A possible connection between the Yeudalls of Galston and the Yewdalls of West Yorkshire is acknowledged in Dr Eileen White's book, Idle Folk.

An image taken from a photograph of the elders and office bearers of Galston Parish Church, believed to have been taken in 1909, is captioned as follows:

'Abraham Yewdall of Galston in Scotland, a cobbler... He was the great-grandson of another Abraham Yewdall, a soldier in the 1780s. The Yewdall family was known in Idle from the 16th century. The "Yewdall Look" was distinctive to the family in Galston, where Abraham's descendants still live.' ¹

It is understood that the Abram Yeudall indicated in the photograph is NOT Abram Yeudall 1828 - 1905, but his cousin of the same name.

There is also a section in Idle Thorpe Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, 1810 – 1910, A Centenary Memorial, by Wright Watson, at pp. 130-33, which provides an illuminating insight into the history of the Yewdalls of Yorkshire, who for the most part, though not exclusively, belonged to the area lying between Leeds and Bradford.

The chapter entitled Local Methodist Worthies begins with the words:

'Of all the families connected with local Methodism there is not one which claims so high a place as that of the Yewdalls. Although now practically a forgotten name amongst us, to this family belongs the honour of sending out one of their own, to be the first Methodist travelling preacher from this neighbourhood, and a hundred and twenty years ago there was no local family which was held in higher esteem, or to which Methodism owed so much.' ²

Reference is made to one Zachary Yewdall, who at some point in the 1650s fell under the influence of leading Dissenter George Fox, as a result of which he became prominent in the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. He fell foul of a repressive Act of Parliament of 1661, in consequence of which he served a term of imprisonment in the Castle Gaol in York for allowing his farmhouse to be used as a Quaker Meeting House and for refusing to take the oath which the Wakefield magistrates attempted to administer to him in the course of an appearance before them.

Zachary acquired the tenancy of a small farm in Westfield Lane, Idle, just up the hill from a small plot of land which was leased to the Quakers as a burial ground in return for a nominal rent. ³

Zachary and his wife Mary were survived by a son named Thomas, a clothier by trade, who was born in 1683 at Knaresborough (north-east of Harrogate). Thomas was married to Grace Parker, in 1702 at Rawdon, Knaresborough. He was the tenant of Leventhorpe Hall, Eccleshill, from about 1710 onwards, and died there on the 5th of November 1745. Thomas and Grace's son Jeremiah, later of Haigh Hall, Greengates, also Eccleshill, was born on the 24th of December 1705 at Idle.

Jeremiah married twice. His first wife was Mary Adcock, whom he married on the 4th of May 1732 in Rawdon, and died suddenly a year or so later. Only one daughter, Mary resulted from this marriage.

Jeremiah married Sarah Ogden in 1735, at St. Luke, Finsbury, Middlesex. Sarah died in 1774 at Eccleshill.

One of Jeremiah's sons was named Zechariah, otherwise Zachary or Zachariah. The text goes on to cite an article which he wrote in the Arminian Magazine for March 1795, in which Zechariah narrated that he was born on the 8th of November 1751, near Eccleshill, in the parish of Bradford, and was one of a family of eleven children. The commentary continues:

'When the family grew up, they one after another dropped off attending the meetings of the Quakers, and took to foolish ways, greatly to the grief of their parents. They indulged in card-playing, idle songs, and foolish conversation, sometimes being guilty of swearing, and when a dancing room was opened in the village the other members of the family regularly attended there, and were thus led to drinking and other vices. One of the younger brothers, Joseph, ruined his constitution and died young, while another enlisted for a soldier.' (Emphasis mine)

Zechariah expressed this in his lengthy article, The Experience of Mr. Z. Yewdall as: 'another of my brothers went for a foldier'. It is tempting to take this statement as referring to Abram, but the available evidence indicates that the brother in question was Jeremiah Yewdall, the recruiting sergeant who married Esther Read, and whose daughter, Sarah, was born at Ballantrae, Ayrshire.

Frustratingly, Zechariah mentions his parents and various of his brothers, in connection with key incidents in their lives, but he does not name any of them in the article. However, he left extensive diaries, as well as some correspondence, and from these and other extrinsic evidence, the matter of his siblings' identities has been quite conclusively settled through excellent research conducted by David Eastwood, whose wife is a Yewdall descendent.

From the IGI, it is understood that Joseph who died young was born in 1747, and was buried on the 9th of May 1770.

Apart from Joseph, four other children of the marriage of Jeremiah and Sarah can be identified from the IGI. These were Jeremiah, born c. 1737 and buried 7th June 1746; Eleanor, born c. 1750 and buried 20th August 1771; Sarah, born 1754 and buried 26th May 1770; Grace, born c. 1740 and buried 13th September 1754.

Note that these five all died young, and are known to the IGI only from their burial records. Presumably the births of those who survived to maturity thus escaped detection.

The commentary on Zechariah's article also mentions brothers Thomas, William, David, all attested by David Eastwood's researches, and of course Zechariah himself, so that leaves two unaccounted for. The first Jeremiah died in 1746, so that Jeremiah the recruiting sergeant, born c. 1749 according to his military record, was a son of this family who had inherited his dead brother's name, and was thus a second Jeremiah. (As confirmed by David Eastwood, in The Yewdalls of Eccleshill and Calverley) The slim theoretical possibility that Abram was the one remaining child of Jeremiah senior cannot absolutely be excluded, but at the same time there is no supporting evidence. ⁴ Notice that while certain names such as Zechariah (with variations) and Jeremiah are attested to have recurred through several generations, there is no known instance of an Abram in this line.

