Bishop Burton - The Gee Family of Bishop Burton

The Gee Family of Bishop Burton

The Gee family were associated with Arthur Pearson-Gee, the brother of Karl Pearson.

The Gees came from Rothley in Leicestershire.

• Henry Gee was the common ancestor of a senior branch of the family who remained in Rothley and the father of William Gee who first moved to Hull as a master mariner.
• William Gee (d.1612) became a Merchant of the Staple and acquired great wealth. He was sheriff of Hull in 1560 and mayor in 1562, 1573 and 1582. He was the benefactor of Hull Grammar School and founded a hospital for ten poor women.
• His eldest son, William Gee (b.1562), was secretary of the Council of the North and Keeper of the Signet from 1604. He purchased the Bishop Burton estate in 1603 and built a hall.
• The estate and hall both subsequently descended in the Gee family until being bought by Richard Watt (1751–1798) in 1783. Richard Watt was a man of acquired wealth, starting life as a coach driver before joining a merchant ship bound for the West Indies. There he bought a plantation and exploited slave labour to produce rum and sugar. Some of his estate accounts for Jamaica are in the collection.
• When Richard Watt (d.1798) died his estates were inherited by his nephew, Richard Watt (d.1812) and then his grandnephew, also Richard Watt (1786–1855). The latter was a horse breeder who had four winners of the St Leger.
• When Richard Watt died in 1855, the estates passed to two of his sons before lying unoccupied until 1886 when they passed to Ernest Richard Bradley Hall-Watt (1865–1908). He was an early motoring enthusiast and died in a car accident.
• He was succeeded by his son, Richard Hall-Watt (1898–1917), who was killed during the First World War.
• Richard Hall-Watt was succeeded by his brother, Alvery Digby Hall-Watt (1901–1961), who sold the estate in 1930. It is now Bishop Burton Agricultural College.

Monument to Rachel and Elizabeth Gee

This alabaster monument was found in an old vault under the floor of the chancel in 1865 and restored to its position in the church. It is to Rachel, wife of William Gee Esq. of the Bishop Burton Estate.

Rachel was the daughter of Thomas Parker of Ratton, and she died in 1649 aged 33. William Gee Esq. (d 1683) was the grandson of Sir William Gee of Bishop Burton (d.1611), secretary to James I (r.1603-25). Sir William, then of Beverley, bought the estate after it was surrendered to the crown in 1543, being part of the Archbishop of York's estate.

The memorial now consists of the shrouded figure of Rachel, full length with her face, one arm and hand exposed, and the small figure of a child which kneels at her head. These two items are thought to have been part of a larger monument, which has probably been destroyed.

The family archives contain

• estate papers dating from 1194 relating to land at Bishop Burton and the immediate surrounds of Cherry Burton and Walkington
• a few papers of the Watt family relating to their land at Speke in Lancashire and Georges Plain in Jamaica (1849–1861)
• manorial records for the manor of Bishop Burton
• a seventeenth-century volume of surveys and assessments for sewers at Ottringham
• papers for Walkington of John Lockwood and family.