The Chadderton Coat-of-Arms and Turton High School Badge

I had been looking at the various crosses and shields associated with the medieval knightly orders, which I'd become interested in after going to Santiago de Compostella in Spain.  I noticed a cross symbol on my old school badge (Turton High School), which I hadn't paid any attention to before.  I wondered where it had originated from.

Turton High School Badge

There are lots of types of cross used in heraldry, all with different names, but I couldn't find one which was exactly the same as it.  The nearest was called a "cross potent crossed", but this wasn't exactly the same shape.  Then I noticed this on an 1879 sketch of Turton Tower by W. Moss (note the bottom left corner):-

W. Moss 1879 Sketch

A bit more digging revealed that these are the coat of arms of Humphrey Chetham.  In 1628 he bought Turton Tower, hence the connection with Turton High School. The coat of arms can also be found engraved into the stone above the door of the Chetham Arms in Chapeltown (the old village of Turton), and in many of the rooms in Turton Tower.  The image below is taken from the Chetham Library website.

Humphrey Chetham's Coat of Arms

Humphrey Chetham was a prosperous business man in the 1600s from Crumpsall, then a little hamlet a few miles north of Manchester.  He was involved in the textile trade, and this appears to have bought him to Bolton, to purchase fustian cloth which was woven there at the time, to be sold in London and other places.

But what of his coat of arms?  Where did the cross originate from?

The Chetham Library website summarises the situation with the coat-of-arms and Humprey Chetham's entitlement to it (described in more detail in "The Foundation of Manchester", referenced at the foot of this post):-

Humphrey Chetham was a member of the Crumpsall branch of the Chetham family, who were minor gentry and were not entitled to bear arms. When he became High Sheriff in 1635, Humphrey Chetham required a coat of arms, which he secured from the Cheshire Herald and genealogist Randle Holme. Unfortunately these turned out to belong to another branch of the family, the Chethams of Nuthurst, a minor difficulty which was resolved by the payment of a small fine.

So he wasn't by inheritance entitled to a coat-of-arms, but needed, or wanted one, as he became more wealthy and influential. Possibly his appointment to the position of High Sheriff required it.  He perceived himself to be descended from the Nuthurst branch of the family, so the herald gave him one like theirs.  Too like theirs.  So they objected.  He paid them some money, and agreed to add a difference, the crescent in the centre.  From then on his branch of the family was recorded as being connected with the ancient land owning, arms bearing branch.

"Chetham, of Chetham.  Galfridus de Chetham, a man of great consequence, and several times sheriff of Lancashire, temp. Hen. III., was progenitor of the Chethams of Chetham, Nuthurst, Clayton, Castelton, Turton, Smedley, and Lonton, co. Cambr.  The pedigrees of this family are extremely confused and contradictory..."

p395, History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, by Edward Baines, 1836.

Humphrey Chetham (1580 - 1653)

So whether Humphrey was legitimately connected, or bought his way in, we know the coat-of-arms belonged the Chetham family of Nuthurst (a hamlet near to Moston, in what is now north Manchester).  The coat-of-arms is divided into quarters, the cross which I'm interested in being in the bottom left quarter.  Quartering sometimes happens in specific circumstances after the marriage of two heraldic families, so I was hoping to be able to find the originating family for this quarter.  I found it in this book:-

The arms entered at the visitation referred to disclose the fact that they [the Chetham family] all claimed descent from the Chadderton family; the crest borne alike by the three branches being a demi griffin sergeant gules, charged on the breast with the peculiar cross of the coat of Chadderton, a cross potent crossed or.  There is no pedigree of date sufficiently remote to show by direct statement the connexion of Chetham with Chadderton, that alliance having taken place probably at a date antecedent to any record now remaining in either family

 p148, A History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley, Rev. John Booker, 1854

What that means in plain English is that the Chetham family adopted a coat-of-arms which incorporated the arms of Chadderton of Nuthurst, when the two families were joined by marriage, although no records now survive of specifically when this happened, or the individuals involved.  The same book gives a coat-of-arms and a pedigree of the Chadderton family (sometimes spelled Chatterton), going back to Geoffrey Chatterton of Nuthurst.  No birth or death dates are recorded for Geoffrey, but he is four generations back from a Thomas Chatterton born in 1575, so if we estimate twenty-five years per generation, he would be born around 1475.

