Ralph Peters of Southport

Trustee and nephew of Bertie Entwisle (q.v.) in three awards on Antigua and also for a fourth claim on St Vincent where Ralph Peters appears as awardee. There appear to have been at least three generations of Ralph Peters, the first dying c. 1808, father of the second dying c. 1838 and grandfather of the third, who died 1879. Men by the name of both Bertie Entwis[t]le and Ralph Peters (the latter related to the former as son-in-law or brother-in-law) had been recorders or town clerks of Liverpool in the 18thC. The Ralph Peters of this entry, dying c. 1838, was the nephew of Bertie Entwistle dying c. 1803: his mother was Elizabeth Entwisle, Bertie Entwisle's sister.

1. The will of Ralph Peters of Platt Bridge was proved 12/01/1808; the will mentions his only son, also Ralph Peters. Ralph Peters of Platt Bridge was one of the parties to a 1799 settlement on the marriage of Rev. Croxton Johnson rector of Wilmslow and Frances Houghton Peters, whereby the rights and interests of Frances to properties in Liverpool, part of the estate of her uncle Bertie Entwisle, together with £1000 were conveyed to trustees to provide a life interest for parties to the marriage and then for the issue of the marriage. Ralph Peters, identified as late of Platt Bridge but now of Southport, was party to an assignment of a mortgage of Thurcroft Hall 24/12/1827 to Frances Houghton Johnson.

2. Death of Ralph Peters was registered at Ormskirk Q3 1838. In the will of Ralph Peters of Southport Lancashire proved 26/01/1839 he comments that his eldest son Ralph Peters had been adequately provided for in the will of 'my late uncle Bertie Entwistle.' This third Ralph Peters, the son of Ralph Peters of Southport, died of Southall Park, Southall in 1879 leaving £70,000. Southall Park was a private asylum, and this Ralph Peters was probably the man shown in 1841 as 'lunatic' in the Clapham Retreat. William Henry Peters of Harefield House, Lympstone, Devon [now St Peters School], brother and executor of Ralph Peters of Southall Park, left £61,180 5s 8d on his death in 1896. The second eldest son, Rev. Thomas Peters, rector and patron of Eastington Co. Gloucester between 1837 and 1883, left £172,501 18s 11d (resworn from £162,528 13s 7d) when he died 26/02/1890 at 25 Circus, Bath.

3. Pursuant to a decree in the Chancery suit Peters v Martin, the creditors of Bertie Entwisle 'formerly of the Island of Antigua, in the West Indies, and afterwards of Tavistock Street in the parish of St Paul Covent Garden...who died in the month of April 1803' were called to prove their debts on or before 12/03/1828.

4. It is not clear whether the 'planter' Ralph Peters shown in the Liverpool Record Office was the same man as the awardee for the Antigua claims as trustee of Bertie Entwisle.

T71/877 Antigua claim nos. 18 (Jolly Hill St Mary), 96 (Golden Grove, St John's) and 357 (Barnacle Point, St George's); T71/892 St Vincent claim no. 464 (Clifton Hill); 'An Account of the Oil Painting "Liverpool in 1680", with Notes on the Peters Family of Platbridge and Liverpool. By R. Stewart-Brown, M.A.', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire for the year 1908 Volume LX New Series Volume XXIV pp. 35-71. .

See Michael Power, 'Councillors and commerce in Liverpool 1650-1750' Urban History 1997 24 pp. 301-323.

1. Thucroft Timeline South Yorkshire http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/district/timeline.htm [accessed 14/02/2011]. The second of these entries is labelled '1841', for reasons that are unclear.

2. FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online]; PROB 11/1906/1.

3. London Gazette, Issue 18438, 01/02/1828, p. 224; National Probate Calendar 1890.

4. Ralph Peters, Antigua Sugar Planter, Liverpool Record Office GB/NNAF/C117770 (formerly GB/NNAF/B30880).