Firby

Firby is an English toponym and family name, with its original location now registered in modern government as Firby, Hambleton. It is not to be confused with Firby, Westow, that has separate origins and etymology, along with Fearby, North Ferriby and South Ferriby, also different in these natures; each has had its own variants causing confusion.

Geography

The beck at Firby

Firby is 685 acres (2.77 km²) and a Liberty of Richmondshire. Firby Beck and Firby Beck Fields are part of greater Bedale Beck, tributary of the River Swale in the north. Centred on Firby Road, its economy is or was primarily based on farmers and cowkeepers (Swaledale (sheep), Shorthorn cattle, rapeseed and other root vegetables as seen on Flickr), butchers (Whitton and Peacock families), gardeners, agricultural stonemasons (Storey family) and most distinctively, sportsmen in fox hunting (as painted by Joseph Appleyard). Firby residents would bring their produce and meats to the marketplace in Bedale, whilst those of Bedale would go hunting in Firby and also visit nearby Thorp Perrow Arboretum. Firby Hall, remodeled to Georgian appearance in the 18th century, was a medieval constabulary with a second residence on Firby Road at Gallowfields Trading Estate near Richmond Castle, used often for Anglo-Scottish border patrol service and answering for game and fish activities in Firby. Firby Croft has four houses and a common garden plot.

Looking over fields towards Firby

History

Firby is from the Old English name Fredebi (*see Firby#Notes); its Middle English spelling was Frethby or Fritheby, since Gallicised into Early Modern English as Firby, although numerous spellings (Furby, Furbee, Ferby, Furbay, Farby, and Freeby) have existed since Modern English.

Auduid of Sweden

This manor is earliest known to be held by Auduid, also spelt in Old Swedish as Ødhvidh , who also held Hanging Grimston near Kirby Underdale jointly with Godrida in the time of Edward the Confessor, but was passed to Osward and Rodmund by the time of the Domesday Book. The only previous known Auduid is recorded in Gimo, Sweden (in Tiundaland, Uppland, Svealand) on a runestone likely carved by Anund Jacob :

U 1132 - GIMO, SKÄFTHAMMARS SN, OLANDS HD, UPPLAND runesten av granitt med røde innslag, og er datert til vikingtid. Runeristeren er Ödmund. Riksantikvarieämbetets fornminnesregister nr.: 17. Innskriften lyder:

liutr * uk * þroti * uk * oþuiþr * uk * þaiR * litu * rita * i(f)itR × [faþur × sin : baorn * fasti]þi : moþur * sin : oþmontr * risti * r...naR *

Ljótr ok Þrótti ok Auðviðr ok þeir létu rétta eptir fôður sinn Bjôrn [ok] Fastheiði, móður sína. Auðmundr risti r[ú]nar.

English: "Ljótr and Þrótti and Auðviðr and they had (the stone) erected in memory of their father Bjôrn and Fastheiðr, their mother. Auðmundr carved the runes."

Litteratur: Upplands runinskrifter, granskade och tolkade av Wessén, E. och Jansson, S.B.F. 1940–58. Projektet Samnordisk runtextdatabas, 2004.

Anund's family was notorious in Sweden for having taken Anglo-Saxon missionaries contemporary to the rule of Cnut the Great in Fornsigtuna after the Battle of the Helgeå in 1026. Anund Jacob's father had previously applied for Sigfrid of Sweden at the disappointment of the German mission in Hamburg-Bremen (and the Heathen protests centered at Gamla Uppsala as well), just as Anund's successor Emund the Old would opt for Osmundus. Auduids are also named in mediaeval parish registers for Sjundeå and Tenala in Swedish Finland, subsequent to the Northern Crusades. (See also: Henry (Bishop of Finland) and papal legate Nicholas Breakspear)

Auduid's descendants are the Fritheby/Firby family, who were dispossessed by the Breton contingent of William the Conqueror, and nevertheless continued to live off of their own land as tenants. Also, as late as the reign of Edward I of England, Ralph de Fritheby was involved with the Hanging Grimston area as godfather to Adam de Everingham, in which position he provided testimony about trespassing on the Everingham lands.

