Shillington Kerfoot Family Tree

Hosted by Ned and Sonia Shillington

By Clifford Howard Shillington

The history of the Kerfoot family in Canada, published in 1953, brought a sense of "belonging" to many of the descendants of the Thomas Shillington family whose early history in Canada is closely interwoven with the Kerfoots. As a fifth generation descendant of Thomas Shillington, who, with some members of his family, migrated to Canada in 1818, it has been my purpose to enlarge upon the Shillington saga, already partially recounted in the Kerfoot History.

In undertaking this task I hope that Shillington descendants will understand my efforts in focusing on a history of our common pioneer ancestors rather than attempting an extensive compilation of present day members, a task well nigh impossible. Because of the growing multiplicity of relationships with each generation it has been necssary, in most cases, to terminate at fourth or fifth generation level and leave the task thereafter to other Shillington descendants to record and expand the history of their own particular families, these, I hope that, if I have overlooked others, they will forgive me.

In particular I wish to acknowledge the help Ned Shillington, Member of The Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan and a former Cabinet Menber, who has obtained both information and early pictures for me. Ned is a sixth generation descendant through the James branch. Others to whom thanks are due, include Halter Mann of Vancouver, a fifth generation descendant of Thomas, through John and Claire Shillington of Blenheim, a descendant through James.

For information on the "Irish” John and Joseph family branch, I am indebted to Mrs. Gladys Walters of Toronto and to the late Dr.Maurice Shillington of Florida. For the brief information on the Henry, Edward and Thomas branches, I am indebted to Mr Ed. Shillington of Toronto and Lila Shillington of St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. For help on the Thomas,ex:-soldier family, I  am indebted to Mr Ivan Shillington of Kindersley Sask and to Miss Minnie Shillington of Perth, Ontario, Canada. For other general help, I thank my brother Donald,of Saskatoon.

To conclude, while there are many limitations of family history, and no doubt many errors, I hope that my effort might spark a renewed interest in the general history of the Shillington family and the same pride of character that has reflected the family image for generations past. In addition to the aforementioned Shillington families who came to Canada. I learned only very recently a result of correspondence vith a Mr. Bob Shillington of Baton Rouge, Louisianna, of a further Shillington family which had emigrated from the same County Tyrone area in Northern Ireland. to the United States in 1863. According to his grandmother’s record:

Thomas Shillington was born in Castle Caulfield, County Tyrone, in 1797 and married Margaret Lucas of the same area. They came to America with eight children and joined with a brother James in Chicago. They then bought land in Iowa where they farmed until Thomas's death in 1897.

Keswick.Ont. 1981      C Howard Shillington

Who were the Shillingfcons and where did the name originate? We know, of course, that that those early Shillington pioneers coming to Canada in the early 1800's were from Ireland. Less well known is the fact that Ireland had been home to them for less than two hundred years before this time. According to fragmentary history records, "The Shillingtons had lived in Bedfordshire (England), and had a large estate which, sometime during the sixteenth century, they lost to the church." The same family record also stated that " a Coat of Arms had been granted in Bedfordshire in 1504." With this information at hand our principal task in researching English history, has been to verify, insofar as possible, the authenticity of these records and to gain some understanding of the times and events from which our Shillington name and heritage has evolved. The Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names, records Shillington, Bedfordshire (Scythingedune 1060th, Sethlindone D,Scetlingedon 1202P, Scythingas or Scillinga s) and suggests that such place name may be derived from a tribal name. It suggests further that such name, like many other old English names, may have been Scandinavianized, that is, adopted by Scandinavian invaders of Britain and changed in form to Scandinavian habits of speech. Old English "sc" was difficult to pronounce and was changed to the easier "sh".(History records that part of Britain, including Bedfordshire, was overrun by the Danes in the 900's A.D.).The author, P.H.Reaney, states that many English place names ending in "ington" trace back to Old English "ingatum and denote villages established by tribal communities. Our best evidence, therefore, is that Shillington was originally an old Anglo-Saxon village whose name had been. changed during the tenure of the Danes.

