Bio Notes

Whilst the story of the McCulloch Hartnell & Co business is related on our associated website durnesstocalifornia.blogspot.com there are some details of William Hartnell's history which are not mentioned there and indeed have not been mentioned in any other writings about his life as they are very recent (2020) discoveries.

William was baptised William Petty Hartnell on the 27 May 1798 in the parish of Cartmel, Lancashire to George Hartnell and Hannah Petty who lived in the small village of Backbarrow where George worked as the head clerk for a local business. George died on the 12th January 1807 and is buried at the church of St Peter, Finsthwaite. The following notice appeared in the Lancaster Gazette of 31 January 1807:

George had been born in Clerkenwell, London in 1761 to Nathaniel Hartnell, a grocer, and his wife Rebecca Garrett. In 1776 George was apprenticed to Thomas Higgins of the Grocers' Company who was a business partner of Rebecca's brother Thomas. After George and Hannah Petty were married they moved to the town of Kendal in Cumbria where Hannah's family lived and then later moved to the village of Backbarrow.

William Hartnell's mother Hannah Petty was the daughter of William Petty who was twice the Mayor of the town of Kendal but died during his second term of office in 1793 as shown in the following transcription of  a memorial inside Kendal Parish Church:

William Petty was an innkeeper and property landlord, owning several inns and other properties. His eldest son John, William Hartnell's uncle, who inherited the business on his father's death, was declared bankrupt in 1806 with the subsequent auction sales of the inns and properties amounting to 11 lots, some of which included multiple properties. John Petty died in Lambeth, London in 1829 and his will was witnessed by Nathaniel and Mary, William Hartnell's brother and sister.

William Petty's wife, William Hartnell's grandmother, was Mary Janson who was the daughter of John Janson, an innkeeper and carrier in Ulverston, a small town in Cumbria where he was landlord of the Fleece Inn. John Janson is believed to be the son, born 1704, of Zachariah Janson of the hamlet of Newland near Ulverston, which would mean that Zachariah was William Hartnell's Great Great Grandfather.

John Janson in his will of 1777 left his estate in trust to his wife, Hannah, and thereafter in trust to his daughter Hannah Janson and his son-in-law William Petty. A number of fields near Ulverston were also bequeathed to them and subsequently in 1796 Hannah Janson transferred her half-share in these fields to her nephew John Petty, the consideration being described as "natural love and affection for her nephew and 5 shillings".

William Hartnell's younger brother, Nathaniel, was an artist of some note, and a Google search will reveal some interesting paintings and engravings credited to him with one, The Picnic, selling for £17,500 after a Sotheby's auction in 2001. Nathaniel married his cousin Mary Petty, daughter of the above John Petty, in 1836.

Susanna Bryant Dakin in her biography of William Hartnell refers to his uncle who bequeathed him two hundred pounds. This was Thomas Hartnell who passed away at the age of 68 in Lincoln in 1827 and is buried in the St.Peter in Eastgate cemetery. Like his brother George, Thomas had also been apprenticed, in his case as grocer to William Heathfield of the Grocers' Company, another business partner of his uncle Thomas Garrett, in 1774.

George and Thomas also had a sister Anne, born in 1765, who passed away in 1791 and is buried in St. James churchyard, Clerkenwell where their father Nathaniel, William Hartnell's grandfather, is also buried. It is Anne's last will and testament that has given us the solid proof of William Hartnell's ancestry, linking Clerkenwell where she wished to be buried alongside her father with Kendal in Cumbria where the beneficiaries of her will, her brother George and niece Mary (William Hartnell's sister), were living.