Chadderton of Nuthurst Coat-of-Arms

The following entry in Victoria County History shows us that the Chetham and Chadderton families had been landowners in Nuthurst and Moston since the 13th century.

Early in the 13th century the whole was in the possession of Henry de Chetham; he transferred NUTHURST to the Eccles family, who, about 1260, granted it to Geoffrey son of Richard de Trafford, Sir Geoffrey de Chetham being at that time chief lord. The recipient, also known as Geoffrey de Chadderton, had a son Geoffrey, who in 1340 granted to his sons Roger and Alexander all his lands in Moston with the homage and service of Richard de Moston, including a rent of 3s. payable by him. The lands were then divided between the brothers.  There is, however, a missing link, for as early as 1320 Alexander and Roger de Chadderton held Moston and Nuthurst of the lord of Manchester by homage and fealty and a rent of 10s.  The moieties descended to the Chetham and Chadderton families, who resided at the two halls in Nuthurst. 

Pages 264-270, Victoria County History, 1911

"The two halls in Nuthurst" referred to above are Great Nuthurst Hall and Little Nuthurst.  Nuthurst seems to have been a separate estate in the 13th century, but by the 19th century had been swallowed up by Moston.  The place name is still remembered in the local area with the road name Nuthurst Road, and Nuthurst Park.  I suspect the halls have been demolished - I cannot find them on present day maps.  I could find Little Nuthurst on a 1938 map, but Great Nuthurst appears to have gone before 1891.

1845 Map of Moston showing the Nuthurst Halls

William Chaderton, Bishop of Chester

William Chaderton was the younger son of Edmund & Margaret Chadderton of Nuthurst, and was born at Nuthurst in 1580.  He became the Warden of Manchester Collegiate Church (now the cathedral), Bishop of Chester and finally Bishop of Lincoln. As Bishop he used the Cross Potent as part of his Arms (not a "Cross potent Crossed" as in the Chadderton of Nuthurst Coat-of-Arms illustrated above).

William Chaderton, Bishop of Chester

The Secretary of the Chadderton Historical Society pointed out to me that Chester Diocese was formed at the Reformation out of Litchfield, and that the latter See was founded by St. Chad, and used the Cross Potent in its Arms.

Coat of Arms of the Diocese of Lichfield

Whether the Chadderton of Nuthurst's usage of the Cross-potent predated William Chaderton's coat-of-arms as Bishop of Chester, I am unable to determine at this point.  It could be that this similarity is entirely unconnected and coincidental.

Chadderton Urban District Council

Chadderton History Society also provided some information about the arms of Chadderton Urban District Council:

When the Chadderton Urban District Council was formed in 1894, an unofficial coat-of-arms was adopted whose origins are still shrouded in mystery. Basically, the shield had a Gold Cross Potent on it to divide it into four quarters. In each of these were symbols of local industries. Our Society has always believed that whoever came up with the design had adopted the Cross Potent directly from the Arms of Bishop Chadderton. These unofficial Arms did not conform to true heraldic principles and when the Council were granted official Arms in 1955, the College of Heralds in London did not include any Cross Potent in their design but two Red Griffins, and also other symbols representative of later manorial families of our town.

Chadderton Urban District Council Coat of Arms 1894 - 1955

References

1. Chetham Library Blog "The Chetham coat of arms", 2013 
2. Wikipedia: Humphrey Chetham
3. Wikipedia: Crosses in Heraldry
4. Turton Tower Drawing, Bolton Archives, 1879
5. Baines' History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, 1836
6. The Foundation of Manchester, Thomas Agnew, 1848
7. A History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley, Rev. John Booker, 1854
8. VCH: Moston - A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4, 1911
9. Archaeological Assessment of Moston Hall, Manchester City Council, 2003
10. The Armorial Bearings of the Bishops of Chester
11. Oldham Evening Chronicle, CUDC, 6th Jan 2016