Middleton family

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Middleton
armigerous head of the family[1]
Current regionBucklebury, West Berkshire, England
Earlier spellings
  • Middeltone
  • Mideltuna
  • Middeltune
Place of originUnited Kingdom
Members
Connected families
Estate(s)Bucklebury Manor

The Middleton family is an English family that has been related to the

Prince William in April 2011, when she became the Duchess of Cambridge. The couple have three children: George, Charlotte and Louis. Tracing their origins back to the Tudor era,[2] the Middleton family of Yorkshire of the late 18th century were recorded as owning property of the Rectory Manor of Wakefield with the land passing down to solicitor William Middleton who established the family law firm in Leeds which spanned five generations.[3][4] Some members of the firm inherited woollen mills after the First World War.[5][6] By the turn of the 20th century, the Middleton family had married into the British nobility and, by the 1920s, the family were playing host to the British royal family.[7][8]

History

Hawkhills Estate, Middleton family seat (Gledhow Lake, near Leeds)

By the late Georgian era, the Middleton family were established in the West Riding of Yorkshire as cultural and civic figures, particularly in the legal profession. The law firm Messrs Middleton & Sons was founded in Leeds in 1834 by gentleman farmer and solicitor William Middleton, Esq. (1807–1884) of Gledhow Grange-Hawkhills Estate. One of his sons, solicitor Arthur Middleton (1846–1907),[9] inherited Hawkhills from his father.[10][11][12][13][14]

William Middleton's descendants include his grandson (Richard) Noël Middleton (1878–1951), a solicitor, director of the family woollen manufacturing firm and co-founder of the

Carole Goldsmith in 1980 and subsequently relocated to Berkshire.[20] The couple founded a mail-order supply company, Party Pieces, in 1987, but sold it in May 2023 after it fell into administration.[21] The company was at one point estimated to be worth £30 million,[22][23] but by the time it collapsed it owed £2.6 million to creditors, including £612,685 owed to HM Revenue and Customs, £218,749 owed to Royal Bank of Scotland for a Coronavirus Business Interruption loan, and £20,430 to an Afghan refugee whose small business was a supplier of helium gas.[24][25][26] The company's administrator's report stated that unsecured creditors were unlikely to be paid.[27]

The couple's children are: Catherine Elizabeth, Princess of Wales, socialite and columnist Philippa Charlotte Matthews and businessman James William Middleton.[28] The Middletons purchased Bucklebury Manor in 2012.[29]

Aristocratic ties

Coronation of George V[30]

Robert Lacey describes the Middleton family as having aristocratic kinship.[31] The Middletons were "friends of British royalty" to whom, in their civic capacity, they "played host as long ago as 1926".[32][33][34][35] The great-grandfather of Catherine, Princess of Wales, Noël Middleton, and his elder brother, photographer[36] and civil engineer[37] Captain William Middleton (1874–1940)[38] reportedly wed their fiancées in Leeds at Mill Hill Chapel in the years before the First World War. Mrs William Middleton (née Agnes Clara Talbot) was the niece of Sir James Kitson, 1st Baronet (later 1st Baron Airedale),[39][40][41] who led the chapel's congregation at this time,[42] while Mrs Noël Middleton (née Olive Christiana Lupton)[43] was the first cousin-once-removed of Baroness von Schunck (née Kate Lupton),[44] and the second cousin of Baroness Airedale (née Florence von Schunck) and of Lady Bullock (née Barbara Lupton).[45][46][47][48][30]

Two of the grandchildren of William Middleton (1807–1884) were solicitor Henry Dubs Middleton (1880–1932), a Charterhouse alumnus, and Gertrude Middleton (1876–1942), educated at St Leonards School,[49][50] who were both students at the University of Oxford between 1899 and 1903; Gertrude, the "wealthy"[51][52] sister of Noël Middleton, studied at St Anne's College while her cousin studied law at University College.[53][14][54][55] Henry served as Chairman of Leeds General Infirmary where he played host to Princess Mary in 1932.[56] He was married to golfer Jane Middleton (née Berney) (1878–1964),[57] a daughter of Sir Henry Hanson Berney, 9th Baronet.[58][59] Their sons were Ralph Middleton (1908–1990), who was, like their father, a solicitor who later headed the family law firm, and cricketer Cecil Middleton (1911–1984).They were educated at Charterhouse and University College, Oxford.[60][61]

Family law and woollen manufacturing firms

Eton Match [63]

Many relatives of Michael Middleton (father of the Princess of Wales) were solicitors in the Leeds-based family firm, Messrs Middleton & Sons. His grandfather Noël Middleton, great-grandfather John William Middleton, Esq. (1839–1887),[64]and great-great-grandfather William Middleton, Esq., as well as many other Middleton relatives, were all solicitors at the law firm which William had established in 1834.[14][65]

William Middleton's great-grandson John Alfred Middleton (later Middleton-Joy, 1895–1975)

