University Archives
Bosville-Macdonald family of Gunthwaite, Thorpe and Skye
Martin de Bosville came from Normandy in the eleventh century. His descendants had property in Yorkshire and Kent. In the fifteenth century, John Bosville married first Mary Drax and their eldest son, William Bosville, inherited Ardsley and a Hall in Darfield. By his second wife, Isabel Dronsfield, he had Richard Bosville, who became head of the Gunthwaite branch of the family. Richard Bosville married Jane Neville and had seven children. He died in 1501. Despite owning Gunthwaite he and his heir, John Bosville, lived much of the time at Beighton where they farmed the estate of Lord Dacre. His grandson, Godfrey Macdonald (1519-), married Jane Hardwick (sister of 'Bess') of county Derby and settled at Gunthwaite. His brother, Ralph Bosville, became clerk of the court of wards and started the branch of the family living at Bradborne in Kent. His heirs inherited the Yorkshire estates when Godfrey and Jane Bosville's son died without issue. His son, Godfrey Bosville (1596-1658), was a member of the Long Parliament and became a colonel in the parliamentary army. He was succeeded to the Gunthwaite estates by William Bosville (1620-1662) and Godfrey Bosville (1654-1714), who married Bridget Hotham, was a JP and High Sheriff of Yorkshire and who expanded and improved the estates. They left no children and the estates passed to the heirs of Godfrey's brother. Godfrey Bosville (1717-1784) married Diana Wentworth. They had a wide circle of friends including James Boswell. They were very wealthy, owning a house and estate in Staffordshire, Thorpe Hall and Gunthwaite in East Yorkshire and a house in Great Russell Street. Their son, William Bosville (d.1813), was schooled at Harrow and entered the Coldstream Guards in 1761. He did not involve himself in his Yorkshire estates and when he died they passed to Godfrey Macdonald (1775-1832), the second son of his sister, Elizabeth Diana Bosville and her husband Alexander Macdonald (d.1795), the first Macdonald to hold the Irish barony of Sleat (Isle of Skye). Godfrey Macdonald changed his name to Bosville and he became 3rd Lord Macdonald on the death of his older brother. In 1799 he met and fell in love with Louisa Maria Edsir, the illegitimate daughter of the duke of Gloucester (brother of George III) and Lady Almeria Carpenter. The couple eloped and married by 'mutual consent' under Scottish law; their eldest son, Alexander William Robert Macdonald (1800-1847), was born outside official English wedlock. He inherited the Thorpe and Gunthwaite estates in Yorkshire but, as he was technically illegitimate, he did not succeed as 4th baron of Sleat and the title fell to his younger brother who had been born after an 1803 church ceremony. In 1910 Alexander Macdonald Bosville's grandson, Alexander Wenworth Macdonald Bosville (b.1847) reclaimed the Scottish title and retrospectively became 14th baronet and 21st chief of Sleat. This unseated his cousin as 6th Lord Macdonald of the Isles and in 1911 Alexander Wentworth Macdonald Bosville travelled to Skye to take up residence at the seat of his forbears who could trace their ancestry back to Hugh Macdonald, Lord of the Isles in the mid-fifteenth century. He also assumed the surname Macdonald thus becoming Alexander Wentworth Macdonald Bosville-Macdonald. His descendants still own Thorpe Hall near Rudston. The papers which number some 1400 items, contain medieval title deeds and manorial records. There are estate papers especially for Burton Fleming, Gunthwaite, Midhope, Penistone, Thorpe and Rudstone. There are papers for the Kent branch of the family and Scottish papers of the Macdonald family. Family correspondence includes some letters of the Pershall and Hassell families who were related by marriage. Miscellaneous material includes an illuminated certificate by the antiquarian and historian, William Camden, and a 1916 tree showing the descent of the families of Macdonald of Sleat and the Isles and the 1914 motoring diary of Godfrey Macdonald (d.1951). [DDBM; DDBM(2); DDBM(3); DDBM(4)]