bell’is, in this manner, is now extinct in the male line, and claimed descent from the Bellasis or Belasyse family. Dr John Cockfighting Bellyse was a native of Frodsham, Cheshire, where several names Bellas, Bellis and Bellies lived during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; these names are indigenous to North Wales and Cheshire, and may have given rise to the present family. Several members of the Belasyse family, some of whom spelled their name Bellas, are known to have migrated to Cheshire. Of these were Joseph Bellas, of Long Marton, Westmorland (see Burke’s Extinct and Dormant Peerages, Farconberg, E), father of Rev George Bellas DD (whose son General Joseph Bellas lived in Helsbey, Cheshire), and of Major General John Bellas, who obtained a grant of arms and a warrant for his family to resume the former spelling of their name (Bellasis) in 1792. Another connection may exist through Sir Rowland Belayse KB (died 1699, third cousin of Joseph Bellas above), who settled in Sutton, Cheshire, on his marriage to Anne, eldest daughter and heiress of James Humphrey Davenport, of Sutton. A portrait of Mary, wife of Sir Rowland’s eldest brother, 1^st Earl Fauconberg, is in the possession of the present Mr J Bellyse Baker. (Burke, John and Burke, Sir Bernard (1836)(Eighteenth Edition, 1972), Bellyse Baker of Highfields in Burke’s Landed Gentry, Volume 3, pages 35 to 38).

The family is closely associated by marriage with the Bakers of Highfields. In particular John Bellyse the Younger (BEL00003) eloped to marry Hannah Baker (BAK00101). His son (Joseph) Hayward Bellyse (BEL00013) married his cousin, Jane Baker (BAK00126) and his daughter Henrietta Louisa Bellyse (BEL00006) married her cousin, William Baker the Younger (BAK00121). Henrietta and William are direct ancestors of the main line of the Bakers of Highfields.

Although there are no Bellyse descendants of this line, there are descendants in various families including the Bakers of Highfields and their descendants, and a number of families in New South Wales, Australia.

			Dr John Cockfighting Bellyse 1738 to 19 July 1828 Married Mary Bayley (1747 to 1784) on 24 May 1778 Married Sarah Hayward (1767 to 1803) on 20 July 1784 Married Margaret Tremlow (d 1810) on 3 May 1804 Married Ann Brown (d 1847) after 1810 Surgeon Known as Cock-fighting Bellyse Founder of the Waterloo Cup for coursing The Lymes, Woore Road and Woodhouse, Audlem BEL00002
		With Mary Bayley		With Sarah Hayward
		Edward Bellyse of Nantwich 26 January 1780 to 22 November 1827 Trustee of Nantwich Common in 1802 Cornet, Prince Regent’s Own 2nd Cheshire Yeoman Cavalry in 1820 Married Elizabeth Mulliner on 6 January 1824 BEL00007		Dr John Bellyse the Younger MD 1786 to 20 December 1860 Married Hannah Baker (BAK00101) on 27 September 1808 at Mucklestone, Staffordshire after eloping A surgeon Dorfold Cottage, Nantwich, Cheshire Sandy Lane, Audlem BEL00003	Sarah Bellyse c 1788 to 23 March 1800 Died young BEL00007A
Richard Baker Bellyse 17 May 1809 to 11 January 1877 Surgeon Married June Remembered in a memorial in the centre of Audlem BEL00004	Hannah Bellyse 6 June 1810 to 16 October 1883 Married Henry Craven Baildon at Audlem on 7 April 1840 Audlem, Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh BEL00008	William Bellyse 20 April 1812 to 26 March 1813 Died aged 1 BEL00009		(Joseph) Hayward Bellyse 1817 to 23 September 1911 Married his cousin, Jane Baker (BAK00126) Solicitor BEL00013	Jane Bellyse 15 February 1820 to 13 June 1834 Died at the age of 15 BEL000011	Edwin Swinfen Bellyse MD FRCS LSA 3 October 1820 to 21 July 1877 Married Sarah Ann Betterley (1824 to 1897) on 30 September 1852 General Practioner, Medicine BEL000012	Frederick Chetwode Hoskins Bellyse 29 March 1822 to 17 August 1887 Married Anne Kent on 16 April 1843 Married Marianna Burgess on 3 September 1868 Solicitor BEL00005	Henrietta Louisa Bellyse 1 November 1824 to 4 May 1880 Married her cousin, William Baker the Younger (BAK00121) in 1849 BEL00006
								The Baker Family
Eliza or Lizzie Bellyse 24 April 1831 to 2 July 1916 Married Morris Benjamin Blankley, a woollen draper Audlem, Wandsworth, Clapham BEL00010	Clara Louisa Baildon (12 November 1846 to 16 August 1873 (drowned in Windermere); Henry Bellyse Baildon (8 August 1849); Hannah Baildon (17 to 27 May 1851); Frances Baildon (11 June 1853 to 12 February 1916)			Edith Ann Bellyse 27 August 1853 to 12 July 1934 Nantwich’s first woman magistrate A friend of Baroness von Schröder of Worleston Estate, of the prominent banking dynasty in Cheshire Unmarried BEL00015	(Edwin) Reginald Bellyse 27 May 1856 to 7 April 1924 Educated at Harrow and Oxford Unsuccessful claimant to the Earldom of Fauconberg Married Euphemia Helen Mackenzie in 1889 Vice Chairman of the Nantwich Bench of Magistrates, Chairman of the Nantwich Board of Guardians, Chairman of the Nantwich Conservative Association BEL00016	Louisa Bellyse 1846 to 16 August 1873 Married Thomas Cooper of Hankelow Hall Drowned with her husband in Lake Windermere BEL00019	Frederick Bellyse 1847 to 25 October 1901 Married Elizabeth Anne Elliot on 6 August 1867 Married Lucy Ada Spilsbury on 19 April 1884 Solicitor BEL00014	John Burgess Bellyse 1856 to 25 June 1942 Enlisted into the Merchant Navy in Glasgow Married Mary Brunton in Sydney in 1895 Syndey, Australia BEL00020
Florence Blankley (1863), Ada Blankley (1864), Marion Blankley (1866)						Thomas George Bellyse Cooper (1872 to 1893)		Marianne Edith Bellyse (1896 to 19 February 1973, married Basil Brooke Childe Hughes in New South Wales in 1921), Lilian M Bellyse (3 August 1898 to 8 September 1975, married William Edward Murray Blamey in New South Wales in 1928), Frederick Bellyse (1901 to 23 December 1903), Eileen Mary Bellyse (1906 to 2 August 1989, married Francis J Keane in New South Wales in 1932), Marjorie Lila Bellyse (1908 to 4 December 1974, married Bertie Leslie Aldridge in 1946)
				Effie Ruth Christine Bellyse 12 November 1890 to 18 July 1892 Died aged only 1 BEL00021	Rev Canon John Reginald Bellyse 24 April 1892 to 1969 Rev Canon, Vicar of St Matthew’s, Stockport 1929 to 1945 Vicar of Audlem 1954 to 1967 Married (Edith) Winifred Williams on 30 October 1923 BEL00017		Edith May Bellyse 1 April 1870 to 1948 Married Thomas Gourlay in 1899 BEL00018
							Evelyn E Gourlay (1900), Arthur Bellyse Gourlay (1907)