The Domesday Book, which was completed in 1086 A.D. by King William, following the Norman conquest of Britain, was a remarkable document, in effect, a detailed survey concerning

every manor: how called, who holds it, how many hides, how many plows. how many men, how many villeins, how many cotters, how many sorts, how many freemen, how many sokemen. how much woods," how much meadow, how many pastures, how many mills, how manv …fishponds, how much worth. (Sources of English Constitutional History).

Included in this book is Shillington, shown along with the Manor of Shitlington and the church and Parish of the same name, as under the authority of the Bishop of Ramsay,as the Tenant-in-Chief or Overlord. Whether the village was part of the Manor is difficult to say. In Anglo- Saxon days the village was the agricultural centre and the lowest unit of local government. With the coming of the Normans (1066 A.D.) the greatest change was a new system of land-holding. Because the Norman system of feudalism was of a military nature  about 180 barons were given varying amounts of land on condition of training and supplying about 5000 knights to serve the king in time of war. These land grants came to be known as Manors,  from a French word for dwelling. However, a Manor was more than a house. it represented an estate, under a single Lord, and the services and rents that the peasants working the land, owed to the Lord of the Manor. In Norman England some villages were split up into a number of manors. In other cases some manors contained more than one village. In the case of Shillington, it appears in the Domesday Book. to be part of the the Manor of Shitlington. In this feudal society bishops and abbots played a double role and held large fiefs from the and were also expected to provide a further 800 knights for war services. This was probably the case with Shillington.

Most inhabitants of the manor were called villeins , the family head of which, held a virgate of land in the open fields which could be passed from father to son. In return for such land a whole range of services was owed to his lord, in what came to be known as "tithing". In the centuries between the Domesday Book and the advent of the Black Death in 1348,the abbots and other great lords had ruled. without challenge of any kind, to their almost unlimited authority. However, in August 1348,the Black Death arrived and, with it's two recurrences in the ten years following, decimated almost half the population. It was largely as a result of this disaster and the resulting labor shortage, that the role of the villein came to acquire a new value and lead to the rise of a new middle class yoeman, with greatly increased land holdings and freedom from many of the commitments to their lords. As mentioned in a History of England,(i):

"A second course open to the lord was to abandon cultivation or the demesne and lease it to peasant farmers. This process went on rapidly during the second half of the fourteenth century. The new leaseholders might be freemen or villeins or adventurers from outside the manor. They were the more efficient and more energetic who saw their opportunity to prosper and rise in the world. Some of them became big farmers with large estates. Within a few generations they sometimes were inheriting the positions of the manorial lords and were pushing their way into the gentry."(p.1fi3)

In reference to the Shillington family surname, Kennett points out that, in the days of the Domesday Book, there were very few family surnames. Rather, these followed in the next. two or three centuries thereafter, as part of the growing acquisitipn by many villeins of lands and property and the adoption of surnames to add to the single Christian name bestowed upon them at birth, by the church.  With the rise in English trade and a growing number of specialized occupations, such names as Weaver, Taylor, Smith and others are cited as common surnames which developed at this time. In the case of the Shillington surname ,that this derives from the place name is almost a certainty.(Reaney records Shillingtons as living in Bedfordshire in 15th century.) In searching out existing records concerning a Coat of Arms,there. is, in Burke's General Armoury 1884, recorded a Coat of Arms,described as follows: Or on a fess gules. Three lions rampant of the field. This Coat of Arms appears to have been recorded in Yorkshire in the 1700's and may be a renewal or amended version of the original which was supposedly granted in 1504. With the loss of their lands and estates it is certain that the Coat of Arms granted in 1504 was also lost and would explain the lack of evidence of such in the earlier period* Taking all the historical evidence into consideration it does appear that the family records fragmentary as they are, were correct in naming Bedfordshire as the point of origin of the Shillington surname, that such name was derived from the village of the same name; secondly, that they owned large estate, appears in keeping with the changes in their fortunes, as typical of many other middle class yoemen of their day. Finally, the loss of these family estates is, again, something that was not uncommon in the continuing quarrels between king and state, church and state, king and church, etc. and they formed part of the deep social changes and upheavals in the general growth of British democracy in the middle ages. The history of this period shows not only the amassing of wealth and influence but, also, the loss of same as recorded by the experiences of hundreds of landowners, many of them in Bedfordshire.

