University Archives
Gee (Hall-Watt) family, of Bishop Burton
The Gee family came from Rothley in Leicestershire. Henry Gee was the common ancestor of a senior branch of the family who remained in Rothley and the father of William Gee who first moved to Hull as a master mariner. William Gee (d.1612) became a Merchant of the Staple and acquired great wealth. He was sheriff of Hull in 1560 and mayor in 1562, 1573 and 1582. He was the benefactor of Hull Grammar School and founded a hospital for ten poor women. His eldest son, William Gee (b.1562), was secretary of the Council of the North and Keeper of the Signet from 1604. He purchased the Bishop Burton estate in 1603 and built a hall. Both subsequently descended in the Gee family until being bought by Richard Watt (1751-1798) in 1783. Richard Watt was a man of acquired wealth, starting life as a coach driver before joining a merchant ship bound for the West Indies. There he bought a plantation and exploited slave labour to produce rum and sugar. Some of his estate accounts for Jamaica are in the collection. When he died his estates were inherited by his nephew, Richard Watt (d.1812) and then his grandnephew, also Richard Watt (1786-1855). The latter was a horse breeder who had four winners of the St Leger. When he died the Bishop Burton estates passed to two of his sons before lying unoccupied until 1886 when they passed to Ernest Richard Bradley Hall-Watt (1865-1908). He was an early motoring enthusiast and died in a car accident. He was succeeded by his son, Richard Hall-Watt (1898-1917), who was killed during the First World War. Richard Hall-Watt was succeeded by his brother, Alvery Digby Hall-Watt (1901-1961), who sold the estate in 1930. It is now Bishop Burton Agricultural College. This is a medium-sized collection containing estate papers dating from 1194 relating to land at Bishop Burton and the immediate surrounds of Cherry Burton and Walkington though there are a few papers of the Watt family relating to their land at Speke in Lancashire and Georges Plain in Jamaica (correspondence and related accounts dated 1849-1861). For the manor of Bishop Burton there are manorial records and a seventeenth-century volume of surveys and assessments for sewers at Ottringham. For Walkington there are several papers of John Lockwood and family. [DDGE; DDGE(2); DDGE(3)]