Alan of Brittany

The worth of Firby at the time of Domesday Book's compilation was 13 shillings, compared to its earlier worth under Auduid as 10 shillings. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Count Alan, Magnate of East Anglia (from the forfeited estates of Ralph de Gael), took over Fritheby, part of Earl Edwin's Gillingshire, which was devolved to the Catterick or Middleham estate of Ribald, before becoming Scolland's and thenceforth inheritance of Bryan FitzAlan, Lord FitzAlan. Upon the descent of this family to an heiress, the manor became bipartible, i.e. held jointly:

House of Stapleton

From them, the family of Miles Stapleton inherited it, inviting their Scargill relatives to live there . It is possible that through this heritage that the notable family of Thomas Coore came to reside there, who enriched the Hall at the expense of demolishing much of Firby's then-larger, wood-based, pre-Georgian village. Harry Rouse, Esq. lived at Firby Hall, being Justice of the Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant for the North Riding of Yorkshire. Firby land owner Leonard Hammond, of the Anglican clerical family from Masham, Grewelthorpe and Marylebone in Westminster, also took up residence, and this family intermarried with the Beresford-Peirse Baronets of Bedale, as well as the native Firby family, described below.

House of Sigston

The other half of the manor passed to John Sigston of Allertonshire, granted free warren here, to the Pigot family and thenceforth to the Metcalfes. In 1422, John and Elizabeth (Aske) Pigot presented priest Sir John Fritheby to Bishop of Bath and Wells Nicholas Bubwith of Bubwith, for the purpose of becoming rector of Nunney, Somerset . Catholic recusant Mr. George Metcalfe, lived here and refused the quartering of David Leslie, Lord Newark's Covenanters during the English Civil War, so the Puritans therefore sequestered the manor from him in 1645. Anthony Metcalfe, son of George, subsequently sold the manor in 1657 to Richard Trotter (a relative is Neville Trotter). Firby thenceforth came into the possession of the Milbank family of Thorp Perrow, before being held by William C. Gray, of the same manorial line, whose common ancestor with the Greys of Bedale was Anchetil de Greye.

In 1926, Gray built S.S. Firby in his West Hartlepool shipyard, after which it joined the Ropner Fleet. In 1939, Firby steamed under Captain Prince and Mr. James Woodruff from Tyneside en route to Churchill, Manitoba, but was sunk SW of the Faroe Islands by German submarine U-48 (1939) under commander Herbert Schultze. The crew survived, with four men injured by shells and they were treated courteously by the Germans, with bread and bandages as well as SOS on their behalf to Lord Churchill, before a British destroyer picked them up. Ropner of Thorpe Perrow, based at Stockton-on-Tees, had a Dorset freighter in 1947 purchased and renamed to Firby, but this second ship was scrapped in 1966 as obsolete. Residential connections prompted the naming of Firby Close in Hartlepool and Firby Close in Stockton-on-Tees. Bill Firby was an early 21st Century Labour Party (UK) Councillor for Deerness Valley in County Durham.

Worship

Frith

Firby's original name of Fritheby may stem from this being a Heathen 'sanctuary', or friþgeard, combined with the second part of the name: by, which means 'dwelling', and this most certainly would have been observed at Firby Hall, home of the bonde (i.e. husband).

Firby Grange

In the pre-Reformation Diocese of York (which included the Archdeaconry of Richmond), and an un-Reformed establishment in the old Diocese of Chester. Was a cell of Catholic Jervaulx Abbey, and the sometime workplace for Friar Alan . There was also a medieval man named Firby who took up holy orders at the Church of St. Mary's in Richmond. This was a hotbed focus of Counter-Reformation in the Tudor period, such as the Pilgrimage of Grace and Rising of the North. During the time of Chester's erection into a diocese, and the surrender of this estate for the establishment of Christ's Hospital, this former monastic grange was transformed into the Metcalfes' manor house with a priest hole. Was no longer functioning by the reign of Charles I of England, when compulsory attendance at Christ's Hospital was enforced, despite continued Papal adherence by locals -- this was to be broken entirely by Parliament's alliance with the Scottish Solemn League and Covenant that invaded the village.

Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital, Firby

In the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, it is a Church of England poor boys' school originally taught by six elderly men, ancillary to the Bedale Poor Law, founded in 1608 by John Clapham of London, a Chancery clerk for Queen Elizabeth's William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley - whose son and heir Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter held possession of neighbouring Snape, part of the larger Middleham estate which they inherited from Lord Latymer, before the Milbanks moved in from Halnaby. It was financed by lands in Edmonton, Middlesex until the Barry Railway Co. took over and Mr. Marmaduke Braithwaite was also patron. Not only does it have the Jacobean royal arms, but pictures of St. Mark, of the Adoration of the Magi, of the founder and of his wife. Christ's Hospital is a chapel subsidiary to the Bedale parish church of St. Gregory.