Eton Match.[70] He studied at Christ Church, Oxford where he gained a legal qualification (Jurisprudence).[71][72] He married Dorothea, daughter of Judge Thomas D. Beighton.[73] Middleton and his wife were members of Ascot Heath.[74] Reportedly one of "the keenest women in Leeds on horse-racing matters", Mrs John Alfred Middleton-Joy and her husband dined alongside fellow racing enthusiasts Princess Mary and her husband, the Earl of Harewood, at a Tangiers hotel in February 1934.[75]

John Middleton-Joy's elder brother, solicitor Alan Lomas Middleton (1893–1970)

Noël Middleton was a director of William Lupton & Co., the Leeds textile manufacturing firm his wife, Olive, had inherited in 1921.[82][83][84][85] His two elder sons, Christopher Maurice Middleton (later Lupton)—an alumnus of Cambridge University's Emmanuel College[86]—and Anthony John Middleton, worked at the family's manufacturing firm.[87]

Described by Tina Brown as being at the "top level of the legal profession in Leeds",[88] Middleton & Co. existed for over 150 years, closing in 1985.[12][13][14]

Michael Middleton's niece, Lucy Middleton, is a London-based solicitor and a godparent of Prince Louis.[89][90]

Parents of Michael Middleton

Michael Middleton's father was commercial pilot and RAF officer Captain Peter Francis Middleton (1920–2010).[19][91]

His boyhood in Leeds saw Peter Middleton share a

OBE (1921–2006) and Arthur Ralph Ransome Lupton (1924–2009), both nephews of Arthur Ransome.[92]

As all three of Middleton's maternal uncles died in the First World War, the family estate, Beechwood, was inherited by his grandfather's younger brother, Arthur Greenhow Lupton (1850–1930), and later controlled by his spinster daughters, Dr Elinor Gertrude Lupton (1886–1979), a Lady Mayoress of Leeds, and Elizabeth Lupton (1888–1977). Francis Lupton's 2001 book, The Next Generation: A Sequel to The Lupton Family in Leeds by C.A. Lupton contains Middleton's memoirs in which he recalls the "even greater ordeal of the annual Beechwood Party, for which I still remember the horrors of trying to tie a black bow tie for my first dinner jacket. Nor will I forget my terror of Lady Bryce", the aunt of his mother's first cousins, sisters Elinor and Elizabeth. Middleton wrote that he was "somewhat in awe" of his unmarried cousins who shared a love of animal husbandry with their friend Princess Mary.[93][94][95] The two sisters also shared great-grandparents with Beatrix Potter.[96]

Middleton boarded at Clifton College[97] and then studied English at New College, Oxford.[98] After leaving in 1940 he served as a RAF fighter pilot during the Second World War. Commissioned as a pilot officer (on probation) in the RAFVR on 9 March 1941,[99] Middleton was confirmed in his rank and promoted to flying officer (war-substantive) on 9 March 1942.[100] In May 1942, he was posted to No 37 Service Flying School in Calgary, Canada where he spent two-and-a-half years as an instructor, training Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster pilots. On 9 March 1943, he received a promotion to flight lieutenant (war-substantive).[101] After joining the reservist 605 Squadron at Manston, near Ramsgate in Kent, in August 1944, Middleton flew a de Havilland Mosquito fighter bomber, nudging the wings of unmanned German V1 flying aircraft to divert them from hitting London. After the war, Middleton joined British European Airways as a pilot, but remained in the reconstituted RAFVR, receiving a reserve commission as a flying officer on 12 August 1949.[102] Promoted to flight lieutenant on 1 March 1951,[103] he relinquished his reserve commission on 12 August 1959.[104]

On a two-month tour of South America in 1962, Prince Philip piloted 49 of the tour's 62 flights with Peter Middleton as his co-pilot, to whom he sent a letter of thanks and a pair of gold cufflinks. British Pathé newsreel captured the two men during the tour.[105] Middleton met his granddaughter's fiancé, Prince William, on his 90th birthday and William attended his funeral in November 2010.[105][106][107]

A memorial at Bletchley Park commemorates Valerie Middleton's work there as a code-breaker

Michael's mother, Valerie (née Glassborow, 1924–2006) was the daughter of bank manager Frederick Glassborow and his wife, Constance (née Robinson). She and her twin sister Mary were born in Marseille and grew up in France. They were bilingual. Valerie attended an English boarding school and later studied at a private secretarial college.[108][109] Valerie Middleton served as a VAD nurse during the Second World War and in August 2020, in commemoration of the British Red Cross, her granddaughter, Catherine, Princess of Wales, shared a "personal family photo" of her grandmother wearing her British Red Cross uniform.[110][111]

Valerie Middleton also worked at the Government Code and Cypher School in Bletchley Park where a memorial commemorates her work as a code-breaker.[15][112][113][114] Her colleague and friend, Lady Body (née Marion Graham), recalled in 2014 that she had shared a "rather special moment" with Valerie: "Our superior officer, Commander Williams, came into the room smiling and he said, 'Well done, girls. A signal has been intercepted from Tokyo to Geneva and it's the signal that the Japanese are surrendering'. He told us that a message has gone to the King and the Prime Minister but that it could not be announced until Geneva has sent on the message to London".[115]

Grandparents of Michael Middleton