FLEETWOOD OF ROSSALL HALL.
This family sprang originally from Little Plumpton in the Fylde. Henry Fleetwood being the first of whom there is any reliable record, and of him nothing is known beyond the place of his residence, and the fact that he had a son named Edmund. Edmund Fleetwood married Elizabeth Holland, of Downholme, and was living about the middle and earlier portion of the latter half of the fifteenth century. From that marriage there sprang one son, William Fleetwood, who subsequently espoused Ellyn, the daughter of Robert Standish, and had issue John, Thomas, and Robert Fleetwood. Of these three sons, Thomas, the second, resided at Vach in the county of Buckingham, and at the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., about 1536, purchased from that monarch the reversion of the lease of Rossall Grange, then held by the Allens from the Abbot and convent of Deulacres, in Staffordshire. Thomas Fleetwood married Barbara, the cousin and heiress of Andrew Frances, of London, and had issue five sons, the second and third of whom were knighted later in life, whilst the eldest, Edmund, came into possession of Rossall Hall and estate in 1583, after the demise of Richard Allen, whose widow and daughters were ejected. Thus Edmund Fleetwood was the first of the name to reside at Rossall, where he died about forty years later. This gentleman married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Cheney, of Chesham Boys, in Buckinghamshire, and had issue several sons and daughters. Paul, the eldest son and heir, who succeeded him, was knighted by either James I. or Charles I., and married Jane, the daughter of Richard Argall from the county of Kent, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. Edmund, the eldest son, had no male issue, and at his death, in 1644, Richard, his brother, succeeded to the property and resided at Rossall Hall. Richard Fleetwood, who was only fifteen years of age when the death of his predecessor occurred, subsequently espoused a lady, named Anne Mayo, from the county of Herts, by whom he had only two children, a son and a daughter, and as the former died in youth, the estate passed to the next male heir on his demise. The heir was found in the person of Francis, of Hackensall Hall, the brother of Richard Fleetwood and the third son of Sir Paul Fleetwood. Francis Fleetwood, of Rossall, married Mary, the daughter of C. Foster, of Preesall, and had issue Richard Fleetwood, who succeeded him, and a daughter. Richard Fleetwood resided at Rossall Hall, and married Margaret, the daughter of Edwin Fleetwood, of Leyland, in 1674. The offspring of that union were two sons, Edward and Paul, and a daughter Margaret. Edward, the heir, was born in 1682, and practised for some time as an attorney in Ireland. On the death of his father, however, he inherited the property, and took up his abode at the ancestral Hall. He espoused Sarah, the daughter of Edward Veale, of Whinney Heys. Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, Blackpool, was on terms of friendship and intimacy with the Fleetwoods of Rossall at that period, and on the fourteenth of April, 1714, the following entry occurs in his diary, referring to Edward Fleetwood, the lord of the manor, and his brother Paul, also Edward Veale, the father of Mrs. Ed. Fleetwood, whom, for some reason unknown, the diarist invariably designated Captain Veale:—“Went to Rosshall. Dinᵈ with the trustys, yᵉ Lord & his lady, Mr. Paull, and Capᵗᵗ Veal. Gave I. Gardiner 1s., and a boy 6d.; soe to ffox Hall.”
Paul Fleetwood, the younger brother of the “Lord” died in 1727 and was buried at Kirkham, where some of his descendants still exist in very humble circumstances.
The offspring of Edward Fleetwood consisted only of one child, a daughter, named Margaret, who was born in 1715, and to whom the estates appear to have descended on the decease of her father. On the sixteenth of February, 1733, she married, at Bispham church, Roger Hesketh, of North Meols and Tulketh. Roger Hesketh and his lady resided at Rossall Hall until their respective demises, which happened, the latter in 1752, and the former in 1791. Fleetwood and Sarah Hesketh were the children of their union. On the decease of his father at the ripe age of 81 years, the son and heir, Fleetwood, had already been dead 22 years, and consequently his son, Bold Fleetwood Hesketh, the eldest offspring of his marriage, in 1759, with Frances, the third daughter of Peter Bold, of Bold Hall, in the county of Lancaster, succeeded his grandfather Roger Hesketh. Bold Fleetwood Hesketh, who was born in 1762, died unmarried in 1819, and was buried at Poulton, his younger brother, Robert Hesketh, inheriting the Hall and estates. Robert Hesketh was in his 55th year when he became possessed of the property, and had already been married 29 years to Maria, the daughter of Henry Rawlinson, of Lancaster, by whom he had a numerous family. His four eldest sons died in youth and unmarried, the oldest having only attained the age of twenty three, so that at his decease in 1824 he was succeeded by his fifth son, Peter Hesketh. This gentleman, who was born in 1801, espoused at Dover, in 1826, Eliza Delamaire, the daughter of Sir Theophilus J. Metcalf, of Fern Hill, Berkshire, by whom he had several children, who died in early youth. As his second wife he married, in 1837, Verginie Marie, the daughter of Senor Pedro Garcia, and had issue one son, Peter Louis Hesketh. In 1831, Peter Hesketh obtained power by royal license to adopt the surname of Fleetwood in addition to his own, and in 1838 he was created a baronet. In 1844, Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood vacated Rossall Hall, and the site is now occupied by a large public educational institution, denominated the Northern Church of England School. Sir P. H. Fleetwood died, at Brighton, in 1866, leaving one son and heir, the Rev. Sir Peter Louis Hesketh Fleetwood, bart., M.A., of Sunbury on Thames, in the county of Middlesex. The Rev. Charles Hesketh, M.A., rector of North Meols, is the younger brother of the late Sir P. H. Fleetwood, and consequently uncle to the present baronet.