Walton Hall, Liverpool
[11] Thurloe, one of his hackboats captured the Admiral of Bordeaux as a prize ship during June 1745, the year prior to purchasing the Walton Hall.
Their daughter Catherine (1735–1819) grew up in Walton Hall and married her first cousin Dr Henry Richmond of Liverpool.
Their son Legh Richmond was a clergyman, the founder of one of the first Friendly societies in England, and a supporter of Wilberforce in his attempts to stop the Atlantic Slave Trade.
His connection with Fazarkeley and the profits from both privateering and slavery had quickly elevated his position in society, allowing not only to purchase Walton Hall, but to be elected to public roles in Liverpool.
[23] He married Anna Jacson of Cheshire, followed by Joanna Bird, and from 1768 was the second Atherton to own Walton Hall, having been willed the property and other homes in the Preston area.
It is unclear whether John the younger was ever directly involved in slave trading, however he benefited from the profits of the Jamaican sugar plantations.
Whilst his son, John Joseph (1756–1809) studying at Trinity College, Cambridge, he became High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1780.
[23][24] John the younger remarried and subsequently died whilst in Gloucester, likely en route to, or from, business interests in Bristol.
His daughter Frances Margaretta (1778–1850) went on to marry a plantation owner and moved to Plymouth, North Carolina after his death.
As Major in the 3rd regiment of Light Dragoons, he further elevated his social standing, by marrying into the Mitford’s, an ancient noble family.
John Joseph served in the court of King George III, and for many years was the Personal aide-de-camp (A.D.C) to the monarch.
He had a distinguished military career and had been taken as a prisoner of war during the French Directory, and subsequently released on parole in Valenciennes during 1796.
[27][28] In 1803, a relative, William Atherton of Green Park, Trelawny parish died childless and left a third of his estate to Colonel John Joseph.
He became a member of the Herefordshire Agricultural Society[30] and sold Walton Hall at auction in 1804 to Liverpool businessman, Thomas Leyland.
However the English actress and opera singer, Lucia Elizabeth Vestris refers to having visited Colonel Atherton at Walton Hall in 1819.
Leyland was a Liverpool banker, businessman and lottery winner, who invested some of his winnings into the Atlantic slave trade.
This estimate excludes the number of enslaved who did not survive the ocean voyage in chains, often due to overcrowding, susceptibility to disease, or by being a victim of a merciless crew, who had a free rein, and often executed the enslaved or threw their victims overboard whilst alive during times when water or food was in very short supply.
[8] Both nephews died childless and ownership of Walton Hall passed to their younger sister, Dorothy and her husband John Wrench Naylor (1813–1889).
It ceased to have any of its former rural appeal, and the area no longer suited the landed gentry, in the same manner as Halsnead Hall in Whiston, Merseyside.
The grand entrance to this former estate had large wrought iron gates set back from Haggerston Road.
A design for a Walton Hall Park by H. Chalton Bradshaw was agreed, however works were delayed due to the onset of World War I, when the land was requisitioned to be used as a munitions depot.
