The Trollope family

Influence and power in mediaeval England was achieved by the ownership of land and Oger the Breton, who had one the biggest holdings in the history of Bourne, is a perfect example of this. Another man who achieved fame in both commercial and social life was Thomas Trollope and his descendants.

By Tudor times, many of the country gentry were living in reduced circumstances as a direct result of the decline of the manorial system. Farm labourers were getting better wages and yeoman families were often growing rich and rising to the ranks of the gentry. One family that was prospering in this way were the Trollopes, the most prominent of them being Thomas Trollope who is first mentioned as a landowner at Cawthorpe near Bourne in 1543 where he was steadily improving his position by trade as well as farming. 

Thomas Trollope submitted a scheme to William Cecil, the Queen's Chief Minister, in 1561 for setting up a mill to knocke hempe for the making of canvas and other linen clothes. This was a new enterprise and some foreigners were brought in to practice and teach their skills in the industry. The family continued to prosper and early in the 17th century they had become Lords of the Manor of Bourne Abbots that had passed into secular hands after the dissolution of the Abbey in 1536. 

The name Trollope subsequently appears in early records at both Bourne and Thurlby where the family had established important holdings. There is a tradition that the name itself is derived from the French trois loups  as the result of a contest between its founder and three wolves at the time when these animals abounded in England, but it is more probable that it is the name of a place or natural feature of the landscape, such as troll-hope, a dale of elves, that was assumed by some early settler in that place and was thus passed down to his descendants. 

The first member of the family appearing in any authentic records is John Trolop of Morden near Bishop Auckland in County Durham. In 1392, he married Margaret Lumley, a granddaughter of King Edward IV and he thus acquired the manor of Thornley. The Trollopes of Bourne were descended from a branch of the Trollopes of Thornley and first settled in the area during the mid-16th century by which time they were in prosperous circumstances.

This gave them considerable lands, farms and houses in Bourne, Cawthorpe and Dyke and in 1621, they purchased the manor, estate and mansion of Casewick from Sir James Evington for £5,500. The remote house standing in an ancient park, is part Jacobean, part 18th century Gothic and is surrounded by a courtyard, old buildings and walled enclosures and gardens. The earlier south wing was built by Thomas Trollope soon after the property was purchased. The Trollopes at this time were Royalists and in 1642, Thomas Trollope, great-grandson of the first mentioned Thomas, received a baronetcy from Charles I. In 1785, the fourth baronet commissioned William Legg of Stamford to further extend the house and he was responsible for the long west front in the most elegant Gothic taste, with gables and pinnacles and fanciful sugary crenellations, sash windows with Gothic glazing bars, and an ogee tripartite window to adorn the centre while an ancient wisteria grows across the entire front. 

William Trollope (1562-1637) was a grandson of the first known Trollope and he became one of Bourne's philanthropists whose money is still of benefit to the town and administered by Bourne United Charities. He was born in 1562, son of Mathew Trollope, and baptised at the Abbey Church on February 21st, marrying three times, Agnes Fletcher (1581), Elyn (Eileen) Twekye (1582) and Alse (Alice) Sharpe (1594). They had eight children between them, a daughter and seven sons, Joane (1588, died in infancy), John (1589), William (1595), Thomas (1596), Mathew (1597), William (1599), Jonas (1602) and James (1605). William, born in 1595, died in infancy in 1598 and so a subsequent son was given the name as was the custom at that time. Agnes and Eileen predeceased him and his will stated that he wished to be buried in the churchyard "near to his wives" when he died on 8th June 1637, aged 75.

Trollope had succeeded his father, Mathew Trollope, in owning the family estates and land holdings and adding to them whenever possible by helping to drain large tracts around Bourne, thus becoming one of the Adventurers as they were known, men who were prepared to invest their capital in this way. He appears to be have been involved with making a new cut known as the South Forty Foot Drain, then described as a navigable river from Bourne to Boston, a distance of 24 miles, a project which incurred the wrath of fenland inhabitants who suspected that the reclamation was for the private gain of its initiators and sent petitions to Parliament in protest. There were several incidents of violence on the part of the fenmen when drains, buildings and crops were destroyed and in 1640 a number of arrests were made after riots occurred near Bourne when 23 men from the town and 11 from Donington were arrested and sent to London to appear before the Privy Council and several large landowners were sent to the Fleet prison for their part in the uprising. It has been suggested that William Trollope was among them but as he had been dead for three years, this was most likely his son. The trouble had far reaching effects because so much damage was done that the Adventurers could not restore their drainage works and with the coming of the English Civil War much of the fenland reverted to its former state and it was to be another hundred years before the land was again reclaimed.

William Trollope's will, which was dated 16th November 1636, also marked a new and important phase in local education because in it, Trollope provided an endowment of £30 a year to maintain "an honest, learned and godly schoolmaster" in a school built by himself. He stipulated that it should be a free grammar school incorporated by royal charter and to be called "the Free Grammar School of King Charles in the town of Bourne and the county of Lincoln, the foundation of William Trollope, gentleman". It was erected in the grounds of the Abbey Church and still stands, although rebuilt since his day. He also left sufficient money to found a hospital, that is almshouses, by giving the sum of £33 for the maintenance of "six poor aged men" of the parish on a site near the church in South Street and now known as the Tudor Cottages, although also later rebuilt.

Sir Thomas Trollope of Casewick, as he was then known, gave £100 to Bourne in 1654 for the erection of a workhouse to help alleviate the problem of the poor people of the town. The exact location is not known but was mentioned in the manorial records of the 18th and early 19th centuries and most probably stood in or near North Street near the junction with Burghley Street which was then called Workhouse Road.

Other descendants of the Trollope family include:

James Trollope (1605-1649) who was churchwarden of Thurlby in 1642 and with Dorothy Stoyte and Stephen Smith, was a tenant of Thurlby Grange. He was buried at the village church and his son and heir, another William, was born and baptised there in 1642 and was buried at Thurlby when he died in 1709. He is commemorated by a tablet on the south wall of the sanctuary which also depicts his coat of arms and includes the names of his sister, Alice Minshull (1634-1761) and his nephew and niece, James and Margaret Minshull.

Thomas Trollope who was born and baptised at Thurlby in 1671 and buried there when he died in 1736. The treble bell in the church tower is inscribed with his name as having donated £10 towards its cost.  In 1719, he also presented an altar piece and a velvet covering for the altar table in the Abbey Church at Bourne. His sons pre-deceased him and so the estate passed to his daughter Mary (1701-34) who married Thomas Pochin. Their son George Pochin pulled down an old farmhouse in Bourne, formerly part of the old abbey, and in 1764 built himself a mansion that later became the Abbey House and vicarage, now also demolished.

The Trollope family continued to prosper and the seventh baronet, John Trollope, was raised to the peerage in 1869 under the title of Lord Kesteven whose influence continued until recent times. His son John Henry succeeded him and Casewick then passed to his nephew Thomas Carew, the third and last Lord Kesteven and when he died in 1915, the barony became extinct and the estate passed to his sister, the Hon Mrs Dorothy Trollope-Bellew. The baronetcy however continued and in 1937 it passed to Frederick Trollope of Sydney, Australia, grandson of the novelist Anthony Trollope. Casewick Hall remained the family home until the last tenant, the Hon Mrs Trollope-Bellew, died in 1975 and the following year, the property and contents were sold.

See also    The hunting field      Edward Trollope      The Pochin family

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