Perry and Biakeway mention that the tenure of property became very insecure and cite numerous examples of the lawless practices of the time which led to such losses.

A cousin, Claire Shillington of Blenheim, visited the old church in Shillington and sent me the following information:

" The foundation of the original church is not well documented and it is impossible to date it precisely. It is almost certain that,on the hill on which the church stands,there was,at one time, a Saxon tower of refuge or sanctuary. While there are various legends about it's early history it is noteworthy that the history of the Rectory is traceable back to the tine of the Danes. It is said that King Canute gave the land on which it is built to Etheric,Bishop of Dorchester, said to be a relative of King Harold. Etheric erected a church in 1037 and gave it in charge of the monks of the,Monastery of Ramsay,and,according to the Doomsday Book,the Manor of Shitlington was held by the Abbot of Ramsay. It is said that the earliest part of the original church,the chapel,was consecrated by St.Birinus,Bishop of Dorchester(Oxford) around 650 a.d.,four hundred years before the Norman Conquest. In 1400 Matthew de Assheton,Rector of Schutlington,died and his fine brass is now in the vestry behind the organ. Much rest- -oration has now been done to the original church and sometime in the 15th century,some of these changes were made to accomo- -date the College of Priests serving what are now,five or six separate parishes immediately surrounding Shillington."

Today,the Town of Shillington with it's famous old church,can be located some 75 miles or so northwest of London, on English highway A507, The area is close to the Herefordshire boundary and, in fact, the Barton- Higham-Gobien-Shillington road Just keeps inside the County boundaries. Shillington and its various end: Hillfoot .Bury, Woodmer-Upton, make a sizable though scattered place. Shillington Parish boundary lies for more than a mile along one of the most ancient ways in Britain, the Icknield Way.

While there is, no doubt, a great deal more pertinent and interesting information relating to the Shillington name and family history of those earlier days, I have, regretfully, not had the opportunity to explore this further, in particular, the registration of the Coat of Arms, in York, in the 1700's still remains to he explored.

CHAPTER II
THE IRISH HOMELAND

According to the Ulster Historical Society,the "Shillingtons originally settled in Ireland in County Antrim in 1641. A Shillington by the name of Thomas or Henry travelled to Ireland in 1641 as part of a.military group under Lord Conway.Conway was a garrison commander in the English army during the reign of King Charles 1st, and commanded the defenses of Newcastle. With the outbreak in Ireland he was called upon to raise a regiment for service in the northern Irish area. An item from the history record of Cromwell's army in Ireland, records a Theophilis Jones, son of the Bishop of Killaloe, as a senior cavalry officer in Lord Conway's Regiment. It would appear, therefore, that Thomas or Henry Shillington was a member of a cavalry regiment which served as an occupation force and, in the course of such duties, settled in Antrim area".

Abridged copy of Anthony Shillington's Will, son of Thomas or Henry who came over from England with Lord Conway in 1641. Taken from Consistonal Court, Listwin made 18th January 1694 :

A copy of the Will of Anthony Shillington, son of the Thomas or Henry who arrived in Ireland in 1641,has been recorded as follows:

I Anthony SHillington do give and bequeath to my son Joe L3-10-0, to my son Elias L3-10-0 and my grandfather's greatcoat, to my dauther, Mary L3-10-0, to my daughter ELiza L3-10-0 and to each of my daughters a cow and a chest. My sister Margaret to have heifer and two year old bullock, my wife to have six cows and the sheep. My son Joe and daughters, Elizabeth and Margartet to have, each, a cow's grass. Lastly  the bedding to be distributed among the children.

Michael Bunting                             Anthony Shillington

Griffon Landy                                       X His mark.
Thomas Martin X
                His mark

Beyond this interesting bit of information the family records seem lost until 1745,at which time the Drumglass Parish Church Registers show that a John Shillington was baptized. It would appear that he night be the father of Thomas,the senior member of the immigrant family to Canada in 1818. According to the Kerfoot History.page 111,para 3, " a Shillington chart in the possession of the author shows Thomas Shillington of the immigrant party to have been born in Rungannon in 1777 and to have been the son of John Shillington and to have had a brother Henry."