The Bellyses of Audlem.

Mr Joseph Hayward Bellyse was a great grandson of the Dr Bellyse Mentioned by the druid in his book silken scarlet. There have been balances out of audlam for nearly 200 years and the late JH bellis was the last of that name in the male line in Audlem. Born 74 years ago, he had spent a great deal of his life there. He was the son of Mr of doctor Richard Baker bellis, who was a son of doctor John bellis. They formerly lived at the house where doctor Shaw now lives.

Many people think wrongly that they came from Wales, but this is not so, as they were descendants of the family of Belasyse or Bellasis, sometimes spelt Bellassis, from Durham and Yorkshire, of which family Lord Fauconberg was the head. Before coming to Audlem the old doctor lived at Stretton, near Malpas, and in earlier times the family came from near Frodsham. There are several relics of Dr Bellyse still in the possession of his family, including an oak box containing instruments used in cockfighting, weights and scales for weighing the birds, boxing gloves to fit on their spur to teach the birds to fight, and many other accessories. There are also two boxes of silver spurs. There is a very good anecdote of this doctor. He once had one of his gamecocks stolen, and the case was sent for trial. The bird was produced in court, and he was asked how he could identify it. He asked to have the bird handed to him. Directly the bird saw him and he had stroked it it became perfectly quiet and stood beside him as he gave his evidence. It had previously struggled violently in the hands of the man who had stolen it, and who said it was his. The judge remarked that the bird itself was evidence sufficient for anything. The man was convicted and the doctor returned to Audlem with his bird in triumph, and, being the good old days, the bells of Audlem church were rung in honour of the event. Besides gamecocks, he was a great lover of the leash. In the well known picture of the Waterloo Coursing Meeting he is to be seen on the extreme right as you look at the picture on horseback; it was in those days considered a special favour to be allowed to ride at the meeting. His scarf pin was a gold greyhound running. This is still preserved in the family. The old man's love of coursing was inherited by his son, who, until he retired to Dorfield cottage, still kept some of his favourite greyhounds as a souvenir of the past. He once sold two greyhounds to go into Wiltshire, and the dogs, accompanied by his feeder, were duly dispatched. After seeing the dogs there he returned home, this was before the days of trains, and upon arriving back in Audlem the first thing he saw were the two dogs he had left in Wiltshire. They had escaped and had made their way straight home. Needless to say nothing would induce Dr Bellyse to part with those two greyhounds after that. The sale was called off, and they spent the rest of their lives at Audlem. Old faces are now passing away and new ones take their places, but in this case there is no Mr Bellyse of Audlem to take his place.

How many, or rather, how few, people can remember the old wakes, when Billy Boff brought his bear to the wakes and men hired their dogs for so much a head to bait the bear. The hair from the bear was considered an infallible cure for whooping cough! The bear-stone where the bear used to be tied is still to be seen beside the pavement by the Bellyse monument though one would hardly notice the marking of the iron ring worn away now. The writer saw it distinctly when he was in Audlem a few years ago, but perhaps it may have been improved away by this time, like so many other things.

(Widnes and Runcorn Chronicle, 30 September 1911)