De Willelmo de Farndale

c1265 to c1335

A relatively wealthy tenant who had left Farndale for Danby in the North York Moors but adopted its name

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The webpage of De Willelmo de Farndale includes a chronology of his life and reference to sources.

The Smith who left the dale for a moorland community

It seems likely that William was born in Farndale in about 1255 and had become a smith by about 1280. He may have been a younger son of Nicholas de Farndale.

He was probably the father of William, born in about 1285, who also became a smith in Farndale and his grandson was a smith there too. If this was indeed the same person who later moved to Danby, then he paid 2s in bail for a poaching offence, with others, in 1280.

In 1301 De Willelmo de Farndale paid 3s in tax, at Danby in the Wapentake of Langburgh, in the levy known as the Yorkshire Lay Subsidy, to fund Edward I’s Scottish wars. The subsidy imposed a one fifteenth tax, so this suggests that William had a wealth of about 45s or £2 5s, the equivalent of perhaps £1,700 today, or the value of about five cows. William was more wealthy than many other members of the Danby community. It seems likely that he brought his smithy trade to Danby, perhaps leaving his son to continue the business in Farndale.

Danby was a growing agricultural community in Danby Dale, southwest of the modern village of Danby, which was seeing a programme of assarting and land claim for agriculture on a similar scale to Farndale. It was located on the north side of the moors, on higher ground, but an area which had seen cultivation since Scandinavian times. It was the only significant settlement on the moors at that time. Whilst Danby had been part of the same estate lands as Farndale at the time of the Norman Conquest, by this time it had become part of the Bruce and then the Latimer estates. So this must have been a bold move away from William’s homeland and family and into different estate lands. Assuming he was indeed the smith, then perhaps he had a transferable skill, which he could easily take to a new place. If I’m right about his family, it is interesting that it may have been William the father who emigrated out of Farndale, leaving his son to continue the trade at home.

His brother may have been de Johanne de Farndale who moved to Egton, not so far away, north of the North York Moors but lower down into Cleveland. Perhaps the two brothers left Farndale together, to start new lives.

William might have continued to work as the blacksmith of Danby until he died, perhaps in about 1325.

How does De Willelmo de Farndale relate to the modern family?

It is not possible to be accurate about the early family tree, before the recording of births, marriages and deaths in parish records, but we do have a lot of medieval material including important clues on relationships between individuals. The matrix of the family before about 1550 is the most probable structure based on the available evidence.

If it is accurate, De Willelmo de Farndale, was related to the thirteenth century ancestors of the modern Farndale family, but his line of smiths, poachers and cattle rustlers seems to have disappeared by about the fifteenth century.

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