Middleton Family - Background

Background

Further information: Ancestry chart

Middleton is a habitational surname originating from numerous different places in England and in southern Scotland. There are over 30 places similarly named which are derived from the Old English elements: midel + tūn ("middle" + "enclosure", "settlement"); although some other places have different origins and derived from other elements, such as: micel ("large", "great"), or *(ge)mȳthel ("confluence"). Early recorded instances of the surname are: de Mideltone in 1166, within the Eynsham Cartulary; de Midilton in 1221, within a charter to the Abbey of Arbroath; and de Midelton in 1327, within the Subsidy Rolls of Sussex.

Michael Middleton's family line came from Leeds: his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were all solicitors in that part of England. Michael's father Peter, was an Oxford educated pilot. His paternal relations, such as the Lupton family, were active in commercial and municipal work in Leeds for several generations. Michael Middleton's family tree includes his great granduncle Sir Charles Lupton and Lady Bullock (nee Barbara Lupton), the 2nd cousin of his grandmother Olive Middleton (nee Lupton).

The Rev. Thomas Davis, a Church of England hymn-writer is also Kate's paternal ancestor.

William Addams Reitwiesner discovered that Catherine is most likely distantly descended from Sir Thomas Fairfax (c.1475-1520) and his wife Agnes Gascoine, an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, thus it is possible that Catherine and Prince William could be fifteenth cousins. This link is possibly via Michael Middleton's grandmother, Olive Lupton, daughter of Leeds cloth merchant Francis Lupton and his wife Harriet (née Davis).

The paternal Goldsmith family of Carole Middleton came from London. Carole's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working-class labourers and miners from Sunderland and County Durham two generations before.

Michael and Carole Middleton

Michael Francis Middleton was born in Leeds in 1949, and was the son of a pilot instructor / aviator. His grandfather Noel Middleton was a solicitor. Michael Middleton was educated, like his father and grandfather at Clifton College. At Clifton, all three Middleton men boarded at Brown House. Carole Elizabeth Middleton (née Goldsmith) was born on 31 January 1955 at Perivale Maternity Hospital in Ealing. The daughter of a builder, Ronald Goldsmith (1931–2003), and his wife, Dorothy Harrison (1935–2006), she was raised in a council flat in Southall, and attended the local state school.

The couple met when they both worked for British Airways; Carole as a stewardess, Michael as an officer. In 1979, Michael Middleton was promoted within BA and became a flight dispatcher at London Heathrow Airport, where he kept track of the airline's fleet on the ground. The couple were married on 21 June 1980, at the parish church of St James in Dorney, Buckinghamshire. They bought a semi-detached Victorian house in Bradfield Southend near Reading, Berkshire.

The couple have three children (two daughters and one son). Following the birth of their daughters Catherine Elizabeth (born 1982) and Philippa Charlotte (born 1983), the family briefly moved to Amman, Jordan where Michael Middleton worked from 1984 to 1987.

Their third and youngest child, a son named James William, was born in 1987. In 1987, when Kate and Philippa were at a pre-school at St Andrew's School, Pangbourne, Carole Middleton set up 'Party Pieces', a company which began by making party bags and which now sells party supplies and decorations by mail order. By 1995, the firm was being run by both parents and was moved into a range of farm buildings at Ashampstead Common. The family moved into a larger five-bedroomed house in Bucklebury, Berkshire. The business was successful, and over the space of a few years the Middletons are reported to have become very wealthy. As a result, the Middletons sent both of their daughters to the independent Downe House, a girls' boarding school in Cold Ash, and finally the public school Marlborough College, Wiltshire.

Shortly before his elder daughter's royal marriage, Michael Middleton was granted a coat of arms. This features three acorn sprigs, one for each of his children. The oak represents "England and strength" as well as the family's home district of West Berkshire. The white chevronels symbolise peaks and mountains, said to represent the family's love of the Lake District and skiing, and the gold chevron represents Carole Middleton's maiden name of Goldsmith.