Henry Akroyd
(1818-1892)
29 October 1861

Volume 5, page 194, sitting number 6270.

[Identified as ‘Henry Akroy [sic], Esq.’ in the Silvy daybooks, this is probably Henry Akroyd of Holmwood near Shiplake in Oxfordshire.]

Born on 8 April 1817 at Halifax in Yorkshire, Henry Akroyd was the second son of Jonathan Akroyd of Woodside in Boothtown, a suburb of Halifax in Yorkshire. Jonathan Akroyd was a wealthy worsted mill owner.

On 20 April 1842 at Stoke-upon-Trent Henry Akroyd married ‘Sophia Emma, only daughter of the late Thos. Bale, Esq., barrister-at-law, of the Oxford circuit, and niece of John Ridgway, Esq., Cauldon-place’ (Staffordshire Advertiser, 23 April 1842).

In 1851 the couple were living at Doddington Hall in Cheshire with their three young children and nineteen servants. Henry described himself as a ‘J.P. [and] Worsted Manufacturer.’

The family appear on the 1871 census living at The Hall, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire. Also present on the night of the census were twenty-five live-in servants, including two butlers and three footmen. Henry was now a ‘Retired Manufacturer.’

In 1881 he was a widower living at Holmwood near Shiplake in Oxfordshire. He now gave ‘China Merchant’ as his profession.

He died at Holmwood, aged 75, on 8 September 1892, leaving an estate valued at £246,664.

His will was proved on 11 November 1892 by his son Charles Henry Akroyd and his son-in-law Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Parr Lynes of the Royal Artillery. According to the Illustrated London News (26 November 1892), he left ‘£6000 to the said son; £1500 to his daughter Mary Elizabeth Akroyd; £1000 to his daughter Mrs Florence Lynes; and £100 each to his butler, head gardener, and bailiff. His residence, Holmwood, with all the furniture, plate, pictures, books, musical instruments, wines, household stores and effects, horses, carriages, and live and dead farming and gardening stock, he gives to his daughter Mary Elizabeth while she remains a spinster and chooses to reside there, and then to his daughter Mrs Lynes.’ The report also mentions ‘his property in Ceylon and elsewhere out of England.’ Mary Elizabeth Akroyd didn’t enjoy her inheritance for very long. She died unmarried at Holmwood on 27 September 1894.