James Cookson, Esq.
(1816-1888)
7 June 1862
Volume 7, page 78, sitting number 8559.
Born in or about 1816 at Bombay in India, James Cookson was the eldest son of Colonel Cookson of the 80th Regiment, later of Neasham Hall, and Marianne née Stephenson of Alnwick, Northumberland.
On 4 May 1847 at St Michael’s Church in Bristol he married firstly Sybella Frances Tyndall, youngest daughter of the late Thomas Tyndall of The Fort, Bristol. The couple appear on the 1851 census living at Neasham Hall, Darlington, with their three young children. Also present on the night of the census were nine servants, including a butler and two grooms. James Cookson gave his profession as ‘Magistrate.’
The first Mrs Cookson died, aged 31, at Neasham Hall on 7 December 1853, five days after giving birth to a second son.
On 11 June 1859 at the church of Serrières, Neuchâtel, James Cookson married secondly his first wife’s sister Mary Elizabeth Gertrude Tyndall, eldest daughter of the banker Thomas Tyndall of The Fort, Bristol. This marriage produced another two children.
The second Mrs Cookson died, aged 45 at Neasham Hall on 4 March 1864.
James Cookson married a third time on 8 June 1865 at St James’s, Westminster. His new wife was Georgiana Margaret Rawlinson, ‘only surviving daughter of the late Captain W.E. Rawlinson, Staff Bombay Army, and stepdaughter of Lieut.-General Griffith, Colonel-Commandant, R.A.’ (Morning Advertiser, 12 June 1865). She bore him a further six children.
In 1881 he took the additional surname Sawrey on the death of his relation John Sawrey, through whom he inherited Broughton Tower, a mediaeval manor house near the village of Broughton-in-Furness in Cumbria.
According to a lengthy biography published the Sporting Gazette (11 September 1880), ‘As a breeder of race horses and M.F.H. [Master of Fox Hounds] he has had more experience than most people, and on the violin has few, if any, superiors.’ The article provides a long and detailed account of James Cookson’s bloodstock.
James Sawrey Cookson died on 2 November 1888, leaving an estate valued at £49,139.
‘On the 2nd inst. at Broughton Tower in Furness, North Lancashire, aged 72, James Sawrey Cookson, Esq., of that place, and of Neasham hall, near Darlington. He was the eldest son of the late Lieut.-Col. James Cookson, of Neasham Hall, by Mary, daughter of David Stephenson, Esq., and a kinsman of James Sawrey, Esq., of Broughton Tower, whose name he assumed on succeeding to that property. He was a magistrate for the county of Durham, and served as high sheriff in 1871. He was known also in the sporting world as a scientific breeder of racehorses. Mr Sawrey Cookson was three times married, and has left by his first wife (Miss Sybella Frances Tyndall, of the Fort, near Bristol) a son and successor, Joseph Tyndall, who was born in 1848’ (The Queen, 10 November 1888).