The Bootle-Wibraham Family
At the Lathom Park Chapel Summer Garden Party this last week there was a brief account given of the burials in the Bootle-Wilbraham family Vault adjacent to the South side of the Chapel.
The Bootle-Wilbraham family derive from the marriage of heiress Mary Bootle of Lathom Park and Richard Wilbraham of Rode Hall in Cheshire. Under the terms of her Uncle Sir Thomas Bootle’s will, when she married, it was ordered that she had to retain the surname Bootle, the couple therefore became Richard and Mary Wilbraham-Bootle.
They had many children, mostly daughters, who married into many landed or titled families, they only had two sons who grew to adulthood, Randle Wilbraham, who went on to inherit Rode Hall and the eldest surviving son, Edward, who inherited the Lathom Estate.
Edward Wilbraham-Bootle married Mary Elizabeth Taylor of Biffrons in Kent. Her brother Edward Taylor, a frequent visitor to Lathom, was the first love of Jane Austin.
Edward Wilbraham-Bootle changed his surname by deed pole around 1818 and as Edward Bootle-Wilbraham of Lathom House was created Baron Skelmersdale of Skelmersdale in 1828 under British Prime Minister Field Marshall His Grace The Duke of Wellington KG GCB. At the time Lord Skelmersdale had retired as a MP after being a Tory MP for 33 years representing over that time Westbury, Wiltshire; Newcastle Under Lyme; Clitheroe and finally Dover.
Edward and Mary Elizabeth, had four children, 1) Mary Charlotte, born 1800, died 1868 at Southport 2) Richard, born 27th October 1801 at Lathom House, he was the MP for South West Lancashire; 3) Emma Caroline born 1805 who married Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, who became the 14th Earl of Derby and served 3 terms as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 4) Lt Col Edward Bootle-Wilbraham (born Lathom House 1808), died at Blythe1882 2nd son of the 1st Lord Skelmersdale, Uncle to the 1st Lord Lathom, married Emily Ramsbottom (b Clewes, Berkshire 1816,) who died Balcarres House 1899, both were buried in the Lathom Vault.
Lord and Lady Skelmersdale were buried in the Skelmersdale Chapel, when their grandson had the new family vault built at Lathom Chapel in 1880, they were re-interred there and their original memorial tablets from inside the Skelmersdale Chapel were also re-sited at the back of the Lathom Park Chapel, now under the organ gallery.
Their eldest son Richard pre-deceased his father in 1844 and he was also buried at Skelmersdale Chapel but he too was re-interred in the new family vault after 1880.
Richard Bootle-Wilbraham had married Jessy Brooke of Norton Priory They had one son, Edward and four daughters; Adela Mary (b. 1834) who died at Blythe, Lathom in April 1881 aged 46 and is buried in the Lathom Vault; Jessy Caroline (b. 1836) married John Bateman at Ormskirk and Died Brightlingsea, Tendring District, Essex, in 1925; Edith (b. 1840) married Ynyr Burges and died at Parkanaur Castle, Tyrone, Ireland in 1894 , and Rose (b. 1842) who died at Blythe, Lathom in 1918 aged 76 and is buried in the Lathom Vault..
Richard’s older sister Mary Charlotte who had died in 1868, was also re-interred in the new Lathom Vault.
The Hon. Jessy Bootle-Wilbraham, widow of Richard and mother if Edward, Lord Lathom, died at Blythe in July 1892 aged 79 and is buried in the Lathom Vault alongside her late husband.
Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, son of Richard and Jessy and grandson of the 1st lord Skelmersdale, married Lady Alice Cecil Villiers in 1861 as Lord Skelmersdale. The new Lord and Lady Skelmersdale had 7 children, three boys and five girls.
They lost their second daughter, Constance Adela, born July 1862, in November 1864, little Constance was buried at the Skelmersdale Chapel but was re-interred in the family vault when her grandfather and great grandparents were re-interred.
Copyright Dot Broady Hawkes, this article appeared in the Ormskirk Advertiser 24th July 2025