Duchess of Cleveland

Owners: 1836 Sir William Chator & Co, Stockton-on-Tees; 1841 (purchased for £2,400) General Shipping Co (William Watson; Robert Elstob Hutton, Hartlepool & James Saville, Sunderland) Hartlepool; 30 May 1844 (purchased for  £960) John Halliday (butcher) South Shields; 1845 William Watson, Robert Elstob Hutton, Hartlepool & Mary Ward, Wolviston, Hartlepool.

Masters: 1837 J Webster; 1841 Reynoldson; 1843-44 C Hill; 1844-50 George Storrow.

Voyages: 1843-45 Hartlepool coaster

The Company was formed in 1836 with a capital of £16,074. The capital later increased to £30,000 in shares of £25.00 each.

The trustees were: Sir William Chaytor; Rowland Webster; William Vollum; John Burrell; Thomas Wood and George Appleby.

The committee members were; Rowland Webster; Robert Scurfield; William Vollum; John Burrell; Robert Burrell; John Wood; Thomas Wood; Joseph Wood; John Stephenson; Joseph Parkin; Thomas Richardson; Joseph Billsborrow; William T. Vollum; William Davison and Stephen Robinson.

Shareholders included; William Watson (master mariner, died 1850 at South Shields); James Saville of Sunderland and Robert Elstob Hutton (master mariner).

Family History of Hartlepool Shareholder:

Robert Elstob Hutton was born on 29th November 1804 at Bishopwearmouth to parents Ann Duncan/Donkin (nee Elstob) and Robert Hutton. He married Catherine Elstob on 27^th December 1828 at Bishopwearmouth. By 1851 the couple were living at Cliff Terrace, Hartlepool with their two daughters and five sons.

Robert went to sea as an apprentice in January 1820 and from 1827 sailed on four Sunderland ships as master (C.N. 42414). He retired from the sea in December 1840 and in 1841 joined the General Shipping Company as a shareholder. When the company folded in 1844 Robert continued to own shares in ships.

 Robert died at Hartlepool aged 53 on 30^th April 1858 leaving effects of under £3,000. He was interred at Spion Kop Cemetery.

In March of 1844 it was decided that the company should be dissolved and this took place in April 1844 with the following fleet  put up for sale by auction.

Fleet List (giving life of vessel):

Athelstan 1834-1878

Barbara 1817-1845

Duchess of Cleveland 1836-1850

Elliots 1832-1850

Messenger 1835-1853

Rhoda 1828-1851

Thornley 1835-1870

Robert E. Hutton owned and had shares in Hartlepool registered ships and in one Hartlepool built ship, the Acacia.

Other shareholders were: John Elstob Hutton; George Denton; George Wilkinson; John Wilkinson; John Punshon Denton; William and John Watson; William Wilson; William Lisle; John and Robert Lawn; William, Thomas Bell, Errington Bell and Robert Ord (Sunderland); Thomas Wilson Elstob (Camberwell); William Hodgson Elstob Cmberwell); Eli Kay (South Shields); Bostock Toller Whinney (South Shields); John Wilkinson (Craythorne, York); Elizabeth Hutton Wilkinson (Craythorne, York); William Marsingale Wikinson (Manchester); James Saville (Sunderland); John Halliday (butcher, Shields); Mary Ward (Wolviston.

Family History:

Robert Elstob Hutton was born on 29th November 1804 at Bishopwearmouth to parents Ann Donkin (nee Elstob) and Robert Hutton. He married Catherine Elstob on 27^th December 1828 at Bishopwearmouth. The couple had eleven children. By 1851 the couple were living at Cliff Terrace, Hartlepool with their two daughters and five sons.

Robert went to sea as an apprentice in January 1820 and from 1827 sailed on four Sunderland ships as master (C.N. 42414). He retired from the sea in December 1840 and in 1841 joined the General Shipping Company as a shareholder. When the company folded in 1844 Robert continued to own shares in ships.

 Robert died at Hartlepool aged 53 on 30^th April 1858 leaving effects of under £3,000. He was interred at Spion Kop Cemetery.

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John Elstob Hutton was born in November 1834 at Bishopwearmouth to parents Catherine (nee Elstob) and Robert Elstob Hutton.  He became an insurance agent and was in partnership with Robinson Thomas as shipbrokers and commission agents in West Hartlepool. The partnership became bankrupt and was dissolved on 6^th March 1857.

Shields Daily Gazette – Friday 30 November 1866:

ALLEGED DEFALCATIONS BY A HARTLEPOOL MARINE INSURANCE SECRETARY. Some excitement has been created at Hartlepool during the past few days in consequence of the disappearance of Mr. John Elstob Hutton, secretary to the North Star and Mutual Marine Insurance Clubs, whose offices are on the Town Wall, Hartlepool. Mr. Hutton is a young man, about thirty years of age, and has been secretary to these clubs for about seven years, having succeeded his deceased father, Mr. Robert E. Hutton. The family are highly respectable, and with good connections, and were formerly resident at Sunderland. Besides being secretary to the clubs, Mr. Hutton held the office of pilot-master to the port, at a salary of £30 per annum, and was also Vice-Consul for Portugal. For some time past some irregularities in the cash account have been suspected; and on Saturday last the chairman of the committee received a note from Mr. Hutton, stating that for certain reasons explained, he had been obliged to abscond. Whither he has betaken himself is not known, but it is presumed he has gone abroad. The accounts of the companies are undergoing investigation, and various sums of money ore alleged to have been misappropriated; but the loose and irregular manner in which Mr. Hutton is stated to have kept the books and accounts, precludes the possibility of the committee ascertaining the extent of the deficiency. From what has already transpired there is no doubt that the deficiency is serious. Previous to his absconding he had got some cheques cashed to the amount of between £100 and £200. One cheque given by Mr. Denton was for £120, which was cashed at Messrs. Backhouse's bank, and another cheque received from Shields was cashed by Mr. S. Armstrong the day on which Hutton absconded, all of which money he had, it is alleged, appropriated to himself, and not accounted for.  Independent of the clubs, Mr. Hutton has also borrowed sums of money from different parties in the town.

John married Jane Susannah Evans on 27^th January 1869 at Clifton, Gloucestershire.  The couple had two daughters, Caroline Vaughan born 1869 and Catherine Elizabeth born 1874.

John died aged 55 at Barton Regis in 1889.