It may be surmised however, from his Old Testament Christian name, that Abram belonged to the same extended family, or at least to a similar background, and so the possibility remains that the first Zachary Yewdall was his great-grandfather.

The Reverend Zachariah Yewdall, from 'Idle Thorpe Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, 1810 – 1910, A Centenary Memorial'

Of the Reverend Zechariah, a close associate of John Wesley with whom he carried on an extensive correspondence, the writer of the Centenary Memorial states:

'He was called out into the ministry in 1779, and afterwards became one of the foremost preachers in Methodism, travelling in some of its most important Circuits – for many years in Scotland and Ireland – where he encountered much of the opposition common in those days.'

Zechariah was also an itinerant preacher on the English circuits until 1811. However, he tells us that he spent five years on the Scottish circuits, from 1786 onwards, and among the towns which he mentions in this connection are Edinburgh, Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Prestonpans and Dunbar.

At the 1789 Conference, he was assigned to the Glasgow circuit, which also included 'Air' (Ayr) and Dumfries. He spent four months in Glasgow, and in January 1790 he went to Ayr. After spending eight weeks there, he went on to Dumfries.

It would appear therefore that Abram, Jeremiah, and Zechariah - all direct contemporaries - sojourned in Ayrshire during the same approximate time-frame, i.e. in 1779, 1786, and 1790 respectively. However, there is no evidence that any two of these three missions – two of them military and the last religious - were in any way connected. It may be noted that in his lengthy article, the ever meticulous Zechariah made a point of listing his companions, but that there is never any mention of his brothers accompanying him.

Ultimate Origins

With regard to the family's ultimate origins, the Centenary Memorial surmises that:

'The name Yewdall can be traced back for nearly four hundred years in the annals of Idle township. It is said that they originally came from France, having fled from St. Denis at the terrible massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572. The family early adopted the Quaker faith...'

The Huguenot connection, as confirmed by David Eastwood, seems to be no more than a romantic fiction, since a Yewdall presence in York is attested as early as 1477, fully four decades before the Reformation, and almost a century prior to 1572. This fact is openly acknowledged by the statement that, in 1910, the name had been connected with Idle 'for nearly four hundred years', and so there seems to be a patent contradiction at work here.

In summary: The Reverend Zechariah and his several brothers and sisters, therefore, were children of Jeremiah Yewdall, a son of Thomas Yewdall, son of Zachary or Zechariah Yewdall, who as we have seen was prominent in the Quaker movement in the late 17th century.

Zachary, the fourth of five children, was baptised on the 25th of November 1638 at Calverley Parish Church, and was married to Mary Lawson on the 15th of January 1666. According to David Eastwood, Mary died and Zachary contracted a second marriage, to another Quaker, Mary Pearson of Keighley, in 1694. Zachary died on the 21st of May 1709, at Windhill, Calverley, and was buried in the Westfield Lane Quaker burial ground in Idle.

Zachary's lineage can be traced back a further three generations as follows:

His father was Walter Yewdall, and his mother was Walter's first wife, Susan, to whom he was married in 1627. The other children of the marriage were: Thomas, born 1628 in Windhill; Jeremie, born 1632 also in Windhill; and Anne, born 1635 in Calverley. A further daughter, Suzanne, resulted from a subsequent marriage.

Walter was baptised on the 20th of May 1595 at Calverley, Yorkshire, and died in 1658. His parents were Hugh and Agnes Yewdall.

Hugh Yewdall was born c. 1536 and was married to Agnes, maiden surname unknown, c. 1578. Hugh established himself at Windhill, near Idle, and died on the 26th of June 1604.

Hugh's father was Thomas Yewdall, who was born c. 1514 at Kirkstall, Leeds, Yorkshire, and died at Calverley in 1556. Thomas's wife, Dowsabelle, is known from his will, dated the 7th of August 1555.

The orthodox view is that the family's ultimate origins are indicated by Yewdale, the name of a hamlet in Cumbria, near to Coniston. According to David Eastwood, John, Jenkin, Alan, Robert and Thomas Yewdale were all tenants of Fountains Abbey at Borrowdale during the 1450s. At some time thereafter, a migration took place. This may have had something to do with the connection to Fountains Abbey, which was located near Ripon, North Yorkshire, but the precise truth of the matter is lost in the mists of time.

Footnotes

¹ At p. 47

² At p. 130

³ The author of Local Methodist Worthies states that the burial ground was donated by Zachary himself, but this is not borne out by David Eastwood's research, according to which the beneficiary was one Joshua Bartlett, a bookseller of Bradford.

⁴ David Eastwood takes the view that, despite the clear statements by Zechariah that there were eleven, Jeremiah and Sarah only brought up ten children, so that there is no eleventh child of the family to be accounted for. The apparent explanation for this discrepency is that the 'missing' child of the family was Mary, Jeremiah's daughter by his first wife.

Sources

The Experience of Mr. Z. Yewdall, in The Arminian Magazine, for March 1795

Idle Thorpe Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, 1810 – 1910, A Centenary Memorial, by Wright Watson

Idle Folk, by Eileen White MA PhD, for Idle and Thackley Heritage Group

The Yewdalls of Eccleshill and Calverley by David Eastwood (manuscript)

Military record of Jeremiah Yewdall, PRO, (WO 121/166/92 and WO 121/2/25)