The Ranger

Ranger Robinson, 1997

Batte to the Future

Park Ranger Simon Robinson's Virginian connection to Oakwell Hall

It was in June of last year that I joined the Oakwell Hall staff team as a Park Ranger. During those early weeks while on a tour of the hall I learnt that the Batte family, of Oakwell Hall, had connections with the colony of Virginia.

This intrigued me as I knew from research by my late grandfather that my own ancestors had been Virginian plantation owners in the 17th and 18th centuries. My own research began.

Captain Henry Batte was born at Oakwell Hall, about the year 1636, and emigrated to Virginia along with his father in 1648. In the years that followed Henry Batte acquired title over many thousands of acres of land in Charles City County, Virginia, establishing himself as a plantation owner and one of Virginia's elite. Eighteen years later, in 1666, my six-greats grandfather Christopher Robinson, then aged 21, emigrated from Cleasby, North Yorkshire to Middlesex County, Virginia. Within ten years he was enjoying a life of wealth and privilege as a plantation owner and rising star in the ranks of the Virginian ruling class.

I found similarities in the lives of Captain Henry Batte and my forefather quite astonishing. Both Yorkshiremen, both emigrating to Virginia and both plantation owners; but could I establish any sort of connection between them? On hearing of my interest in the subject, Catherine Hall, Principal Officer at Oakwell, lent me a book on English emigration to the American colonies. There among the list of gentry families in Virginia were both the Battes and the Robinsons; this I already knew.

Oakwell Hall, Birstall, West Yorkshire

Further reading uncovered a list of the English counties of origin for 127 families in Virginia's 'high elite'. I was surprised to find that only 3 such families came from Yorkshire, including, I assume, the Battes and the Robinsons. Could they have known each other?

Some serious delving into the Batte records was required. I stayed behind after work one day and began the process of working my way through the papers in the 'Battes in Virginia' file kept at Oakwell. After much searching I found a volume of condensed research, including a section on Captain Henry Batte. Here I discovered that he "was a prominent member of the House of Burgesses 1685-86, and 1691-92 from Charles City County."

Hewick - Christopher Robinson's home, Urbanna, Virginia

On reading this I rushed to a book given to me by my grandfather, which featured a biography of Christopher Robinson. I was right to be excited as here I found that he too 'was a very useful member of Burgesses' and astonishingly represented Middlesex County for the years 1685-6, 1688 and 1691-92. These were two Yorkshire men who had been born nine years and 60 miles apart, who had emigrated thousands of miles to Virginia and set up plantations less than 40 miles apart and then faced each other across the floor of Virginia's parliament building. I feel sure that Henry Batte and Christopher Robinson, with their common roots and parallel lives, must have known each other. The research continues.

I find all this fascinating but also rather eerie, as if I were destined to be here at Oakwell Hall three centuries later. 'Why are you here and not in America?' I here you ask. Well my family continued to prosper in Virginia for another century until the War of Independence. In 1777 my four-greats grandfather, Colonel Beverley Robinson, refused to "disclaim and renounce all Allegiance to the King and Crown of Britain" and instead raised the Loyal American Regiment to fight alongside the British. He backed the loosing side. The rest is history.

Article first appeared in Kirklees Council Cultural Services Newsletter, July/August 1997

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