Near Ripon

There is a Firby Lane in Ripon, which, due to its close proximity with Ripon Minster, may have been the usual tithing and consecrecation network of the Firby family for both Grange and Hospital, under both Catholic and Protestant periods, although the question of Jervaulx Abbey and a similar plausible relation to Firby Grange through a common tie in the parish church of St. Gregory in Bedale poses questions of certainty, with records lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It served a similar purpose for the spiritual needs of Firby's people as Firby Road's location in Richmond, North Yorkshire did for temporal reasons. Today, Firby Lane is the location of Ripon and District Community Hospital. This location is not very far from Hallikeld wapentake in the North Riding, and thus would make for a roughly even distribution of the Firby name throughout the five wapentakes of Richmondshire, between Hang (Catterick), Gilling, and Hallikeld groups.

New World

United States

In about 1666-8, the Firby family left for the Province of Maryland, founded by the fellow Richmondshire Calvert family. Benjamin Furby, Elizabeth and their family left Liverpool in the 1660s, under Puritan pressure, for Queen Anne's County, Maryland and Kent County, Delaware, although neither place bears their surname. Upon the achievement of American Independence, the Firbys of Maryland and Delaware moved westward to found Furbee School and Furbee Cemetery in Marion County, West Virginia as well as occupy Furbee Ridge and Furbee Run in Wetzel County, West Virginia. In the 20th century Furbay Cemetery was named in Harrison County, Ohio; there is the similar name of "Farby" in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Freeport Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.

Canada

Furby's Cove, a ghost town, settled in 1811, near Hermitage Bay, Newfoundland and Furby's Harbour, near Burgeo, Newfoundland, are more than likely related to one another, but Newfoundland outports have meagre records for posterity, due to their isolation. Whether or not these have any relation to a Firby family is uncertain, and possibly doubtful. It may be the case that the original was Fariba, a female name that is sometimes corrected by its similarity to the surname, and that the locations honored a sailor's wife.

Bayham, Ontario has a Firby Cemetery allotted to the local Methodist congregation. The family, of Over Silton and Fawdington, bought clergy reserve land from the Canada Company, in about 1830-4. There is a Furby House Books in Port Hope, Ontario. Furby Street, with its Community Garden and Firby's Hill are in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Firby Court in Coquitlam, British Columbia is from that same westward movement.

Australia

Leonard Hammond's relation Isabella Hammond of Marylebone, daughter of shoemaker Thomas Hammond, married at Kirkby Malzeard George Firby of Grewelthorpe, son of her relation Margaret Hammond and Robert Firby, himself son of John Firby and Susannah Featherstone (George was also brother to James Firby, immigrant to Canada); one of Isabella's and George's sons was Robert Firby who lived in Lancaster, England and possibly founded Firby Street in Cloverdale, Western Australia. However, there is a record of one Robert Firby on board the SS Wakatipu to Sydney, New South Wales. Robert's brother the Mormon immigrant Christopher Wood Firby and his family moved to the United States with the sponsorship of their sister Adelaide Firby Clough in Roxbury, Boston, as part of the emigration written by Mary Blewett in her The Yankee Yorkshireman: Migration Lived and Imagined.

Notes

Firby is linguistic evidence of the Danelaw, one of three parts which made up England in 1086 and later, the other two being Mercia and Wessex. The Danelaw replaced and enlarged East Anglia, whereas the rump of Northumbria became held by the Kings of Scotland by 1086, subject to homage under the Kings of England's suzerainty. The Danelaw itself became subject to absentee rule from Brittany, as the Honour of Richmond was composed of dispersed manors in the North Sea coastal and inland shires from Tees to Thames, as well as some near the English Channel in Hampshire and Dorset. A bulk of these non-Yorkshire estates were seized from Ralph de Gael following the Revolt of the Earls. Mercia became quasi-independent as the Welsh Marches (like Scotland, Wales reverted to independence after 1066), but Wessex remained the personal fief of Normandy as Kings of England previously held it.

External links

Media related to Firby at Wikimedia Commons