Existing church records of the Parish of Clonfeal,Parish of Donoghmore and Parish of Druraglass,for the late 1700's and early 1800's,show tithe assessments for both Joseph and Anthony Shillington as well as for Edward,Thomas and Henry. A Thomas ShilIington also appears as a lessee of lands from the Barony of Dungannon. What was the relationship between these various people? Unfortunately, according to the Ulster Historical Society, many of the existing records of the period were destroyed in the 1916 rebellion. We can, therefore, only speculate.

Dr.Richard (nick)Shillington #298,a descendant of John, retired and living in Calgary in 1951,wrote to his cousin Ernest, that, while overseas in 1918, he had the pleasure of visiting the Rt.Honourable Thomas Shillington at Portadown. Both the Hon. Thomas and one of his sons were then in the linen trade. Another son was in business in India. Major David Shillington Ardeevin. Earlswood Road, Belfast and Mr.Courtney Shillington, Slenmachan Tower, Strandown, Belfast are recorded as nephews of the Hon.Thomas, who died at the age of ninety.

When visiting Ireland in 1966 we had the opportunity to visit the Shillington store in Portadown which was still operating, but had been taken over a year earlier by new owners with the retirement of the last Shillington owner. Founded in 1829 by Thomas Shillington the business had been carried on continuously through four generations until 1965. By 1966 it appeared that the family had almost died out. The retired widow and unmarried daughter of the Hon. David Shillington, who died in 1944,was living in seclusion at llolywood,a few miles east of Belfast. Another cousin, a navy commodore, was retired and living at his club.

This family which had over the years, a distinguished record in both business and politics was also well known for it's longtime support of the Methodist Church in Ireland.  R.Walter Mann writes that his uncle, John Shillington Mann, while overseas in 1919, also visited the Hon. Thomas who was then 82 years of age. At that tine he spoke of Shillington cousins in Dungannon.

In the past ten years another family of Shillingtons has emigrated to Canada from Armagh area in County Tyrone. These include Rev.George and brother Wesley and two married sisters and their families. One of these married sisters, Mrs Pearl McCaw. who with the rest of the family, is a devout Methodist, told me about an aunt who had served that church in Ireland for more than 50 years and preferred not to marry rather than give up her family name. She also told me about a cemetery at a place near Armagh, which is the resting ground for many Shillingtons. She, too, repeated, that the Shillington family name had originated from a town or place site and referred to fragments of a story handed down of three brothers back in English history who started the dynasty around whom the Shillington name began. The following information is taken from a book published "In Memorial of Thomas Averill Shillington J.P. of Portadown, Ireland" , written by Rev. John Dwver and published by the Wesleyan Conference Office,2 Castle Street, City Road, Belfast.

"The Shillington family is of English descent. Two brothers came to Ireland and took up abode at Aughallon, County Antrim. There is no further record until 1711 when Henry Shillington recorded birth of a daughter, next item -Thomas Shillington - grandson of Henry- born 1767. Bought land at Portadown. married Sarah Averill. 6 children. Thomas Averill J.P.- born 18 - married Elizabeth Johnson of Lurgan. Founded family store in Portadown. 7 children. Died 1874. One of the Lay leaders of Methodist Church in Ireland. Rt. Hon. Thomas -born 1831 - operated a linen trade business. Was a Member of Parliament John- Served as Organist of Carlisle Memorial Church in 1870's Elizabeth - Principal of McArthur Hall -part of Methodist Theologies College in Belfast, 2 sons of Hon. Thomas carried on linen business. A further book, The History of The Methodist Church in Ireland, enlarges upon the role and contributions of this Shillington family to the Methodist church, including the turning over of the old family home, around 1902,as a lome for orphan boys.

Thomas Foulkes Shillington -(History of Methodism in Ireland) by Lee Cole

"He was Treasurer of the Belfast Mission and had seen the need for a home for orphan boys. He was the owner of the family ancestral home of Craig Villa, near Moira. It was a large and commodious dwelling house with extensive farm buildings and about 150 acres of land, Mr. Shillington conveyed this property to the Methodist Church and the first group of children went into residence in 1903."

He, too, was connected with Carlisle Memorial Church in Belfast.

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