Thomas Briggs of Knockmore

McCall, as far as I know, never addresses the family background of George Briggs of Knockmore. On the registration of George’s remarriage in 1854 his father is named as Thomas Briggs. Another recycled story, of schooldays and Alexander Turney Stewart the American ex-Lisburn millionaire, is relevant:

In his seventh year the lad was sent to a village school — and there are old people in that neighborhood who well recollect having seen the thoughtful-looking boy passing along the road that led from his grandfather's house to the wayside seminary, conning his lessons in Manson's spelling-book.

- Belfast News-letter, 15 July 1876.

There is at present living at Causeway End GEORGE BRIGGS, grain inspector of the Lisburn market, who, though far up in years, is sturdy as if age sat lightly on him. This man was at school with A. T. STEWART in 1811, and recollects perfectly many incidents connected with the latter’s boyhood.

– Northern Whig, 20 November 1882.

There is still living in the neighbourhood of Lisburn an old man named GEORGE BRIGGS, who, in 1810, was at the wayside school and stumbled over the three syllables in “Manson’s Spelling Book” with the future CROESUS.

– Northern Whig, 22 April 1887.

Stewart was born in October 1803, and the boys are said here to be schoolfellows in 1810/11, so George must be born some years before 1810. His age at death in 1891 is given as 81, and his obituary says “near on ninety years”; 1803/4 will not be far out. This excludes George Briggs born to Thomas and Bridget Briggs in Magherabeg, Dromore parish, in 1812.

The phrases waving an Orange handkerchief (1863) and I am a loyal man myself, and an Orangeman (1866) suggest a look at another Thomas Briggs. The Belfast Weekly News of 10 July 1875 reports a talk by John Verner Hart, who says Thomas Briggs was "keeper of the tollgate on the road leading to the farmhouses on the Downshire and Hertford estates"; and "particularly useful in spreading the system [of Orange Lodges] rapidly and widely"; and at his death working for Belfast Corporation as "collector of the tolls for the old fruit market". Hart was the son of Thomas's Orange colleague William Hart, taking his middle name from the Verner family whose descendants included Edward Wingfield Verner of the Lisburn elections.

One Thomas Briggs, "in May's Market, in the execution of his duty", somehow assaulted the Treasurer of the Fever Hospital and paid 5 shillings amends (Northern Whig, 15 August 1837). It is plausible but not proven that this is George’s father, dying at age 80 at his residence in Knockmore (Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 15 Jan 1854; this obituary makes a point of his ’98 Loyalism). The Tithe Applotments c. 1834 show Thomas Briggs and Ralph Briggs in Knockmore.

Acknowledgements

I thank Brenda Collins and Daniel Starza Smith for considering these stories even though we found few or no 17th-century Briggs sufficiently distinguished and firmly evidenced; Ciaran Toal and James Frazer of the Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum; Sinead Reilly of Fermanagh & Omagh Museum Services who checked their Dundas records but found no Dubourdieu material; the staff of Warwick County Record Office and the National Archives, Kew; and Robin Briggs and my colleagues in the North of Ireland Family History Society.

References

[1] Hugh McCall, The Cotton Famine of 1862-’63, (William Mullan, Belfast and London, 1881); Ireland and her staple manufacturers (1855, 1865, 1870).